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Rand Pauls presidential campaign is rooted in railing against the establishment. Now, as the Kentucky Republican embarks on a White House bid, he hopes to build a coalition of Silicon Valley libertarians and online grass-roots contributors, and to woo nontraditional GOP donors to raise the tens of millions of dollars needed to run a competitive primary race.

Mostly starved of Wall Street money, Paul is turning to Silicon Valley and to major donors and bundlers in target-rich cities like Dallas and Chicago, promising them a voice in creating policy through councils he hopes to establish across the country. And hes looking to take a page from the campaigns of his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, by aggressive online fundraising.

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The strategy looks more akin to what might be expected if Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren were to run for president. Like Warren, the Kentucky Republican has regularly railed against corporate welfare and has said Republicans cant be the party of fat cats, rich people, and Wall Street, a posture that has almost universally alienated him from a traditional source of campaign cash.

Paul, who will launch a five-day, five-state presidential bid Tuesday in Kentucky, has been gaming out his dollar dance for more than a year regularly reaching out to Californias tech community to create alliances with deep-pocketed industry executives and billionaire entrepreneurs concerned about policy issues like privacy.

Part of the message hes sending out to the tech community [is] that, I want to be close to you, said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association. And part of it is that he sees a naturally ally there in terms of fundraising and messaging, and I think it will be well-received.

Indeed, Pauls first official fundraiser as a presidential candidate is Friday at the home of Ron Sechrist, founder of oxygen and respiratory equipment manufacturing company Sechrist Industries, and his wife Helena, in Newport Beach, California. Helena Sechrist contributed $2,400 to another expected GOP presidential candidate, Carly Fiorina, when she ran for U.S. Senate in 2010.

While Paul has regularly traveled to California, tech industry lobbyists say he made his case to the industry during a recent trip to Austin, Texas, for the annual South by Southwest summit. He took the stage for a high-profile fireside chat to talk tech policy and broadcast his travels on the newly popular live-streaming app Meerkat and he even raised some money at a fundraiser co-hosted by CEA, according to the group.

I think that speaks volumes to the fact he recognizes this is an important voting bloc, and this is an important sector to court, said Internet Association President Michael Beckerman. Asked how he compares to the other GOP hopefuls, given his early outreach: Early relationships go a long way. Its yet to be seen who else is going to run and how other relationships develop over the next year and a half or so, but being first goes a long way.

But Pauls potential disconnect with Silicon Valley also surfaced: He spoke, for example, against the Obama administrations position on net neutrality, a salient and emotional issue among the younger, Web-savvy crowd.

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Rand Paul sees gold in Silicon Valley

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, tweeted out a YouTube video Sunday night that bolsters expectations he will announce his presidential campaign Tuesday.

The slickly produced video runs just under three minutes long and highlights his political rise over the last two years. It cuts together excerpts from his speech at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference along with television clips in which reporters, pundits and even comedian Jon Stewart offer flattering analysis of his rise.

The video highlights, among other things, Paul's 13-hour filibuster of President Obama's nominee to lead the CIA in 2013 and his outreach to minority communities. A graphic declares him "a different kind of Republican."

A full-screen graphic at the end of the video reads "On April 7, one leader will stand up to defeat the Washington machine and unleash the American dream." An audio track in the background features a crowd chanting "President Paul" underneath. Viewers are invited to "Join the movement."

Paul is scheduled to hold a rally in Louisville, Kentucky, Tuesday where he is expected to announce his presidential bid. He would be the second Republican to formally declare they are running for president, following on an announcement from Texas Sen. Ted Cruz last month.

After the Louisville speech, Paul will travel to New Hampshire, South Carolina, Iowa and Nevada for rallies.

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Rand Paul video previews presidential announcement

Last week, Michael Nystrom wrote a post at DailyPaul.com, a site he founded, that indicates its end is near. The site was for years a focal point of conversation and energy orbiting the stated and implied political philosophy of Ron Paul. Its animated logo unveils the site's mantra: P (eace) - AU (gold) - L (love).

