Chuck Todd: ‘Mega-Rich’ Are Afraid of Rand Paul

In an appearance on NBC’s “Today” on Thursday, “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd laid out what he foresees as the make-up of the 2015 political landscape, much of which has to do with the 2016 presidential contest.

According to Todd, on the Republican side, the disconnect between the grassroots and the establishment will continue to show itself as former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) and other possible candidates like Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) and former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) vie for front-runner status headed into next year.

“The establishment, AKA, donors, they want one of those three [Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Chris Christie],” Todd said. “The grassroots: They’re not interested in any of those three. They’re very unpopular with the people who actually vote in Republican primaries, the people that vote in Iowa and New Hampshire and North Carolina. There’s a real disconnect between the mega-rich guys who are backing the Republican Party — they want a Jeb. They want a Romney again. They’ll even accept a Christie, though I think he is a sort of lower third. They’re afraid of what the grassroots might select, whether it is a Rand Paul, a Ted Cruz, whatever.”

“Right now, I think it is all over the place,” he continued. “Believe it or not, after Rand Paul — right now Rand Paul, we don’t have a front-runner, but in NASCAR terms, he’s in the pole position, he’s earned that right, he’s sort of the leader. He leads the polls in Iowa, he leads in most polls. After that, a guy like Ben Carson. He’s this former neurosurgeon from Johns Hopkins, a famous neurosurgeon, one of the most successful at the pediatric level, he has got this huge following in the conservative wing of the party, and he has already popped, big in some of these polls, and I think we’re going to have another scenario where we’re going to see Ben Carson maybe rise and fall, and then others will rise and fall, while the establishment gets its sea legs.

(h/t RCP Video)

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