Pretty much all Americans would agree that it would be a disaster if the two major parties split symbolically into a “white party” and a “nonwhite party.” Yet relatively few Republicans are willing to consider that a renewed appeal to black voters is key to changing the way the GOP can present itself to minority voters as a whole.

Notably, that’s not because every minority claim to rights or entitlements is just like the African-American struggle for civil rights. It’s because the nature of the new Republican pitch to black voters can change the way the GOP thinks, strategizes, and talks. That’s another thing Paul seems to understand. Instead of talking jobs and take-home pay, he focuses on the nexus of crime, poverty, drugs, and incarceration—as the site of urgently needed reform, not more scolding and “getting tough.”

That’s a political strategy with more to it than moral insight. It’s a challenge to Paul’s competitors even more potent than his departure from Bush-era orthodoxy on international affairs.