Rand's grand plan
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has made key decisions about how to launch his presidential campaign for the 2016 Republican nomination, including a plan to headquarter his effort in Louisville and opting to run for re-election to the Senate at the same time he moves forward with the national race.
Coming off a midterm campaign blitz in 35 states, Paul has summoned a few dozen advisers a mix of veterans of his father Ron Pauls insurgent campaigns and more mainstream GOP leaders for a closed-door summit at a Washington hotel on Wednesday to discuss his future plans.
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In a POLITICO interview, the 51-year-old senator talked unblinkingly about the possibility of a run, and sought to draw a sharp contrast between himself and Hillary Clinton none too subtly raising the issue of her age. At 67, she is 16 years older than he is.
(Also on POLITICO: Young guns vs. gavels)
I think all the polls show if she does run, shell win the Democrat nomination, he said. But I dont think its for certain. Its a very taxing undertaking to go through. Its a rigorous physical ordeal, I think, to be able to campaign for the presidency.
Paul, who will face a much more crowded field on the Republican side but starts out as a slight front-runner in public polls, has begun an aggressive early campaign against Clinton. In the interview, he argued that her hawkish position inside the Obama administration for military intervention in places such as Libya will stack up unfavorably against his views.
Her main Achilles heel is that she didnt provide an adequate defense for our consulate in Libya, Paul said during a trip to Georgia just before the midterms. And also, she didnt think through the unintended consequences of getting involved in the Libyan war. So I think youd have an interesting dynamic, were there a [Republican] nominee that was for less intervention overseas and in the Middle East and thats fiscally conservative. Youve never seen that kind of combination before, and I think theres a lot of independent voters, actually, that might be attracted to that kind of message.
Paul reiterated his long-standing assertion that he wont officially decide about a presidential run until the spring, but his advisers have already laid out a timetable: They expect the campaign will be a go by mid-April, with an announcement as quickly after that as his staff can put together a fly-around to the early states.
(Also on POLITICO: The war over Obama's new war in Iraq)
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Rand's grand plan