Senator Rand Paul will speak at the Iowa Republicans’ Lincoln Day Dinner in Cedar Rapids on May 10. The fund-raiser for the state party offers Mr. Paul an early chance to introduce himself to potential caucusgoers as he considers a bid in 2016.
Mr. Paul, who is in many ways the more pragmatic heir to his father’s libertarian-leaning following, has heightened his profile in recent weeks. Republicans applauded his 13-hour filibuster of John O. Brennan’s nomination to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, and his assessment, delivered at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, that the “G.O.P. of old has grown stale and moss-covered†was a forceful salvo in the party’s internal debate about its direction after losses in 2012. And earlier on Monday, he waded into the debate on immigration.
Last year, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, Virginia’s attorney general, was the featured speaker at the dinner. He is running for governor this year.
