Rand Paul Considers Staff Changes
Updated at 3:25 p.m. ET
Kentucky's Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul is re-emerging back into the public spotlight after making controversial remarks last week about the Civil Rights Act -- and he plans to change up his campaign staff in the wake of the incident.
Paul was compelled last week to clarify that he supports the Civil Rights Act after he came under scrutiny for suggesting that private businesses should be allowed to discriminate against people based on race if they choose to do so (even though he called such behavior abhorrent).
The libertarian physician, dressed in doctor's scrubs, explained his position at a civic club in Bowling Green, Kentucky Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. It was his first campaign appearance since the dust-up over his remarks.
"I think they've used it as an issue to try to make me into something that I'm not," Paul reportedly said. "I was raised in a family that said that you judge people the same way Martin Luther King said, you judge people by their character not by the color of their skin."
He reportedly elicited laughs from the crowd by using the well-known words from "A Tale of Two Cities" to describe his victory in the Kentucky GOP Senate primary: "It was the best of it times. It was the worst of times."
Paul ran as a Washington outsider -- Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky's other senator, backed Paul's opponent. His campaign staff is also largely new to the political scene, according to reports, prompting Paul to consider changes.
"We're still working out details," he said.
Paul's campaign manager David Adams will remain on staff but potentially in a different role, the AP reports.
Update: The Washington Post reports Paul has replaced Adams with Jesse Benton, the communications director for Rep. Ron Paul's (R-Tex.) 2008 presidential bid. Ron Paul is Rand Paul's father. Adams will still serve as as campaign chairman for Rand Paul.