Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul officially announced Tuesday that he will be running for a second term in the Senate, citing "unfinished business and a chance to use the Republican majority to achieve what he couldn't during the last four years" as reasons why he deserves another term.
"We still have great problems that confront us, and I think there needs to be a voice for fiscal sanity - looking at spending across the board and saying, 'We've got to look at all facets of government in order to control spending, or we don't at our own peril,'" Paul told the Lexington Herald-Leader.
If re-elected, Paul plans to address government spending, President Barack Obama's "war on coal" and a way to pay for roads and bridges in Kentucky. As for the latter, Paul said he wants to find a way to convince U.S. companies operating overseas to return profits with some sort of repatriation tax holiday, which could be used to repair Kentucky bridges and roads, according to the Herald-Leader.
"I think that there's unfinished business in the sense that I ran for office because I was frustrated that the country was accumulating so much debt and that I was worried that it was not only a drag on the economy but ultimately I think a threat to the country," Paul said. "I've been here for four years in the minority party, and I think the Democrats have continued to make it worse. We still borrow a million dollars a minute."
His announcement was made as he is still considering a bid for the presidency in the same 2016 election cycle. But because Kentucky law prohibits a candidate's name from appearing more than once on the same ballot, many wonder what Paul has up his sleeves.
A few possible workarounds to the Kentucky law may include changing the GOP's presidential nomination process into a caucus, or completely omitting Paul's name from the Kentucky presidential primary ballot, The Washington Times reported.
Paul told the Herald-Leader in the Monday interview that he is still "four to six months" away from deciding on a run for the White House, but "the one thing we've decided is that I'm definitely running for re-election."
When asked if he thinks that a Senate and presidential campaign could coexist, Paul said, "I don't think we've gotten that far yet."
"We're still talking it over with family and also kind of looking to see if the message is resonating and we think it has a chance."
Most 2016 Republican presidential nomination polls consistently place Paul in the middle or top middle of the pack amongst other GOP presidential hopefuls.
The latest CNN/ORC International poll conducted between Nov. 21-23 placed Paul in sixth place (6 percent) behind Mitt Romney (20 percent), Ben Carson (10 percent), Jeb Bush (9 percent), Chris Christie (8 percent) and Mike Huckabee (7 percent).
