Rand Paul’s odds of running: 50-50, he says

Sen. Rand Paul told a fourth-grader who was interviewing him that his odds for running for the White House in 2016 stood right at 50-50.

He said the final decision won’t be made for about a year, The Hill reported.

His interview with the student, known as Clay W. from Potter Gray Elementary School in Bowling Green, Ky., was posted on YouTube by his office staff.

“What is the change that I would run? You know, it is probably 50-50,” he said in the video. “We are thinking about it and looking at what it would take to run. It is a big job. But we probably won’t make our decision for about a year.”

He also said that running would detract from the time he could spend with family, especially his children. It would open the doors for even more media scrutiny — that would likely be negative, he guessed.

“The people in the media get meaner and meaner when you run for president because they pick you apart and say your clothes don’t look good and your hair looks bad — you need a haircut. You know, you get all that kind of grief from the media if you run for president, so it is a big job and we haven’t decided yet,” he said in the video.

The Hill suggested he was referring to a recent New York Times profile that described him as having “the rumpled mien of a graduate student, with his unkempt graying curls, wrinkled khakis and floral ties.”