No longer. "We'll watch the opening of the Rand Paul campaign. That should be interesting," Nystrom wrote in the post, nestled between a report on artificial chemicals from Infowars and critique of the State Department. "But then I'll have to go, because my alliance is not with any politician or any political party, but with Liberty herself."

Earlier this year, he offered more of a rationale. "The Ron Paul era is over. We're moving into the Rand Paul era. So out of respect to both men, but mainly to Ron, a chapter should officially be closed."

Since it became obvious that he would run for president -- something that is expected to become official on Tuesday -- two questions have surrounded Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) First, could he retain the energy of Ron Paul's vocal and generous base of support in his 2008 and 2012 campaigns? (Update: The Times reports that Ron Paul will attend the announcement.) And, second, could he distance himself from his father's more ... exotic beliefs? We've addressed the latter before; so far, he's emerged unscathed, even as Ron Paul keeps doing his own thing.

But what about the former? There's not much mention of Rand in the comments to Nystrom's farewell address. Over at Ron Paul Forums, though, the Paul family chapter seems to be continuing, rather than closing. "That was a great promo!," commented Bastiat's The Law on a post containing Rand's announcement video. "Reminds me of some of the passionate Ron Paul youtube videos."

There hasn't been polling showing how Ron Paul supporters from 2008 and 2012 are leaning in 2016. But we can compare Washington Post polling on the favorability of each as an indicator. We focused on age, because of the frequent assumption that Rand hopes to mobilize the young voters that powered his father's campaigns.

In March 2012, late into the campaign cycle, Ron Paul was seen less favorably than Rand is now, even though both were about equally well-known.

What's more, Ron hadweaker support and faced stronger opposition than Rand is seeing.

That suggests that Rand Paul's balancing act, which the Post reported on earlier Monday, might be working. Nick Gillespie of Reason magazine called Rand Paul "libertarian-ish," which probably isn't a huge negative for someone running in what will likely be a series of conservative Republican primaries.

The poll numbers above mightalso serve as a reminder that Rand Paul hasn't yet seen the sort of criticism that tends to wither a politician's base of support. That's where Ron Paul's base shined. It's been eight years since he first ran for the GOP nomination for president, and they've kept up active discussion groups dedicated to his principles. As the header at DailyPaul makes clear, Ron's fervent focus on less-trodden, outsider issueslike gold earned him that loyalty.

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The Fix: Will Rand Paul inherit the energy of Ron Pauls campaigns?

"Stand With Rand." That's Sen. Rand Paul's main slogan as he launches his campaign for the White House. He's holding a "Stand With Rand" rally in his home state of Kentucky on Tuesday and is holding another "Stand With Rand" rally in New Hampshire, the traditional first primary state, on Wednesday. It's an unfortunate choice of words, because it underscores the chief problem with his candidacy. For the life of me, I can't figure out what he really believes where he really stands, especially when it comes to foreign policy.

At a January forum with fellow Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, Paul challenged his colleagues' hawkish showboating on Iran: "Are you ready to send ground troops into Iran? Are you ready to bomb them? Are you ready to send in 100,000 troops? I'm a big fan of trying the diplomatic option as long as we can. If it fails, I will vote to resume sanctions and I would vote to have new sanctions. But if you do it in the middle of negotiations, you're ruining it.'"

Two months later, he was "ruining it" by putting his signature on an open letter to the Iranian leadership. Authored by arch-neoconservative Sen. Tom Cotton, the letter basically told Tehran that a Republican in the White House would nullify any deal negotiated by the Obama administration.

His explanation for this complete reversal was baffling. He told Glenn Beck that it is "kind of crazy" for anyone to question his decision to sign: "Do I have any regrets about informing another country of how our Constitution works?"

