Paul ‘working’ on White House endorsement

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday he has not even convinced his wife whether he should run for president in 2016.

Paul said he is a long way from making a decision and defended himself against the assertion that he could never be elected because he cannot separate himself from extreme positions held by his father. 

The New York Times reported that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) made the comments to a group of Republican donors over the summer. 

{mosads}“I haven’t even convinced my wife yet whether I should do this,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.” “So we’re a ways away from making a decision…Ted and I are friends. And he’s a limited government conservative. We don’t always agree on everything, but we agree on a lot of things. So I won’t be coming on television to try to disparage him, whether we’re ever rivals or not.”

Paul jokingly said he is working on a White House endorsement for a 2016 run after press secretary Jay Carney said it would be awesome if Paul ran last week. 

“I guess that wasn’t quite an endorsement from the White House, but we’re still working on them,” he said. 

Paul, who has been dogged by allegations that he plagiarized some of his speeches, said he has been insulted to the point of nearly calling for a duel. He holds that the errors resulted from improper footnoting. 

“I have never intentionally done so,” he said. “And like I say, if, you know, if dueling were legal in Kentucky, if they keep it up, you know, it would be a duel challenge. But I can’t do that, because I can’t hold office in Kentucky then.”

Paul noted that anything that would have been written for an academic paper would have been properly cited. Referring back to his 13-hour filibuster earlier this year, Paul noted that many times he speaks extemporaneously, which would make it impossible to cite. 

“So when I wrote scientific papers, I sometimes had statements with eight footnotes for one sentence,” he said. “Is that what you want me to do for my speeches? If it’s required, I’ll do it.”