...Upon review, the past year has seen Sen. Paul visiting college campuses normally seen as hotbeds of hostility to the Republican Party; holding engagement sessions with black leaders and inner-city groups normally wary of the conservative message; and meeting with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, despite the tech industry’s overwhelming preference for liberal politicians.
It’s all part of a strategy to bring the senator’s libertarian strand of conservatism to anyone who will listen. “Reaching out and engaging new audiences remains a priority to me,” Paul told Mediaite.
Such engagement has proved fruitful for the senator. His March speech at UC Berkeley, which mostly focused on government spying, resulted in a standing ovation from a packed auditorium at a school known for its political liberalism. And in April, when Paul spoke at Harvard University, his own ex-rival Trey Grayson (then-director of the school’s Institute of Politics) introduced him as “without question the Republican who best connects with millennial voters across the country.”
On top of that, Rand Paul was also the only nationally-elected Republican to address the National Urban League conference this July. He went above and beyond his party — and even most Democrats — by attending a “listening session” with local activists, pastors, and black leaders last month in the turmoil-wracked city of Ferguson, Mo.
Such active attempts to hold court with black voters is why when the Republicans opened an engagement office in inner-city Detroit, they tapped Paul to headline the event.
Perhaps the most astonishing part is that he’s the only Republican to do all of the above while also winning the Conservative Political Action Conference’s presidential straw poll and helping a dozen GOP candidates get elected or re-elected to the Senate, including his own fellow Kentuckian in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
While Paul has yet to declare a run for president, he maintains that his current trend of outreach is in the interest of the party itself, supplanting his own.
“I continue to believe that the Republican Party needs to become a bigger, better and bolder party in order to compete and win nationally,” he told Mediaite. “From UC Berkeley to Detroit and from Bill Maher’s show to Silicon Valley, I will continue to do my part in expanding our brand.”
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