Travel delays, single-digit polling and repetitive, annoying questions add up.
So it's no wonder Sen. Rand Paul was a little impatient on Tuesday when answering the third most-asked question about him on Google: "Is Rand Paul still running for president?"
"I wouldn’t be doing this dumb ass live-stream if I wasn't, so get over it," an annoyed Paul deadpanned in response.
What was unusual about the moment is that it was streaming live to anyone watching Paul's three-day swing through Iowa on Periscope, the app that allows anybody, anywhere to broadcast their activities live. Paul's campaign trumpeted their plans to stream his campaign stop on Periscope as historic; he's the first presidential candidate to do so. But his somewhat prickly response to a mundane, if grating, question has now gone viral.
Campaign spokesman Sergio Gor said Paul was just being "playful.”
"Of course Senator Rand Paul is running. Context is important, and Senator Paul was reading mean tweets when the question came up, most media outlets realize he was being playful," he said in an email.
Indeed, Paul seemed to forget the ongoing livestream at one point, answering the next Google question -- "Where is Rand Paul in the polls?" -- with, "this isn't live -- we can edit this, right?"
The Paul campaign acknowledged the moment with a tongue-in-cheek t-short for sale in his campaign store. On Thursday, visitors to his website could, for $20, purchase a crewneck reading "I watched Rand Paul's livestream and all I got was this dumbass teeshirt."
Rand Paul is seventh in the Republican primary field with four percent of support in a CBS News poll of Republican primary voters released on Sunday.
Paul’s live stream—which included jamming, or zen listening, to The White Stripes and assessing that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton “see the same hair stylist"--began after what was already a rocky start to his Iowa trip. Flight delays caused his team to land five hours late into the state.
The live stream signal also froze over the course of the journey.
Paul finishes his tour of Iowa on Wednesday afternoon.
Add to that a smattering of recent reports suggesting his Senate seat, which he's refused to resign to run for president, may be in jeopardy because of his sluggish presidential campaign, and it could be a recipe for a bad mood on a Tuesday morning.
Most people have them. Most candidates do too. But Paul was unlucky enough to broadcast his live.
