Rand Paul is Running for President

Rand Paul, the Republican Senator from Kentucky, has officially announced that he will run for president of the United States in 2016.

The New York Times reports that Paul made the annoucement in Lexington, KY amid a large crowd and fanfare. In a speech, Paul bemoaned the seemingly endless growth of the government into every aspect of life and promised that his presidency would seek to stop it.

As a libertarian, small government will be the focus of his campaign for the White House. He said that the first thing he would do as president is end the unconstitutional seizure of every phone call and email in the United States by the National Security Agency.

On foreign policy, Paul said that the United States should not be involved in lengthy, interminable ground wars, such as the campaign in Iraq. He said it was a logical fallacy that conservatives would bemoan the lack of an effective government in the United States, while simultaneously expecting that government to be able to establish entire national entities in unfriendly lands.

Paul is the second prominent Republican to make his pursuit of the presidency official. Texas Senator Ted Cruz was the first to announce that he would officially seek the nomination. It is expected that Florida Senator Marco Rubio and former Florida governor Jeb Bush will also announce their candidacies soon.

Paul is unique among those potential competitors in that he has actively sought to work with Democrats on certain issues, such as prison sentencing. He recently teamed up with New Jersey Senator Cory Booker in order to reduce the mandatory minimums federal law imposes for drug crimes.