Free Republic

BOSTON (AP) — Fighting to move beyond his father’s shadow, Sen. Rand Paul is crafting new alliances with the Republican Party establishment during a Northeast tour that began Friday in Boston.The 51-year-old Kentucky Republican, son of libertarian hero and former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, headlined an afternoon luncheon hosted by top lieutenants of former presidential nominee Mitt Romney — a private meeting that comes as Paul weighs a 2016 presidential bid of his own. To succeed in a national campaign, however, those close to Paul acknowledge that he must broaden his appeal beyond the Tea Party and libertarian-minded activists who...

Fighting to move beyond his father’s shadow, Sen. Rand Paul is crafting new alliances with the Republican Party establishment during a Northeast tour that began Friday in Boston. The 51-year-old Kentucky Republican, son of libertarian hero and former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, headlined an afternoon luncheon hosted by top lieutenants of former presidential nominee Mitt Romney—a private meeting that comes as Paul weighs a 2016 presidential bid of his own. To succeed in a national campaign, however, those close to Paul acknowledge that he must broaden his appeal beyond the tea party and libertarian-minded activists who rallied behind his father’s...

About halfway through his second quest for the Republican presidential nomination, Ron Paul has yet to win a single primary or caucus state. Whenever this inconvenient truth is mentioned to his campaign aides, their first point of rebuttal typically is that the Texas congressman won the popular vote in the U.S. Virgin Islands earlier this month. He did so by netting 112 votes in the presidential straw poll there, enough to best Mitt Romney’s haul of 101 islanders, although Romney still gained seven out of the territory’s nine delegates, making it something less than an impactful victory by just about...