Story highlights Paul unveils his impression of the GOP presidential opponent 
 
 The comments follow a digital ad released earlier in the day by Paul's campaign 
 
 Nashua, New Hampshire (CNN) It's come to this. How much time has Rand Paul spent practicing his Donald Trump impression? 
 
 At a Wednesday night town hall campaign stop, Paul unveiled his impression of the GOP presidential opponent while slamming him for buying access to politicians and taking Democratic positions on issues such as Obamacare and bank bailouts. 
 
 "We have now people up there who say such profound things as, 'You're stupid, you're fired, you're a pig, you look terrible, you only have half a brain,' and then when you respond with an argument it's like "You're stupid,'" Paul said. 
 
 "My favorite is, 'You know the reason I tell women they're ugly is I'm so good-looking, everybody knows I'm good-looking, right?'" Paul continued, with laughter from the crowd. "Another one is, "You know I must be smart, I'm rich." 
 
 JUST WATCHED Trump on leading polls, Paul's attacks, Clinton's emails Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump on leading polls, Paul's attacks, Clinton's emails 08:11 
 
 The comments follow a digital ad released earlier in the day by Paul's campaign that contrasts Trump's past statements supporting Hillary Clinton and Democrats with Paul, who has positioned himself as a libertarian reformer, scaling back large government in Washington and championing tea party values. 
 
 Read More ||||| Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul looks at Donald Trump's past comments on Democrats in his latest ad, which he posted on YouTube. (Rand Paul) 
 
 UPDATE: At 6:50 p.m., Donald Trump sent The Washington Post a lengthy response to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's ad. Here it is, in full. 
 
 Rand Paul is doing so poorly in the polls he has to revert to old footage of me discussing positions I no longer hold. As a world-class businessman, who built one of the great companies with some of the most iconic real estate assets in the world, it was my obligation to my family, my company, my employees and myself to maintain a strong relationship with all politicians whether Republican or Democrat. I did that and I did that well. Unless you are a piece of unyielding granite, over the years positions evolve as they have in my case. Ronald Reagan, as an example, was a Democrat with a liberal bent who became a conservative Republican. Recently, Rand Paul called me and asked me to play golf. I easily beat him on the golf course and will even more easily beat him now, in the world in the politics. Senator Paul does not mention that after trouncing him in golf I made a significant donation to the eye center with which he is affiliated. I feel sorry for the great people of Kentucky who are being used as a back up to Senator Paul’s hopeless attempt to become President of the United States--- weak on the military, Israel, the Vets and many other issues. Senator Paul has no chance of wining the nomination and the people of Kentucky should not allow him the privilege of remaining their Senator. Rand should save his lobbyist’s and special interest money and just go quietly home. Rand’s campaign is a total mess, and as a matter of fact, I didn’t know he had anybody left in his campaign to make commercials who are not currently under indictment! 
 
 At 7:32 p.m., Paul campaign strategist Doug Stafford sent this response. 
 
 Wow, that took a while to read. First, Ronald Reagan spent 20 years as a conservative before running for President, not twenty minutes. He changed out of conviction. He campaigned for Goldwater in 1964 giving one of the great conservative speeches of all time, setting the intellectual agenda for a generation of conservatives. Donald Trump couldn't set the intellectual conservative agenda of anything, not even the tiniest rooms, never mind a country. He is devoid of ideas other than he likes the idea of power and getting attention for foolish statements and bluster. Rand Paul is the one following in the footsteps of Reagan, setting the intellectual agenda for a conservative movement of change. Rand stands for principle. He has detailed plans to end our debt by balancing the budget in 5 years. He has a detailed flat and fair tax that would be a huge tax cut for Americans while ending the corporate welfare gravy train for people like Donald Trump. He has real plans to defeat the Washington machine like term limits and forcing Congress to read the bills. While he appreciates Donald's golf skills, I will note that [the game] was on his home course that he plays often. And he does sincerely appreciate Donald's generosity to the eye clinic. In fact he has mentioned it often, including in his op-ed and speeches this weekend. The fact is, Rand is running to fight the big business, big government establishment. Donald Trump already represents one end of that problem. Now he wants to represent the other. It won't work. 
 
 Trump's initial response came several hours after Rand Paul's presidential campaign released an aggressive attack video Wednesday questioning Trump's conservative bona fides. 
 
