It's fascinating to watch Rand Paul dodge and weave on the question of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Paul holds a position, standard to libertarians but alien to mainstream politics, that the government had no business forbidding businesses and employers from discriminating on the basis of race. Paul is honest enough not to abandon that position. But he's not honest enough to defend it openly. So instead, every time he's asked a question on the topic, he changes the subject. He'll start saying that he personally opposes racial discrimination, or that the government has no business discriminating on the basis of race, or that we shouldn't deny the free speech rights of racists, or that we shouldn't limit the rights of people to carry weapons into restaurants. He repeatedly insists that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was mostly about voting and government discrimination, which is both untrue and a dodge.
Here's a good video of Paul dodging:
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I'm not certain that civil rights is going to really hurt him in this race. Pretty soon he's going to get questions about government programs and regulations that have more visceral appeal to conservative white Kentucky Democrats than the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Minimum wage? Child labor laws? Social Security? I bet he's against them all. It will be a fun campaign.