By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers



What do you give a congressman for his birthday? If you're Senate candidate Rand Paul and you're choosing presents for dad, Rep. Ron Paul, whose birthday was yesterday, you go for gifts that scream politics. "I gave him an original copy of Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative that was given to me by the publisher," Rand Paul tells Whispers, adding that it was published in Kentucky, where he's running for U.S. Senate. He also gave his pop, who's a big fan of economics, some early 20th-century currency called gold certificates. "So I gave him that, framed, with a statement at the bottom that says, 'When paper was as good as gold,' " he says.



Though that's nice, what Ron gave back to his son was better; he let Rand use his birth date as a fundraiser. "His birthday present to me, I guess, was helping with the 'money bomb,' " says Rand Paul. His campaign scheduled a money bomb—a mass online donation for Ron's birthday and, within 24 hours, added $430,000 to its coffers. While the underdog candidate has now raised over $680,000, the original goal for yesterday's money bomb was $1 million. Rand tells us he's not disappointed. "I think you set high goals in order to try to motivate people to go for things," he says. "When my dad raised $6 million online [during his presidential campaign], nobody remembers that his goal was $10 million."



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