Mediaboss Marketing

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:

___

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.

___

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.

___

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.

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