 “I probably identify more as a Democrat,” Trump is shown saying in the video. "I've been around for a long time, and it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans.” The words imposed on the screen as Trump speaks: "I ... IDENTIFY MORE AS A DEMOCRAT." (The all-caps are all theirs.) 
 
 The Paul campaign said the ad would run in New Hampshire and Iowa through the weekend. "In sharp contrast, Senator Rand Paul has been a true conservative who has always stood up to the Washington machine," a campaign spokesman said in a statement to the press about the new spot. 
 
 Paul and Trump engaged in a tense back and forth during the first Republican primary debate last Thursday, in which Paul called into question Trump’s party loyalty after the real estate tycoon said he would not pledge not to run as an independent if he loses the GOP nomination. Trump fired back at Paul, insinuating that Paul was being bought by donors. 
 
 The next Republican presidential debate is Sept. 16 in Simi Valley, Calif. ||||| Rand Paul has finished his speech to CPAC and is avoiding the crowds for a couple of minutes. Outside of a small media suite, where he's taking questions, there are foreign TV cameras, college kids wearing stickers from Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty, and men holding folders of glossy photos that they want signed. They are kept at bay by security officers who, they will learn, are guarding Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. 
 
 Paul tells reporters what he thinks about House Republicans proposing deeper budget cuts than they were proposing a week ago. 
 
 "Good!" he says. "Maybe I'm having some impact up here!" 
 
 CNN asks Paul what he thought when Donald Trump, who had made a surprise appearance at the conference, said his father Ron Paul couldn't win the presidency. 
 
 "I think his chances are less than my father's," he says. 
 
 He slips out of the room, heads to a car, and answers a question about his proposal to cut basically all foreign aid. Does the turmoil in Egypt suggest that foreign aid doesn't work? 
 
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 "I read an article in the Wall Street Journal," says Paul, "which I thought was pretty good, about how we turn on a dime from being best friends with people to saying they're autocrats who're not allowing freedom of speech. That may well be true, but it seemed like a little bit of a contradiction. We're all for Mubarak, and a day later we're not." 
 
 He is close to the car now, finishing the thought, and he's interrupted. 
 
 "Senator Paul, can you sign my baseball?" 
 
 "I can't right now," says Paul. 
 
 "But I've been waiting here!" 
 
 "He doesn't play baseball," says Paul's press secretary. "Why would he sign a baseball?" 
 
 "It's what I collect," says the fan. He says his name is Adam. Paul signs his baseball. 
 
 Four years ago, Rand Paul was helping out his father on a presidential campaign that was not taken very seriously. This was fair, in horse-race terms. Ron Paul seemed like the sort of candidate who runs, makes a statement, introduces an issue, and fades away. The issues were abolishing the Federal Reserve, ending both wars in Central Asia, abolishing the entitlement state, and ending the war on drugs. No Republican candidate adopted any of these issues. Paul's supporters, younger and rowdier and more akin to quoting Murray Rothbard than other Republicans, were grudgingly accepted. 
 
 Fast forward to CPAC 2011. The economic portions of Ron Paul's agenda are no longer controversial. Rand Paul is a U.S. senator who can command media attention and confused sports fans. 
 
 "It's not just that Rand is a senator," says William Thompson, a Georgia activist attending with Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty—the group he set up after shutting down his 2008 presidential bid. "He's one of the senators everyone knows. If you ask somebody who doesn't follow politics to name a politician, they might name him." 
 
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 Like Slate Politics on Facebook. Follow Slate on Twitter. ||||| Jim Geraghty August 6, 2015 11:17 PM by 
 
 Donald Trump brought the circus to town. Credit where it’s due; when confronted with past name-calling, he killed with that “Only Rosie O’Donnell” line. He makes everyone else look boring; he also makes everyone else look responsible, polite and grown-up. There was a bit of cattiness in his first exchange with Megyn Kelly, and his refusal to declare that he would support the eventual GOP nominee was revealing. 
 
 Trump alters the way the rest of the field is viewed. 
 
 Remember when the fear was that Ben Carson was too undisciplined and inexperienced to be the GOP standard-bearer? He comes across as a statesman next to Trump — and had a good night, with a particularly good answer on race and some good funny lines at the end. (“I’ve removed a half a brain; I could understand if you walk around Washington and feel like somebody beat me to it.”) 
 
