Rand’s stand

HE IS a senator and the son of a former congressman who ran for president three times. Yet he can, with a straight face, kick off his own run for president by denouncing the “Washington machine” and calling for people to “rise up” against it. On April 7th Rand Paul became the second Republican formally to announce his candidacy. Mr Paul sells himself as a man of fresh ideas who will broaden the appeal of his party. He is serious: unlike his father Ron, a crotchety libertarian who ran mostly to make a point, he believes he can win—not just the Republican nomination, but the election itself.

Mr Paul is, as he claims, a relative newcomer to Washington. He was first elected to the Senate in the Tea Party wave of 2010—his first ever public office. Before that, he was an ophthalmologist in Bowling Green, a small town in Kentucky. But he is nonetheless steeped in politics, having spent much of his youth working on his father’s campaigns. His rise has been accelerated by a network of dedicated libertarians assembled by his father. These supporters, some in bow-ties and many waving American flags, now follow the tousle-haired Mr Paul around the country (in Kentucky your correspondent encountered one who had travelled from Wisconsin in the hope of giving him a 150-year-old book).