Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

The rule of law is a really big deal in the Rand Paul household. “We can’t be for the rule of law at our own convenience,” he has written. Paul has likewise assailed Obama’s immigration reforms as an act of near autocracy:

The president says that ‘if Congress won’t act, I must.’ That sounds like what you hear from a Third World autocrat. That doesn’t sound like someone who believes in a Republic and rule of law,” Paul told a small student audience. ‘If Congress won’t act, I will?’ Congress is too messy for him. Democracy is too messy for him so he’s just going to do whatever the hell he wants.

Meanwhile, Rand Paul has an inconvenient law of his own to deal with. Kentucky law prevents him from running for president and senator in the same election. This is a problem because Paul wants to run for president in the same cycle he needs to keep his Senate seat. Paul had hoped Republicans would take control of Kentucky’s legislature and change the law, but that didn’t happen.

Politico has talked to his team and their response is, law, schmaw:

One issue for Paul is that legally he cannot be on the ballot for president and Senate at the same time, but his team has satisfied itself that there are ways around this.

The state legislature is too messy for him.