Rand Paul plans to make the case that it is better to work with the GOP establishment. Paul movement slow to pass torch

TAMPA, Fla.—Rand Paul risks alienating his father’s base as he tries to expand his own.

The Kentucky senator, who speaks at the Republican convention Wednesday night, has a younger face and a softer edge, but his name does not guarantee the loyalty of Ron Paul’s most passionate supporters.


With buzz around a potential run for president in 2016, Ron Paul’s son plans to make the case to delegates that it is better for the movement to work with the GOP establishment rather than from the rebellious fringe. But convincing a libertarian movement that puts a premium on purity to play in the big tent of a major party is a big ask.

( PHOTOS: Ron Paul rallies in Tampa)

Among some supporters of the elder Paul, there are doubts about whether Rand Paul is up to the task of carrying his father’s torch.

Many Ron Paul supporters are still upset that Rand endorsed Romney in June during a Fox News appearance while his father was still technically a candidate. In fact, Ron Paul is being denied a speaking slot this week because he refuses to endorse or release his delegates to Romney. During the primaries, Rand always said he planned to support whoever won the Republican nomination whenever asked if his father would consider a third-party candidacy.

That doesn’t go over well with some of Ron Paul’s most fervent supporters.

“I was kind of on thin ice with Rand, and then he went and endorsed Romney. And I said, ‘Dude, that’s it! We’re done now,’” said Nick Tanzillo, 27, who flew here from Boston for a Paul rally on Sunday. “He didn’t need to do it when he did. It really cracked the liberty movement. You’ve got the hardcore Ron supporters saying, ‘What are you doing to us?’”

“It looks like he’s pandering to the party,” added 30-year-old Marshall Soell from San Antonio.”

Ron Paul, 77, is retiring after 24 years in the House. Rand Paul, 49, did something his father never had in 2010 when he won statewide office after upsetting a GOP establishment favorite in the Republican primary. He’s begun raising his national profile, delivered the official Republican Saturday radio address this weekend, has become increasingly close with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and now plans to deliver a primetime address at the national convention. Ron Paul is leaving Tampa Tuesday night, so he will not be at the convention site to watch his son speak.

In separate interviews with POLITICO, both father and son played down their divergent tactics at the convention here.

Asked whether his son can carry his torch, the elder Paul said: “Time will tell. Nobody has a torch that they give to somebody else. I don’t have a torch. Everybody has to own their own way. He’ll do well.”

Rand Paul pushed back at suggestions that he may be alienating some of his father’s supporters. And he argued that the GOP platform is a “very libertarian, conservative document.”

“One out of 1,000 will be unhappy,” Rand Paul said of his father’s supporters. “But the vast majority come up to me and are complimentary and are very supportive.”

There’s a great deal of hostility among long-time Paul supporters at the convention about the way that the Romney campaign has treated them in the last few days. After they received several concessions in the party platform, the RNC’s credentials committee voted to exclude pro-Paul Maine delegates, and then Mitt Romney’s top lawyer rammed through a series of rule changes designed to hinder outsider candidates.

Before Tuesday’s program kicked off, scores of Paul supporters chanted loudly, “Let him speak! Let him speak!” That prompted a retort from some Romney backers, who shouted back, “Romney! Romney!” Later in the program, Paul supporters nearly drowned out House Speaker John Boehner with chants of “Seat Maine Now!” regarding a dispute over delegates from the state.

Given the factions at the RNC, some Romney allies see Rand Paul’s role as critical in the final days of the convention.

“I’m glad that he’s doing what he can to help bring all of the forces together that need to change the current administration,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a top Romney ally. “And I think you have to factor Rand Paul into the future of not only Kentucky politics, but the future of national Republican politics.”

“That will satisfy a lot of the people who think that Ron Paul has somehow been shutout of the convention,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said of the younger Paul’s speaking role.

But there are stylistic differences — the younger Paul has demonstrated he can talk about foreign policy in more mainstream terms, while Ron Paul has turned off many in the party.

A Jan. 16 debate illustrated the problem for Ron Paul. When asked about whether the U.S. government had the authority to kill Osama bin Laden, Ron Paul compared bin Laden’s capture in Pakistan to a Chinese dissident hiding in the U.S. and said the U.S. government wouldn’t want China to “bomb us and do whatever.”

Paul got booed for saying America should try to capture top terrorist leaders, instead of killing them. He’d just finished second in New Hampshire, so his opponents – who had basically ignored him all year – pounced. South Carolina internal tracking polls showed his support collapsed right after that.

Rand Paul does not quite talk in those terms. He spoke carefully about these issues after being attacked in the 2010 GOP primary.

“Rand symbolizes the incorporation of Ron Paul’s liberty message into the mainstream GOP,” said South Carolina State Sen. Tom Davis, a key early-state Paul backer. “ Dr. Paul is more like John the Baptist, sort of the guy wandering in the wilderness for years speaking truth but eating locusts and honey. Enough people follow…His message starts to spread. Rand Paul is the logical progression.”

The flipside to this is that many Ron Paul supporters like him because of his uncompromising foreign policy. The older Paul said in his speech at the Sunday rally that many have told him he would have done better if only he allowed for a more interventionist foreign policy.

“And of course if I didn’t have the same policy that I do have,” he said, “I don’t believe we would be here tonight.”

A lot of Paul supporters whisper about the younger Paul voting for sanctions on Iran. In fact, to get his support language was added that made it clear the law being passed did not authorize military force against Iran or Syria.

The younger Paul shares his father’s foreign policy broadly, and he praised him especially Sunday for talking about the convent “blowback” – the concept that U.S. meddling overseas can lead to terrorist attacks.

“Had he not talked about blowback I don’t know anyone ever would have,” he said. The younger Paul boasted in the interview that he received standing ovations from the packed crowd, some of whom were chanting “Paul 2016.”

The best thing Paul has going for him is that he’s the most obvious successor to his father in presidential-level politics. Most long-time Paul supporters plainly aren’t excited about Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor who dropped out of the Republican primaries to run as the Libertarian Party’s candidate.

Rand Paul has demonstrated a degree of political savvy in the Senate that many insiders did not expect, and McConnell — the ultimate establishment figure in the Senate — has quickly become an ally of Paul’s. Indeed, the two appeared at a tea party rally last week outside the state Capitol in Frankfurt.

Some of his father’s supporters praise the younger Paul’s political skills, something he demonstrated last May in backing a libertarian-leaning House candidate Thomas Massie who won a contested primary in Kentucky over a favorite of the establishment.

“It’s his endorsement of Romney that’s really scared a lot of the Ron Paul people, thinking he’s playing into their hands,” said 31-year-old Reid Davis of Dallas, a supporter of Ron Paul. “But I think to some degree he’s a young politician and needs to get his foot in the door to be able to get anything done in the Senate.”