Rand Paul: GOP ‘will not win again in my lifetime’ the presidency, absent change

Sen. Rand Paul from Kentucky warned his fellow Republican politicos that without change, the GOP would fail miserably in the upcoming White House contest — and that goes for the next few decades.

“I think Republicans will not win again in my lifetime for the presidency unless they become a new GOP, a new Republican Party,” he said, during an interview with Glenn Beck on TheBlaze that aired on Thursday, Politico reported. “And it has to be a transformation, not a little tweaking at the edges.”

In fact, the GOP needs a complete overhaul that includes a “better message” that resonates with a wide population, “in a way they can understand it,” he said, on the show. One example: Rather than talking taxes, talk civil liberties, he suggested.

“Republicans haven’t gone to African-Americans or to Hispanics and said, ’You know what? The war on drugs, Big Government, has had a racial outcome. It’s disproportionately affected the poor and the black and the brown,’” he said, on TheBlaze.

Mr. Paul, long-rumored to make a run for the 2016 White House, said he’s not yet decided — but that nobody from his party would hold the nation’s highest seat without radical change.

“There is a struggle going on within the Republican Party,” he said, Politico reported. “It’s not new and I’m not ashamed of it. I’m proud of the fact that there is a struggle. And I will struggle to make the Republican Party a different party, a bigger party, a more diverse party and a party that can win national elections again.”