By EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON

Kentucky GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul may or may not learn what his father Ron learned. And that is: When you pop off on the always-thorny issue of race, there’s a consequence.

The horrid thing is that the consequence might not be the same for Rand as it was for dad. The senior Paul and his backers went apoplectic during presidential campaign 2008 when it was amply and correctly pointed out that Ron Paul’s official newsletter was stuffed with unabashed racial jibes and barbs.

The newsletter bashed Martin Luther King Jr. as a “pro-communist philanderer.” It declared that the 1992 L.A. rebellion petered out “when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.” And it branded black males as “the criminals who terrorize our cities — in riots and on every non-riot day.” And then it assured the reason for that is they were genetically engineered “to hate whites and to steal and loot as much money from the white enemy as possible.”

An outraged Ron Paul vehemently denied that he uttered the vile racial slurs and claimed that he did not know they were said or written by him or anyone else in his camp.

The colossal problem with his denial was that the racial bile appeared in his officially approved newsletters.

There wasn’t evidence then or later that he wrote a correction, clarification, or publicly disavowed or fired anyone who had written that content in the newsletter — if that was even the case, as he hinted.

Ron Paul had to denounce the racially loaded quips in 2008 because for a brief moment he was deliriously embraced by thousands as the populist alternative to the supposedly hopelessly corrupt, bought-and-paid-for, corporate-interest Democrat and Republican presidential candidates.

Paul’s fanatic backers’ mix of blind adulation and desperation meant more media and public scrutiny than he had ever gotten. That, in turn, meant that his past, or alleged past words, were now wide open for public dissection and accountability.

The senior Paul knew that he had to indignantly deny he wrote or uttered anything that could be construed as fanning racial bigotry. The issue quickly faded mostly because Paul’s presidential candidacy quickly faded.

Things may be different with Rand Paul. There’s his widely quoted smoking-gun interview with The Courier-Journal in which he blew off the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a slap against private businesses’ right to racially discriminate.

He had a second and third chance to eat his words in two separate interviews after his primary win. He blew both. He did the obligatory disavowal of racism, but did not back away from his belief that the Civil Rights Act went way too far in telling private businesses they couldn’t racially discriminate.

Junior Paul, unlike dad, is suddenly a national figure and counted on by legions of revved-up Tea Party activists to carry the party flag into battle against President Obama. Rand hasn’t disappointed.

He made it clear that he’ll pound Obama and his agenda at every turn. Even if Rand, as his dad, didn’t trash the Civil Rights Act, his odd mish-mash of ultraconservatism and libertarian pronouncements would mark him as racially suspect. A cornerstone of the jumble is his view of government and what it should or should not do about civil rights. Rand, as Ron, holds that government should have minimal or, better still, no role in civil rights laws and enforcement.

The government passed and enforced civil rights laws, did nothing to solve the country’s racial ills, and worse, fueled even more racial polarization, he says. That old, worn and thoroughly discredited view warms the hearts of the packs of closet bigots who pine for the old days when racial and gender discrimination were American norms and government did little to protect black and gay rights.

Rand pretty much said the same thing in The Courier-Journal interview.

Any other time and place in recent American politics would instantly make him unfit to hold any state or national office. And those who defend his view would be branded as bigots and crackpots.

But this is not any other time or place. Rand, unlike Ron, has the most inviting and vulnerable target in Obama to level his fire. He has the cheers and backing of untold numbers who share his belief that the president is leading the country to social and financial ruin. They will do everything they can to drive him from the White House.

If Rand and company have to reach back nearly half a century and dredge up a monumental piece of legislation that totally remade the racial map in America to fire up the faithful, then so be it.

After all, why let a little thing like racial bigotry trip a Paul up? Ron tipped around it. Rand will do the same. The frightening thing is that he may get away with it.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a political analyst and author of “How Obama Governed,” among other works. His nationally heard talk show is on KTYM-AM 1460 AM Los Angeles, Fridays, 9:30 a.m., and KPFK Pacifica Radio 90.7 Los Angeles, Saturdays, noon, Pacific Standard Time.