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Story highlights Julian Zelizer: Rand Paul, due to announce for presidency, has attracted a lot of attention He says the Kentucky senator can appeal to younger Republicans with a libertarian brand of conservatism

The Kentucky senator's widely publicized appearance this month at the South by Southwest festival at Austin, Texas, was one opportunity he used to appeal to a tech-savvy audience. His particular blend of ideas -- a combination of libertarianism and Republican conservatism -- stands out from the rest of the pack. Younger Republicans, the much-desired millennial vote, seem attracted by what they are hearing.

What accounts for his appeal? In an era when so many Americans seem frustrated with shallow, personality-based politics, there seems to be genuine interest in a candidate who is fighting for a set of ideas. For many disaffected younger Republicans, Paul offers a version of the conservative agenda that seems foreign to the modern GOP.

Julian Zelizer

For almost half a century, "big government conservatism" has ruled the party. Although conservatism is theoretically about limited government, the historical reality has been much different. On national defense, the hawks of the GOP have been victorious.

Even while railing against the dangers of a big federal government, Republicans have lined up to support higher defense spending and a massive military-industrial complex. Though the GOP has little tolerance for many social safety net programs, the party has accepted sizable government support to industry, such as the financial bailout known as TARP in 2008 and subsidies for certain economic interests.

Paul has been a vocal critic of the neoconservative turn that the GOP has embraced in recent decades, during which the party moved beyond support for high national security spending and toward a bolder vision of aggressive nation-building and regime change.

For some Republicans, including Paul, these policies were at the heart of the failures of George W. Bush's presidency and a sharp departure from the party's principles. Similarly, Paul has been one of the few Republican voices to argue that post 9/11 surveillance policies have dangerously curtailed civil liberties. At the local level, he has criticized the militarization of police forces and the treatment of African Americans by law enforcement officers.

Paul has also backed away from some tenets of social conservatism that don't sit well with a growing number of Republican voters. He has been an outspoken advocate of giving states the right to legalize marijuana. He has been attuned to the ways in which younger generations of Republicans are not on board with the evangelical fervor of the 1970s conservative movement and want to move in a different direction.

While many Republicans have talked about the need for their party to tackle issues involving race and inequality in ways that are different from Democrats, most have been unwilling to offer any substantive ideas. Indeed, the recent budget blueprint from congressional Republicans exposed how thin discussions of a Republican anti-poverty program are.

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Why Rand Paul stands out - CNN.com