He told a different story at the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas. Claiming to support the diplomatic talks, he said: "I want the president to negotiate from a position of strength, which means that he needs to be telling them in Iran, 'I've got Congress to deal with.'"

How is it helpful to tell the Iranians that any agreement they sign may expire in two years? Cotton is nothing if not forthright: He has said he wants to "blow up" the negotiations, and certainly his letter aimed at doing just that. For Paul to join in this sabotage attempt was intellectually indefensible and entirely in character.

As a U.S.-backed movement seized power in Kiev, Paul called for "respectful relations" with the Kremlin: "Some on our side are so stuck in the Cold War era that they want to tweak Russia all the time, and I don't think that is a good idea."

A few months later he was demanding that President Vladimir Putin be "punished," invoking "our role as a global leader to be the strongest nation in opposing Russia's latest aggression." Putin, said Paul, was guilty of "violating the Budapest Memorandum, and Russia must learn that the U.S. will isolate it if it insists on acting like a rogue nation." Here's the thing: The Budapest Memorandum was never ratified by Congress. It was signed by President Clinton, who didn't bother to consult the Senate. It's kind of crazy, as Paul would say, that it's necessary to inform the senator how our Constitution works.

Paul's record of contradictions is extensive. In 2011, freshly elected to the Senate, Paul proposed an alternative budget that zeroed out all foreign aid including to Israel. The budget included a section explicitly eliminating aid to Israel on the grounds that it undermined "Israel's ability to conduct foreign policy, regain economic dominance, and support itself without the heavy hand of U.S. interests and policies."

After the neoconservative wing of his party lashed out at him for being "anti-Israel," Paul started singing a different tune. His revised budget froze foreign aid at present levels. Yet even that modest attempt at fiscal discipline was thrown overboard when he voted to increase aid to Israel and boasted about it in a statement issued by his office.

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'Stand with Rand' Paul? But where, exactly?

When the presidential buzz began building around Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) a couple of years ago, the expectation was that his libertarian ideas could make him the most unusual and intriguing voice among the major contenders in the 2016 field.

But now, as he prepares to make his formal announcement Tuesday, Paul is a candidate who has turned fuzzy, having trimmed his positions and rhetoric so much that its unclear what kind of Republican he will present himself as when he takes the stage.

Hes going to get his moment in the sun, said David Adams, who served as campaign chairman for Pauls insurgent 2010 Senate campaign. What he does with it from there will have bearing on the Republican Party.

There are at least two areas where Paul has moved more in line with the conservative Republican base, somewhat to the consternation of the purists in the libertarian movement: adopting a more muscular posture on defense and foreign policy, and courting the religious right.

Where he once pledged to sharply cut the Pentagons budget, for instance, Paul late last month proposed a $190billion increase over the next two years albeit one that would be paid for by cutting foreign aid and other government programs. His tour following the announcement of his candidacy will include an event at Patriots Point in South Carolinas Charleston Harbor, with the World War II-era aircraft carrier USS Yorktown as a backdrop.

[What Rand Pauls defense spending proposal tells us about his 2016 strategy]

The haziness over Pauls positions increased last week with his conspicuous silence on controversies in the realms of both national security and the cultural fronts.

Nearly all of his potential rivals for the 2016 GOP nomination have been vocal in their support for Indianas new religious liberties law, which critics say would allow discrimination against gays. And the Republican response to President Obamas nuclear negotiations with Iran has been widespread skepticism.

In both instances, Pauls office said he was vacationing with his family and would not comment.

What Paul says Tuesday and in several stops in the following days will be closely watched by a handful of disparate constituencies into which he has tried to make inroads over the past year, including Silicon Valley executives drawn to his libertarian ways and more traditional Republican business leaders who are wary of them. Attracted to his promise of expanding the GOP electorate, they have met with Paul, but many remain unsure of his electability, as well as his views.

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Rand Paul seems to stray from libertarian roots as he ...