Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told college Republicans Thursday night that the Republican Party needs to champion the rights of minorities and be "the party of justice" if it’s going to succeed.
Paul appeared at the "Big Government Sucks" rally as part of the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he and other potential Republican presidential candidates are wooing influential conservative activists. Paul will speak to all the conference attendees on Friday, hoping to win the CPAC straw poll for the third year in a row.
"If we want our message to resonate across the land, if we want our message to be inclusive, I tell people, look the Republican party needs to look like America," Paul said.
"White, black, brown, rich poor, with tattoos and without tattoos, with earrings and without earrings," Paul said to applause. "We need to take our message where it’s not been taken before."
Paul said the bill of rights needs to be for "the least among us," and offered as an example Kalief Browder, a 16-year-old African American from the Bronx who spent three years in jail with no trial or conviction.
"You think his friends and his family don’t believe that big government is not treating them fairly?" Paul said.
Paul said minorities whose rights need protection can also include people with ideologies and religions outside the mainstream.
"If we as conservatives and Republicans can take the bill of rights and take it to people who haven’t been listening to Republicans and say, ‘it isn’t always about property, it isn’t always about guns , although it should support both, it’s about protecting the least among us…," he said.