In Early White House Maneuvering, Paul Avoids Predictability

Rand Paul wasn't a conventional Republican when he won a U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky, and he's not mapping out a predictable strategy as he ponders a 2016 bid for the White House.

Paul confirmed Friday that he will announce his intentions in April or May, and then he spent the day displaying an ideological and political balancing act.

"We have to be a bigger party," he told Alabama Republicans at a fundraising gala Friday evening. "I want to take that message across America. I've shown I'll go anywhere."

He takes with him the small-government libertarianism of his father, former congressman and failed presidential candidate Ron Paul. But the senator also mixes in frequent references to his "Christian faith" as he courts cultural conservatives who were wary of his father.

There's the usual blistering of President Barack Obama and his executive orders, but Paul reminds his partisan audiences that the expansion of presidential authority has spanned decades, through administrations of both major parties.

Paul calls for the conservative "boldness" of Ronald Reagan and offers GOP orthodoxy on tax and spending cuts, making him a tea party darling.

He talks tough on national defense, but also staged an actual Senate filibuster talking for hours on the chamber floor, rather than just using procedural paper delays to protest the American government's use of drones.

Meanwhile, he chides Republicans to reach into the cities for non-white votes that have eluded the GOP by particularly wide margins in Obama's two national victories. And Paul champions criminal-justice reform and plugs his work with New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a black Democrat, on the issue.

It adds up to a politician who is difficult to put into a box.

"Maybe a different kind of Republican might be the kind of Republican that can win," Paul told reporters Friday in Kentucky.

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In Early White House Maneuvering, Paul Avoids Predictability