Rand Paul's Republican revolution

DALLAS Its 7 a.m. on a Saturday, Rand Paul is exhausted and airport security has just confiscated his morning joe.

The TSA took away my coffee, the libertarian-leaning senator, Houston-bound for a day of events with GOP activists, complains of the federal agency hes proposed abolishing. I offered to drink it to show it wasnt a bomb.

The Kentucky Republican has many more sleep-deprived moments in store as he prepares for a near-certain 2016 presidential bid. On an early February political swing through his native Texas, where Paul was joined by a POLITICO reporter, the contradictions and challenges that would define such a run were on vivid display as was Pauls belief that his blend of libertarian-infused conservatism could forge an entirely new path to the White House.

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In an extensive in-flight interview, the first-term senator outlined his vision for a more inclusive GOP only to meet a frosty response hours later when he spoke favorably about immigration to a roomful of people enamored of the tea partys luminary of the moment, Sen. Ted Cruz.

Paul didnt talk much during the trip about his roots as the son of an ex-congressman and libertarian folk hero. But Texans at every turn brought up his father, the highly polarizing former Rep. Ron Paul, from whom Rand Paul knows he must stake out a separate identity to have any shot at the GOP nomination.

And as Paul argued that the GOP needs a 2016 standard-bearer with broader appeal than its recent nominees, Mitt Romney and John McCain, he did not evince Barack Obamas ability to move a crowd, George W. Bushs everyman relatability or Bill Clintons love of the game.

At the same time, Paul made clear his ambition to remake the Republican Party by drawing support from constituencies that have voted reliably Democratic. Just as Ronald Reagan drew working-class Democrats into the GOP fold and Bill Clinton pulled his party to the political center, Paul has a vision of that magnitude in mind for his party.

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The countrys a mess, and I think there needs to be a program that Republicans put forward, and also there needs to be a messenger who can actually win, Paul said, in perhaps his most overt remarks to date about what a presidential bid would look like. And Im concerned that if we put forward the same sort of candidate again, that we wont be successful.

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Rand Paul's Republican revolution