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WASHINGTON Sen. Rand Paul is set to join the 2016 presidential campaign on Tuesday. A snapshot of important things to know about the Kentucky Republican:

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THE BRIEF

A first-time candidate for office in 2010, Paul rode the tea party wave to become one of the libertarian-leaning movement's most vocal representatives in the U.S. Senate. His combative style won him few early allies and he often tangled with GOP leaders, including fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell, the Senate's top Republican. But he has started to learn the ways of Washington and adapt to them, and earned McConnell's backing to run for the White House and re-election to the Senate at the same time. The quirky 52-year-old Paul will be able to tap into supporters who backed his father, former Rep. Ron Paul, during the Texas congressman's presidential campaigns. But he hopes to reach far beyond that and will need to if his bid is to lead to the Republican nomination.

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RESUME REVIEW

Paul is an ophthalmologist, or a physician who specializes in medical and surgical needs of the eye. He has worked at clinics in southwest Kentucky, specializing in eye surgery, and helps to run a free clinic for his poor neighbors. In politics, Paul helped his father run against Texas Sen. Phil Gramm in 1984 and on his 1988 presidential campaign, and managed his father's 1996 campaign to return to the House representing a Houston-area district. In Paul's first campaign with his own name on the ballot, running for Senate in Kentucky in 2010, he toppled the establishment-favored choice in the GOP primary by an almost 2-to-1 margin and went on to win the general election by 12 percentage points.

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PERSONAL STORY

Paul grew up near Houston, the son of an obstetrician father and mother who was a secretary, and was 15 when his father won election to the U.S. House in 1978. Rand Paul attended Baylor University, where he was an honors student, but left without a degree when he was accepted into Duke University's School of Medicine. While on a surgical rotation at Georgia Baptist Hospital in Atlanta, he met his future wife, Kelley, at a picnic. The couple married in 1990 and moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, to be closer to her family. Paul joined a medical practice before opening one of his own, and Kelley Paul is a freelance writer and political consultant. The couple is raising three children in Washington.

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White House Brief: Things to know about expected '16 GOP candidate and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul

MILFORD Milford Town Hall will be one of the first stops on U.S. Sen. Rand Pauls national campaign tour this month.

On Wednesday, the day after he has said he will make a special announcement, Rand, a Kentucky Republican, is expected to be back in the first-in-the-nation state to make the case he is best suited to reclaim the White House on the Republican ticket. ... Subscribe or log in to read more

MILFORD Milford Town Hall will be one of the first stops on U.S. Sen. Rand Pauls national campaign tour this month.

On Wednesday, the day after he has said he will make a special announcement, Rand, a Kentucky Republican, is expected to be back in the first-in-the-nation state to make the case he is best suited to reclaim the White House on the Republican ticket.

It is widely speculated he will officially make his presidential bid announcement in Kentucky on Tuesday. The next day he will be in New Hampshire, in the Milford Town Hall auditorium at noon.

Last month Rand stopped in Rochester, Exeter, Hampstead and Hollis. After Milford, the multi-state Stand with Rand tour then goes on to South Carolina, Iowa and Nevada all early voting states.

New Hampshire is very encouraging its got that Live Free or Die spirit, he said during a recent interview with The Telegraph. Its got a lot of the, I would call it the Leave me alone coalition, that just wants government to mind its own business in many ways,

Paul has stated positions against what he called federal over-reach and opposes the existence of the Department of Education, the Affordable Care Act and federal regulations that make it difficult for energy developers to take advantage of new forms of cheap and clean energy, according to his website.

Paul has been considered a supporter of the Tea Party movement, supports reduced government spending and taxation and has described himself as 100 percent pro-life.

In Hollis he said the number one priority of the federal government is national defense.

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Rand Paul in Milford Thursday

By PHILIP ELLIOTT Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Change? For sure. Hope? Maybe not so much.

That's Rand Paul's approach to winning the White House when the original hope-and-change candidate, Barack Obama, vacates it in early 2017.

Ready to enter the chase for the Republican presidential nomination this week, the first-term Kentucky senator has designs on changing how members of his party go about getting elected to the White House and how they govern once they get there.