 Remember when Ted Cruz was the bomb-thrower on the right? Now he’s the guy talking about his legislative work to punish sanctuary cities. He seemed to get lost in the shuffle at times tonight — but again, compared to the bombastic Trump, he comes across as serious and knowledgeable. 
 
 Remember when Chris Christie was going to be the loud, boisterous voice in this field? He showed flashes of that, and really went after Rand Paul on the Patriot Act and domestic surveillance. (“When you’re sitting in a subcommittee, you can blow hot air like that.”) The thing is, if this is a preeminent issue for you, you were probably already inclined to support either Paul’s or Christie’s position on it. 
 
 Marco Rubio was really, really good tonight. Shining. I thought it was interesting that he pointed out the majority of illegal immigrants no longer come from Mexico; they come from Central America, and he took some air out of the “build a fence” applause line by pointing out that “El Chapo can just dig a tunnel under the fence.” He finessed what could have been a difficult question on abortions in cases of rape or incest. Heading into tonight, I thought he might offer the single most appealing contrast with Hillary Clinton, and tonight did nothing to change my mind. 
 
 Rand Paul clearly felt the need to go after Trump, and that pugnaciousness carried over to a fiery exchange with Christie, complete with barely-hidden eye-rolling. (“I know you want to give him a hug!”) He lived up to his self-description as “a different kind of Republican,” and probably came through unscathed. 
 
 Scott Walker won with “I defunded Planned Parenthood long before any of these videos came out.” In his closing statement, he described himself as “aggressively normal.” He really does seem unflappable, no matter the question or the arena. To some people, that might come across as boring. But if our tastes have changed to the point where we dismiss Walker because he’s not flashy enough, we’re throwing out a good talent. 
 
 You know who was pretty boring? Jeb Bush. He was better than in Monday’s candidate forum, but he still has a Fred Thompson-esque sense of moseying, as opposed to running, for president. And if you walked into this with a nagging sense that he’s a squish, and that he’d try to sound more conservative than he is, I don’t think anything he said tonight dispelled your fears. 
 
 I was going to say Huckabee looked and sounded tired, but he perked up a bit when discussing the Planned Parenthood scandal and fetuses “sold off for parts like Buicks.” He had a good joke at the end, but he does seem like he’s past his prime moment on the national stage. 
 
 John Kasich enjoyed a pretty significant home-crowd advantage, and avoided any mistakes. He’s got a different style, and I don’t think he needed to remind us about his dad being a mailman twice. If you’re wary about his citing God in defending his decision to expand Medicaid, I don’t know if his answer on that topic assured you of his fiscal conservative instincts.
– In the ongoing tennis match/trainwreck between Donald Trump and Rand Paul that started with last week's GOP debate and continued this week, the two presidential candidates aren't showing any signs of slowing down the political attacks, insults, and even comic impressions. First Rand Paul released a digital ad yesterday calling out Trump for past statements supporting Democrats in general and Hillary Clinton in particular, CNN reports. That was followed by Paul's appearance last night at a town hall event in Nashua, NH, in which he "unveiled his impression" of Trump, per CNN. "We have now people up there who say such profound things as 'You're stupid, you're fired, you're a pig, you look terrible, you only have half a brain,' and then when you respond with an argument it's like "You're stupid,'" Paul said to a chuckling audience. "Another one is, 'You know I must be smart, I'm rich,'" he continued. Trump sent a long response to Rand's ad to the Washington Post yesterday, noting that he recently beat his competitor at golf, donated to the eye center Paul founded, and has kept his relationships strong on both sides of the partisan fence. "Rand Paul is doing so poorly in the polls he has to revert to old footage of me discussing positions I no longer hold," he wrote. "Rand should save his [lobbyists'] and special interest money and just go quietly home. [His] campaign is a total mess." The response of a Paul campaign strategist to the Post: "Wow, that took a while to read. … [Trump] is devoid of ideas other than he likes the idea of power and getting attention for foolish statements and bluster." And a final dig: "While [Paul] appreciates Donald's golf skills, I will note that [the game] was on [Trump's] home course that he plays often." (Read both in full at the Washington Post if you like the drama.)