Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul to announce formal bid for presidency

WASHINGTON, April 6 (UPI) -- Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is set to announce his candidacy for the 2016 presidential race at a speech in his home state of Kentucky on Tuesday.

"He's going to get his moment in the sun," David Adams, campaign chairman for Paul's 2010 Senate campaign, told The Washington Post. "What he does with it from there will have bearing on the Republican Party."

Paul is considered a contender for the Republican nomination with several libertarian ideals, but has begun appeasing the Republican base. He once pledged to sharply cut the Pentagon's budget, but last month proposed a $190 billion increase for the next two years, which would be paid for by cutting foreign aid and other government programs.

He has also strayed from controversy by not commenting on the ardent discussion over Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which many critics perceive as being anti-LGBT, and by not commenting on nuclear negotiations with Iran.

The majority of other Republican potential presidential nominees have supported Indiana's law and been heavily critical of the Iranian negotiations. Paul's office said he was vacationing with his family during the controversial events and did not comment.

Paul, son of former Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, appeals to a broader audience by questioning harsh sentences for drug offenders, which cost the government millions to keep imprisoned, and by opposing government surveillance.

"We're going to be the party that protects your phone," he previously said.

Paul has often shied away from using positive campaign slogans and rhetoric.

"I wish I had better news for you, but all is not well in America," Paul said in response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address. Much of the United States "still suffers," he said.

"Our future hangs in the balance," Paul said to conservatives earlier this year. "We can debate a jobless recovery, an alarming debt, a bothersome and abusive regulatory state... but know this: You can't have prosperity without freedom."