Eye on presidency? Sen. Rand Paul to open office in Bay Area

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks at the state GOP convention in Los Angeles. His plan to set up an office in the Bay Area may indicate a run for president. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks at the state GOP convention in Los Angeles. His plan to set up an office in the Bay Area may indicate a run for president. Photo: Chris Carlson, Associated Press Photo: Chris Carlson, Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Eye on presidency? Sen. Rand Paul to open office in Bay Area 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Los Angeles -- - Signaling that he may be edging closer to a 2016 White House run, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said Saturday he plans to open an office in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the nation's strongest Democratic bastions - and a convenient link to Silicon Valley.

Though there is no specific date, "we're in the process of it," Paul said in an interview with The Chronicle at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott after his star appearance before a lunchtime crowd at the state GOP convention.

Paul said he expects to come to the region "fairly often," and the area makes plenty of sense for a base: "There's a lot of smart people in Silicon Valley, and we want to use their brains to figure out how to win."

But Paul demurred when asked what, exactly, he wants to win.

"Well, for the party, winning nationally," he said. "My goal for the past year has been to try to widen the party message and make the party big enough to win nationally."

Pressed on whether he'll get support from libertarian Silicon Valley luminaries like Peter Thiel, the billionaire PayPal co-founder, Paul said, "I'm friends with Peter, but we don't have a specific announcement on that."

But "we may soon," he added.

The Kentucky senator also urged California Republicans to do more to advance their cause in the solidly blue state.

"There's no any magic bullet here. ... We've been drifting for quite awhile," he said.

"We can win here again, but we have to convince independents to come back," Paul said. "The brand has been damaged. We really need a new GOP, ... and we need great leaders to define what that GOP is."

The party "has to be more inclusive, it has to be more aware of how we fix poverty and how we fix unemployment," he said.

For the first time, Paul publicly endorsed Neel Kashkari, the Republican candidate for governor. Kashkari has made some unusual efforts to reach Millennial and ethnic voters and to highlight poverty and jobs issues, including posing as a homeless man for a week in Fresno.

Speaking on international affairs, Paul said he has not changed his message on foreign intervention.

"When the country goes to war, the authority has to come from Congress," he said, and it must serve a "vital American interest."

"It's perfectly consistent to say that our consulate in Erbil is threatened by Isis, and that we should do something," he said. "The people who think that is a different message are people who have mischaracterized (me) all along.

"I've been saying for five years I'm not an isolationist - and now people have discovered that and they think it's a change," he said.

California crucial

Paul sat down with The Chronicle minutes after he delivered a warmly received keynote address to about 400 state Republicans, telling them: "If we want to win the presidency, we have to figure out how to compete in California."

He delivered sharp criticism of President Obama, saying that "the worst thing he has done is his usurpation of power."

"He's doing immigration policy on his own, he's now gone to war on his own," he said. "It is a danger to us as a country, and we need to do everything we can to stop him."

Then Paul, in a scathing critique, turned his sights on Hillary Rodham Clinton, considered to be the Democrats' strongest potential 2016 candidate. He argued that that her tenure as secretary of state, particularly in regard to her handling of the deadly attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, should "absolutely preclude" her from being the next president.

"I frankly think that if Hillary Clinton had worked for Bill Clinton, he'd have fired her," he said to applause.

'Least loyal Democrats'

Political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffee, a professor of the practice of public policy communication at the University of Southern California, said Paul's comments served as clear indication of his 2016 intentions.

"The speech alone - let alone the fact that he is setting up office in Silicon Valley, the home to much money - signals that he is running for president," she said.

Although she noted that it's an unorthodox move for a potential Republican presidential candidate to set up shop in the Bay Area two years ahead of the presidential election, it also makes sense, thanks to the area's changing demographics.

"Probably some of the least loyal Democrats are in Silicon Valley," she said. "No-party-preference voters are big in Silicon Valley - and it's not inconceivable that Rand Paul took that into consideration."