Rand Paul eyeing April for launch of presidential campaign

Paul reiterated his long-standing assertion that he won’t officially decide about a presidential run until the spring, but his advisers have already laid out a timetable: They expect the campaign will be a “go” by mid-April, with an announcement as quickly after that as his staff can put together a fly-around to the early states.

Before zeroing in on Louisville as Paul’s likely campaign headquarters, advisers reached out to veterans of 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign to consult on the advisability and specific requirements of running a national campaign from outside Washington, deciding the symbolic importance of basing the campaign in his home state outweighed any concerns about easy access for Washington-based staffers and political operatives from across the country.

Within the next few weeks, Paul is set to announce that he’ll run for reelection to the Senate in 2016 – a race that he is likely to run simultaneously with a presidential campaign. Kentucky has a law preventing a candidate from running for more than one office at a time, but Paul advisers believe they have found multiple ways around the restriction without changing the law or challenging it in court, including exploring changing the state’s GOP primary to a caucus. If Paul won the presidential nomination, he might focus on that race and drop the Senate campaign.