Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has drawn more attention than most Republican politicians lately, as his party searches for a winning national formula. Clashing with the likes of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie - a potential 2016 presidential rival - he has promoted a libertarian brand of Republican politics featuring a less aggressive foreign policy, a more tolerant social policy, and smaller government.
John Harwood of The Times and CNBC interviewed Mr. Paul for the NPR program “On Point,†produced by WBUR-Boston. What follows is a condensed, edited version of their conversation.
What is the goal that you’ve set for yourself in your political career?
If we want to grow and be a dominant national party, or even a competitive national party, we need to look like the rest of America. We need black people, brown people, white people. People with tattoos, without tattoos, with ties, without ties - we need to look and represent a broad spectrum of people from working class to business class. We don’t do a good enough job on that. My goal over the next year or two is to try to broaden our appeal.
Beyond the next year or two, do you plan to run for president?
I’m thinking about it, and we’re talking with family. We’ll look at it over the next year or so and see how successful we are basically at trying to grow the party before making a decision.
How would you distinguish the philosophy of your father, who ran for president three times, from yours?
I have a great deal of respect for my father. I think he’s one of the few genuinely honest people that ever went to Congress. We don’t agree on everything. We have some things in common: we believe in limited constitutional government, a very strict interpretation of that, we believe in privacy, a less aggressive foreign policy. There will be distinguishing characteristics. I just don’t think it’s useful to go through a list of that.
What did the overwhelming defeat of your amendment cutting off [aid to] Egypt tell you about how much progress you’re making?
I’ve got a long ways to go. It tells me really, though, the Senate’s out of touch. Because if you take that same question, and we poll your audience and ask them: Should we continue to send money to Egypt when they burn our flag, or do you think we should try to take care of some of the roads and projects we’ve got in our country, I think you’d get a reverse result.
We don’t have enough money to be everywhere all the time around the world. Should we be sending arms to Islamic rebels in Syria? I think you’ll find the vast majority of Republican Party voters at the grass roots are opposed to that, and I know most Democrats are opposed to it. And yet the leaders of both parties are eager to send more money to Egypt, and have more arms and more involvement in war.
You’ve invoked the rights of black Americans, you spoke at Howard University and you’ve talked about commitment to outreach. What conclusion should people draw from the presence of that former shock jock Jack Hunter on your staff, who was identified as the Southern Avenger?
He’s no longer on my staff. Many of the things he wrote were stupid, and I don’t agree. They weren’t things that I was aware of, or reasons why I hired him.
I do think, though, that he was unfairly treated by the media and he was put up as target practice for people to say he was a racist, and none of that is true. He got along fine with everybody in the office, and treated everyone fairly regardless of race or religion. We have a very varied office staff.
It’s also unfair to paint a broad brush and say that’s who I am. I think there is no greater defender, truly, of minority rights if you include minorities to be color of your skin or the color of your ideology than myself.
Let me read you something that The Economist, the British magazine, wrote: “The only notable libertarian-leaning politicians to generate real excitement among conservative voters have risen to prominence through alliances with racist and nativist movements.â€
I don’t accept all of that. And I don’t really need to spend the time. If you want to talk about issues, and what I stand for, I’m happy to. But I’m not going to really go through an interview responding to every yahoo in the world who wants to throw up a canard.
But if somebody sees the record of Jack Hunter, who wrote a book with you …
Why don’t we talk about Rand Paul? I’m the one doing the interview. You can go ahead and beat up on an ex-employee of mine, but why don’t we talk about Rand Paul, what I’m trying to do to grow the party? And then we might have an intelligent discussion. Why don’t we talk about what libertarian Republicanism means and what it would do for the party?
There was a Pew study which concluded that only 10 percent of the electorate was libertarian. How do you take a core that small and turn it into a majority?
No candidate or person or voter is purely any one segment. You may be libertarian on some issues, you may be conservative on other issues. Politics is about fusing together the best elements of different ideologies.
The ideas that I represent - talking about no longer sending money overseas to countries that hate us, talking about a less aggressive foreign policy, a balanced budget - you’ll find that actually represents a large segment of the Republican Party. And I think it’s attractive to independents as well.
What about the fact that the two biggest domestic spending programs, Medicare and Social Security, are highly popular, and the libertarian movement at its core doesn’t believe in those programs?
You paint with a broad brush, and you try to make libertarianism to be something you want to beat up on. No one that I know of who is a libertarian conservative is advocating abolishing Social Security or Medicare. We are advocating that they be paid for.
Medicare is $35-to-40 trillion short, in the hole. For every retiree, we pay $3 for every $1 they paid in. It’s an untenable entitlement and the way you have to fix it is to go through reform. But the president’s been unwilling to step forward and be a leader on these issues.
To build up a straw man and argue against a straw man, you’re just making stuff up.
How do you think the exchange you had with Gov. Christie came out?
If we want to have a strong national defense, we have to be fiscally conservative and cut in other places. You can’t ask for a blank check â€" even for disaster aid. So I think that point is loud and clear for conservatives.