He will do so with an approach to politics that is often downbeat and usually dour, which just might work in a nation deeply frustrated with Washington.

Since his election to Congress, and in the lead-up to his entry into the presidential race, Paul has favored blunt takes on America's woes instead of the sunny earnestness that helped fuel Obama's rise to popularity in 2007 and 2008.

Consider Paul's response this year to Obama's State of the Union address, a speech filled by presidents of all parties with bullish predictions for the nation's future. Paul's message that night was downright sullen.

"I wish I had better news for you, but all is not well in America," Paul said. Much of the country, he said, "still suffers."

Paul is set to declare his candidacy during a speech in his home state of Kentucky on Tuesday. Expect Paul to outline a vision for America that doesn't fit any of the traditional Republican molds.

He would alter the scale and mandate of the federal government in more radical ways than other members of the GOP. And he bucks party ideology in standing against government surveillance, for deep cuts in military spending and in questioning the wisdom of harsh sentences for drug offenders who cost government billions to imprison.

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Rand Paul and 2016: A message of change, delivered deadpan - Quincy Herald-Whig | Illinois & Missouri News, Sports

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., came under fire this week from presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for a vote against a National Security Agency reform bill last year.

CNN reported Thursday that Cruz said Paul stalled NSA reform efforts by voting against the bill. He described Paul, a Bowling Green resident, as a good friend but said his vote against the bill was unfortunate.

Ill tell you, (Sen.) Mike Lee and I were both deeply dismayed that it was our single best chance to end the bulk collection of metadata, Cruz said, according to CNN.

In November, Paul talked to the Daily News about his vote on bill, saying he was torn about it.

Paul said at the time that while the NSA reform bill sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., would have done some good things, it would also have reauthorized some provisions of the Patriot Act through 2017. That act, Paul noted, is what allowed such collection of information to happen in the first place.

It was one of those situations where youre torn, he said. Cruz last week became the first major contender to officially announce his candidacy for president.

Paul is expected to announce his run Tuesday during a rally at the Galt House in Louisville. He has mostly stayed out of the media spotlight this week, declining to issue comments to some national media organizations about topics including Indianas religious freedom law and a nuclear deal with Iran, according to the Huffington Post.

Paul representatives said he is spending time with family and not doing media interviews this week, according to the Huffington Post.

While his social media platforms have also been relatively quiet, Paul retweeted a story Thursday from NationalJournal about supersecret smartphones used by the Defense Department. His account toutedwww.nationaljournal.com/tech/nsa-smartphone-pentagon-20150331 as a must read.

Cruz has had success in fundraising since his announcement. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Cruz has raised $4 million since launching his campaign. His campaign said 95 percent of contributions came in amounts of $100 or less.

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Paul draws fire from Cruz

Sen. Rand Paul walks into the Associated Builders and Contractors of Indiana/ Kentucky office in Bowling Green, Ky., on Monday, March 23, 2015, where he gave a speech and answered questions.(Photo: AP)

WASHINGTON When Sen. Rand Paul spoke in February to a conservative gathering just outside the nation's capital, the Kentucky Republican promised to propose a tax cut.

But not just any tax cut "the largest tax cut in American history," Paul told the Conservative Political Action Conference.

The details of his plan would be revealed "in the coming weeks," he said.

Now, as he prepares to announce a White House bid, Paul's vision of what amounts to a massive taxpayer refund from a government he wants to make smaller is certain to be a centerpiece of his campaign.

THE COURIER-JOURNAL

What it takes really to run for president

Paul who is expected to announce his bid Tuesday at Louisville's Galt House cut his political teeth on the theme of reducing the size of government and slashing spending. His tea party-backed candidacy for the Senate in 2010 was successful largely because he adhered to that message.

But based on his talking points during his travels around the country over the past couple of years, taxes, spending and the role of government are just some of the issues likely to form the core of his bid.

The senator's overall message, as he articulated in his response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address in January, is that "all is not well in America. America is adrift."

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Rand Paul views, from tax cuts to Iran talks