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DETROIT The GOP field office on Livernois Avenue is a squat, brick building with a grillwork of bars on its windows. The outpost in the predominantly Democratic, African-American neighborhood is a place where prominent Republicans dont often venture.

Rand Paul seems right at home.

The first thing he does when he walks in is to break up the rows of chairs assembled in front of a podium.

Paul, the junior Republican senator from Kentucky, has held other informal discussions with voters in mostly African-American communities throughout the year.

I just had a meeting like this in Atlanta last week and before in Ferguson, he noted, referring to the St. Louis suburb rocked by riots this summer after a white police officer shot an unarmed black teenager.

Hes also had meetings in Chicago and the west end of Louisville, where Cassisus Clay was raised.He held another one in Detroit in December, when he also spoke to the Detroit Economic Club.This one, in Detroits Sherwood Forest, was the first open to the press, according to an aide.

Instead of shooting out policy proposals from behind a lectern, Paul sets up the meetings as listening sessions just what Hillary Clinton did in upstate New York when she ran for Senate in 2000. At the time, Democrats saw the state as enemy territory.

Paul emphasizes criminal justice reform as well as conservative approaches to fighting poverty and improving education.

The senator is usually a harsh critic of President Obama, who remains popular among many African Americans. But on the subject of criminal justice reform, he praises Obama warmly.

We talked a little bit about criminal justice reform and I complimented him on some of the commutation of sentences hes done. He tried to correct some of the crack powder disparity with cocaine but still some people are already in jail, Paul told The Hill in an interview, noting a rare phone call he had with Obama a few weeks ago.

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Rand Paul courts the black vote