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By PHILIP ELLIOTT Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Change? For sure. Hope? Maybe not so much.

That's Rand Paul's approach to winning the White House when the original hope-and-change candidate, Barack Obama, vacates it in early 2017.

Ready to enter the chase for the Republican presidential nomination this week, the first-term Kentucky senator has designs on changing how members of his party go about getting elected to the White House and how they govern once they get there.

He will do so with an approach to politics that is often downbeat and usually dour, which just might work in a nation deeply frustrated with Washington.

Since his election to Congress, and in the lead-up to his entry into the presidential race, Paul has favored blunt takes on America's woes instead of the sunny earnestness that helped fuel Obama's rise to popularity in 2007 and 2008.

Consider Paul's response this year to Obama's State of the Union address, a speech filled by presidents of all parties with bullish predictions for the nation's future. Paul's message that night was downright sullen.

"I wish I had better news for you, but all is not well in America," Paul said. Much of the country, he said, "still suffers."

Paul is set to declare his candidacy during a speech in his home state of Kentucky on Tuesday. Expect Paul to outline a vision for America that doesn't fit any of the traditional Republican molds.

He would alter the scale and mandate of the federal government in more radical ways than other members of the GOP. And he bucks party ideology in standing against government surveillance, for deep cuts in military spending and in questioning the wisdom of harsh sentences for drug offenders who cost government billions to imprison.

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When the presidential buzz began building around Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) a couple of years ago, the expectation was that his libertarian ideas could make him the most unusual and intriguing voice among the major contenders in the 2016 field.

But now, as he prepares to make his formal announcement Tuesday, Paul is a candidate who has turned fuzzy, having trimmed his positions and rhetoric so much that its unclear what kind of Republican he will present himself as when he takes the stage.

Hes going to get his moment in the sun, said David Adams, who served as campaign chairman for Pauls insurgent 2010 Senate campaign. What he does with it from there will have bearing on the Republican Party.

There are at least two areas where Paul has moved more in line with the conservative Republican base, somewhat to the consternation of the purists in the libertarian movement: adopting a more muscular posture on defense and foreign policy, and courting the religious right.

Where he once pledged to sharply cut the Pentagons budget, for instance, Paul late last month proposed a $190billion increase over the next two years albeit one that would be paid for by cutting foreign aid and other government programs. His tour following the announcement of his candidacy will include an event at Patriots Point in South Carolinas Charleston Harbor, with the World War II-era aircraft carrier USS Yorktown as a backdrop.

[What Rand Pauls defense spending proposal tells us about his 2016 strategy]

The haziness over Pauls positions increased last week with his conspicuous silence on controversies in the realms of both national security and the cultural fronts.

Nearly all of his potential rivals for the 2016 GOP nomination have been vocal in their support for Indianas new religious liberties law, which critics say would allow discrimination against gays. And the Republican response to President Obamas nuclear negotiations with Iran has been widespread skepticism.

In both instances, Pauls office said he was vacationing with his family and would not comment.

What Paul says Tuesday and in several stops in the following days will be closely watched by a handful of disparate constituencies into which he has tried to make inroads over the past year, including Silicon Valley executives drawn to his libertarian ways and more traditional Republican business leaders who are wary of them. Attracted to his promise of expanding the GOP electorate, they have met with Paul, but many remain unsure of his electability, as well as his views.

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Rand Paul seems to stray from libertarian roots as he courts GOP base

KAREN TUMULTY AND ROBERT COSTA

Last updatedMon Apr 06 05:14:03 UTC 2015

LAURA BUCKMAN / Reuters

HIPSTER SENATOR?: Rand Paul talks during a session at the South by Southwest (SXSW) interactive, film and music conference in Austin, Texas, last month.

When the US presidential buzz began building around Senator Rand Paul a couple of years ago, the expectation was that his libertarian ideas could make him the most unusual and intriguing voice among the major contenders in the 2016 field.

But now, as he prepares to make his formal announcement on Tuesday (local time), the Kentucky Republican is a candidate who has turned fuzzy, having trimmed his positions and rhetoric so much that it's unclear what kind of Republican he will present himself as when he takes the stage.

"He's going to get his moment in the sun," said David Adams, who served as campaign chairman for Paul's insurgent 2010 Senate campaign. "What he does with it from there will have bearing on the Republican Party."

KEVIN LAMARQUE / Reuters

RIGHT-WING: Rand Paul speaks the CPAC conference in Maryland in February.

There are at least two areas where Paul has moved more in line with the conservative Republican base, somewhat to the consternation of the purists in the libertarian movement: adopting a more muscular posture on defense and foreign policy and courting the religious right.

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US Presidential candidate Rand Paul veers from libertarian positions