Preaching peace, drug legalization and getting government out of people's lives, libertarian champion Ron Paul won more than 20 percent of the vote in Iowa and New Hampshire during the 2012 Republican presidential primary contest, as his impassioned campaign supporters swamped state parties and gave him a majority of convention delegates in several states.

These are things the former Texas congressman’s son, Sen. Rand Paul, and his presidential campaign staff know well. In fact, they reckoned the Kentucky lawmaker could build upon his father's respectable showings four years later by tactically assuaging the GOP mainstream.

They gambled that activists deserting the younger Paul over his endorsement of establishment Republicans, or for opposing the Iran nuclear deal and proposing war on the Islamic State group, or for crafting nuanced stances on whistleblower Edward Snowden and drug legalization, would be few.

But now, the Paul family is having to reassure jittery members of the so-called liberty movement. Rand Paul’s brother, Ronnie, said earlier this year that father and son have the same beliefs. And last month, Ron Paul said “even where Rand and I do have minor differences of opinion, I would take Rand's position over any of his opponents' in both parties every time.”

As Rand Paul’s once-promising campaign registers as low as 1 and 2 percent in national polls, a survey of his father’s 2012 state-level leadership reveals continued cause for concern among the passionate base that was crucial for Ron Paul, with some of those leaders having utterly lost faith in the younger family member as a candidate and a bearer of their message.

“Ron had paved a path that was ripe for a continuation,” says Marianne Stebbins, a small businesswoman who chaired Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign efforts in Minnesota. “If [Rand Paul] had a little more of his dad's background, philosophy and demeanor, he would be doing much better.”

Ron Paul at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa

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Stebbins and her compatriots won for the elder Paul 32 of 40 Minnesota delegates to the GOP national convention in 2012. Their commitment to game the system and flood the state party brought their candidate victory, even though he came in second in the state’s caucuses.

Stebbins soured on the younger Paul over some of his positions, including his signing of a Senate GOP letter that aimed to undermine the Iran nuclear deal and what she calls his “not standing up for Edward Snowden.” Though Paul sued to end one of the mass surveillance programs Snowden exposed, he’s avoided a full-throated endorsement of the exiled whistleblower, suggesting he share a cell with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who allegedly perjured himself when speaking about the scope of dragnet data collection.

“At this point in the game,” Stebbins says, “Rand needs to go back to the Senate and emulate his father there. A vast change now wouldn't be taken as sincere.”

At the opposite end of the Mississippi River, Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign team snagged him a majority of Louisiana’s national convention delegates (before furious pushback and a deal reducing the haul). That state team’s co-chairman, businessman Charlie Davis, doesn’t share Stebbins’ frustration.

“When the Iowa caucus finally arrives, it is very likely that liberty-leaning Republican activists will pick Sen. Rand Paul as the candidate that is most ideologically aligned with them,” Davis says. “Ron surged at the end and I think that Rand will as well.”

The stark difference in opinion among veterans of the 2012 campaign is also seen between leaders of the Paul team that year in Iowa and New Hampshire.

New Hampshire state Sen. Andy Sanborn, co-chairman of the 2012 campaign in his state, where Ron Paul placed second, supports Rand Paul’s campaign strategy and believes he ultimately will surge.

“Unlike the race between Dr. Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, this race with its 17 to 18 candidates – combined with the individual narratives – is resulting in temporary wide swings in support and polling, but no question there continues to be one common thread: that voters are just fed up with the establishment,” Sanborn says. “No candidate has been fighting the ‘Washington machine’ with more passion than Sen. Paul [and] I fully expect that when the race begins to settle down from these expected summer flings, that Sen. Paul will continue to consolidate both his base, as well as those new, disaffected voters.”

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But in Iowa, where Ron Paul supporters took over the state Republican Party and won their candidate 22 of 28 convention votes, despite his coming in a close third in the state caucuses, longtime campaign leader Drew Ivers has become disillusioned.

Ivers served as Ron Paul’s Iowa campaign chairman in both 2008 and 2012 and isn’t endorsing Rand Paul this year. He says the senator has ruined a golden opportunity for the liberty movement.

“Rand could have built on the small government foundation that his dad spent 30 years building, and I think that would have been a much more productive approach,” Ivers says. “I don’t want to hurt Rand, but at the same time I think I’m engaging in a little bit of tough love.”

Ivers says he’s “a single-issue guy: I just want to shrink everything” and he’s most upset that Rand Paul vigorously supported establishment members of the Republican Party in recent campaigns, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky during his re-election bid.

“I think Rand understands small government and votes for small government, but his campaign strategy contradicts that, and I think it’s a flawed strategy,” Ivers says. “Ninety-nine percent of those guys are not supportive of small government when push comes to shove, and chief among them is Mitch McConnell.”

Ivers says his disillusionment likely is shared by other longtime activists who were in Ron Paul’s campaign orbit. He says Rand Paul could have won some over with his father’s messaging, or made 2016 a momentum-building campaign ahead of 2020, but now he feels it’s too late for him to correct course.

The fissure in the once galvanized movement includes the former South Carolina Ron Paul chairman, Michael Vasovski, who earlier this year said he was "very disappointed in Rand” after the senator signed the GOP letter against the Iran deal. Vasovski didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Ron Paul’s 2012 chairman in Nevada, where his supporters won him a majority of convention delegates despite his losing the state’s caucuses, says longtime activists understand Rand Paul’s deviations from his father’s unapologetic nuance-free positions.

“Here in Nevada we understand the long game,” says Carl Bunce. “Sen. Paul is a dynamic candidate and seeing the results of the past few cycles, we don't want him to peak too early."

Bunce says he believes Rand Paul has a sizable support base in Nevada thanks to his tax reform plan and his vigorous opposition to government mass surveillance programs. “I can only speak for Nevada that Rand Paul remains a favorite among many of his father's supporters,” he says.

Stebbins, however, says that may not be universally true. And she adds it’s not only Rand Paul's political positions that Ron Paul fans are bummed about.

“To a greater degree, Rand loses many of his father's supporters with timidity,” she says. “Ron was very clear about where he stood, even when his position may have hurt his popularity. That is why many who disagreed with him respected him and even supported him. To thine own self be true, and the respect will follow.”

Paul campaign spokesman Sergio Gor brushed off the disgruntlement of some Ron Paul hands.