A 'Crazy' Reformer

Bowling Green, Ky.

'I don't plan on being bashful," says the next junior senator from Kentucky with an ever-so-mild drawl. "I'm not someone who's sort of still trying to figure out what I believe in. I don't think I'm really open to having Washington change me."

The morning after the election, Rand Paul's suite at the Holiday Inn is littered with Mello Yello and Dr. Pepper cans, a day-old fruit plate and mostly-finished plastic cups of wine. He's been up since before dawn, hitting the national morning news shows, and by 8 a.m. his voice is hoarse and his face looks drawn. In a few hours, Mr. Paul will be off on vacation, "at an undisclosed location," but not before he can send his future colleagues a message. He may be the lone pure tea party stalwart to enter the Senate, but he represents the new zeitgeist on the American right. Don't count on him to sit quietly in the back benches.

His first speech on the floor, he promises, will be on "the out-of-control deficit." But since, "as Mark Twain said about the weather, that everybody is talking about it and nobody is doing anything about it," Mr. Paul plans in his first legislative act to introduce a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget. And, he adds, he'll force a vote on it, too: "People don't like to vote against something that's so incredibly popular." He also wants to look hard at steep cuts in defense and entitlements, the largest chunks of federal outlays, and in one swoop antagonize many Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

Next on his docket are term limits. He jokes that the Soviet Politburo saw more turnover than Capitol Hill. He also wants to "sunset" all regulations until approved by Congress. "Let them write all the regulations they want," he says. "They do anyway, but in two years they're gone unless they get voted on by Congress."