If Rand Paul’s race to the White House is a marathon, the route runs through the major conservative Republican issues neighborhoods: Cut Taxes, Reduce Spending, Shrink Government, Bulk Up the Military, Worship the Constitution. It also goes through the Black Issues neighborhood, where few in the GOP dare to tread.

It’s no secret that Paul’s been trying to court the black vote as part of what could be called his Libertarian Lite platform, and there are places where his vision and the community’s needs overlap – criminal justice reform being the obvious example, along with discussions of poverty and wealth inequality. Paul also seems to understand the “two Americas” concept last championed on a national political level by the unfortunate John Edwards in 2008; Rand even said so in his announcement speech.

But if the black political media is any indication, Paul’s selling to a somewhat receptive, but pretty skeptical audience. The same constituency that surged to the polls for President Barack Obama in record numbers are keeping Paul at arm’s length – for now.

There are places where Paul veers far to the right of where African Americans would prefer him to be, most notably on issues that straddle the Republican-libertarian line.

The senator loves to talk about “government restraint,” which could be interpreted as even-less government – and, presumably, less government aid to places that need it. That notion, however, led Paul into dangerous territory a few years ago: his critique of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a law which banned discrimination and which is pretty much gospel according to black voters: and community leaders.

It’s possible that he still has nightmares about it. Five years ago, Paul made his statement and then backpedaled faster than Richard Sherman covering Dez Bryant. Since then, he’s had nothing but stalwart support for all civil rights laws, forever and ever, world without end, ame

Yet his “freedom from government” plank is a pretty wide one where most astute black voters are concerned, and pretty troubling in an era that’s seen both the election of the nation’s first black president and the near-repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

That’s because, without the intervening hand of government – from Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation through Kennedy’s decision to send federal troops to Little Rock to LBJ’s various iterations of civil rights legislation – African Americans might still be working for free, unvoluntarily. That is, unless or until the liberty-filled, minimal-government society Paul dreams of comes up with a new business model was in order.

There are other issues: Paul’s dissed Obama on more than one occasion, hangs out in some places black voters might rather he wouldn’t (like the Conservative Political Action Conference), and he’s got that big red “R” after his name, which in some African American circles may as well be a rebel flag (because “Southern strategy.”)