Copycats

There was a time, about 1980, when the GOP was flatteringly considered the party of new ideas (bad ideas, I thought, but whatever).

Now they have literally no new ideas. GOP Senate candidate Greg Brannon has been caught copying his policy positions from Rand Paul, literally word for word. It's like the invasion of the pod people, or the Stepford candidates, or a marauding party of opportunistic zombies, or something:

For more than a week Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has been fending off criticism for using the writings of others, unattributed, in his own speeches, in an opinion article and in one of his books.

But now it appears that Mr. Paul has also been the possible victim of literary larceny himself; he has apparently had his own material lifted without credit.

The campaign website of a Republican candidate for the United States Senate in North Carolina, Greg Brannon, who Mr. Paul supports, includes descriptions of various policy positions that match those of Mr. Paul’s 2010 campaign website word for word.