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Rand Paul usually starts with a joke; it relieves the tension thats never there. On Tuesday, Sept. 30, the junior Senator from Kentucky is running a little late, but a University of South Carolina lecture room is already overfull, stragglers fighting for space behind a row of TV cameras. A few college Democrats are in the room, but as listeners, not hecklers.

Most of the students actually sound like Brett Harris, a sophomore studying political science, who had showed up an hour early to win a front-row center seat. Id have camped out on the lawn if Id had to, he says, clutching a red-and-white STAND WITH RAND sign to his matching STAND WITH RAND T-shirt. Of course I would! Its Rand Paul!

Harris starts to explain his affinity for Paul, and how right hes been about foreign policy, when the man himself arrives; jeans and battered cowboy boots, no jacket. This will be his uniform for two days of speeches and schmoozing and selfies, across South Carolina and North Carolina, in front of everyone from military veterans to pastors to reporters to donors to students. The students would come first.

Will we in 20 years be fighting a war and saying, Oh yeah, we voted for it in 2001?

Rand Paul

Last time I was here, I was at a barbecue, says Paul. The guy in front of me was loading up two plates of barbecue. I said, Youre not gonna live long eating like that! He said, My granddad lived to be 105. I said, He didnt live to 105 by eating like that. He said, No, my granddad lived to be 105 by minding his own business.

The joke is as fresh as the last grease scrapings from an outdoor smoker. Two years ago, Paul liked to deliver it before introducing his father, Rep. Ron Paul, to the Republican voters tasked with picking a presidential nominee. His father badly lost the South Carolina primary both times he ran, which was taken as evidence that antiwar libertarianism had no place in the heartland of the modern Republican party. Rand Paul is in the state to explain what these voters missed. His sort of politics should be popularin fact, isnt it popular already?

Dave Weigel/Bloomberg

Rand Paul speaks to students at the University of South Carolina.

Sometimes I think if we ought to have a campaign theme for government, that ought to be it, says Paul when the guffaws subside. Minding your own business. Maybe theres enough of us in the country who say, you know what? Lets be part of the Leave Me Alone coalition.

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Episode 3

Rand Paul: Middle East: intervention prime source of the chaos
Senator Rand Paul September 18, 2014 Madam President, if there is a theme that connects the dots in the Middle East, it is that chaos breeds terrorism. What much of the foreign policy elite...

By: TheWesternWorld

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Rand Paul: Middle East: intervention prime source of the chaos - Video

Rand Paul: We shouldn #39;t arm rebels
Sen. Rand Paul tells Wolf Blitzer that we have to do something about ISIS, but arming the Syrian rebels shouldn #39;t be the answer.

By: CNN

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Rand Paul: We shouldn't arm rebels - Video

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Wolf Blitzer's interview with Rand Paul will air in full on CNN's "The Situation Room" at 5 p.m. ET

(CNN) -- After meeting with NAACP leaders in Ferguson, Missouri, Sen. Rand Paul told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the Republicans Party's biggest mistake in recent decades has been not reaching out to African-American voters.

The Kentucky Republican, who said his meeting went "very well," said he laid out his views on demilitarizing police, reforming the criminal justice system and boosting urban economies.

"I don't want to characterize how everybody else feels about what I said, but I think it was a good opening to the conversation," Paul said in an interview set to air Friday. "I think in the Republican Party, the biggest mistake we've made in the last several decades is we haven't gone into the African American community, into the NAACP and say you know what, we are concerned about what's going on in your cities and we have plans. They may be different than the Democrats, but we do have plans and we do want to help."

According to his office, participants in the meeting included members of the NAACP, the Urban League and several local business and church leaders.

Paul was one of the most outspoken Republicans about the police response to protests that followed the August shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager who was killed by a police officer in Ferguson.

Angry demonstrations erupted this week in St. Louis after another black teenager was fatally shot by a white police officer. Supporters of Brown were set to begin a weekend of marches and civil disobedience on Friday, dubbed the "Weekend of Resistance."

"There's a sense of tension and unease that goes beyond just the shootings. I think the shooting has brought this to the surface, but there's a sense of unease in the country," Paul told Blitzer.

"Black unemployment is twice white unemployment and has been for decade after decade," he added. "I know this president cares about trying to improve it but it hasn't gotten better."

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Rand Paul reaches out to African Americans for GOP in Ferguson

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) made one of the boldest and most memorable statementson the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., going a place members of his party wouldn'ttouch with a 10-foot pole.

Now, he's literally goneto the place -- as in, Ferguson -- where he's meeting with the NAACP, the Urban League and other church and business leaders about criminal justice.

A cynic would say that Paul, a likely 2016 presidential contender, is simply trying to expand his appeal.

That cynic wouldn't be entirely wrong.

I am a politician, and I do recognize that [Republicans]havent done very well with people who live in cities -- primarily African Americans -- and I do think we need to do better, he said in a phone interview from Ferguson. The thing I found is that you might interview 20 people, and you find that they are not ready to vote for a Republican yet, but they are interested in Republicans competing for their vote and showing up in their communities.

Paul has been on something of an urban America tour, meeting with leaders all over the country. He is the closest thing the GOP has to a race man, unafraid to put himself in the shoes of African Americans and to talk about disparities.

But at the same time, this is a relatively new effort for him. And for a guy who in his first campaign struggledwithquestions about the Civil Rights Act, thediscovery does coincide with his increasing national political ambitions.

"I think Ive discovered more of urban America from being elected than not being elected. I grew up in a small rural town, so from a firsthand experience, I wasn't as aware," he said. "But as a senator ... Ive tried to learn about problems that I frankly didnt know as much about. And as I met with community leaders, Ive discovered that there were things like many people didnt have the right to vote, and I wasnt aware of that. And since that time, Ive become more active in those issues."

But the education of Rand Paul is also about national politics, and it's likely hewill have an even bigger platform to speak to and about urban America come 2015 and early 2016. This couldpose challenges for his party and for Democrats, who seem to be focused on a different part of the Obama coalition.

Paul didn't want to speak about the specifics of the case in Ferguson, where a grand jury is still deciding whether to charge Darren Wilson, the officerwho shot and killed Michael Brown. But it's clear that what happened there will become an inflection point and a symbol long after the unrest is over and the case is decided.

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The Fix: Rand Paul is in Ferguson. Heres why.