Rand Paul’s letter for his father's campaign makes clear who the target is. | AP photo composite by POLITICO Rand Paul takes on Romney in mailer

Ron Paul’s campaign is going directly at Mitt Romney with a letter to New Hampshire voters from his son, Rand Paul.

The freshman Kentucky senator does not name the Republican frontrunner, but his extended riff about supporting an anti-establishment, authentic candidate like his father has a clear target.


“Supporting more of the status quo’s defenders — whether they are Democrats or Republicans — will surely deepen our debt crisis and permanently cripple our economy,” he writes in the six-page letter, obtained by POLITICO. “It also isn’t time to elect people who wake up every day wondering what they believe. And it surely isn’t time to elect someone who passed the blueprint for ObamaCare while Governor of Massachusetts.”

New Hampshire is a must-win state for Romney. But Paul’s been focusing some attention there too, hoping his libertarian views will appeal to many of the independent voters who will cast ballots in the state’s open primary. The letter, which alludes to one of the common hits on Romney, is the Paul campaign’s first direct engagement with the man who’s been leading polls in the state.

“One of the things has always made me most proud of my Dad is that he is the same in private as in public — strong in his beliefs and sure in his convictions,” Paul writes. “So you won’t see him trying to hide. You won’t see any ‘flip flops’ or telling different ideas to different audiences…He has stood up to the leaders of BOTH parties on so many fronts that he has earned the nickname ‘Dr. No.’ A few more people in Washington should be saying ‘NO.’”

The mailer includes photos of the two Pauls standing together with Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), as well as one of a younger Ron Paul talking with Ronald Reagan

“He was only one of 4 members of Congress to be a Ronald Reagan delegate to the Republican National Convention — in 1976,” he says. “Yes, even in his support of Reagan, he was a bit ahead of my time — but Ron Paul was right then, too!”

Rand Paul’s been stepping up his involvement in his father’s campaign, despite canceling an Iowa bus tour last weekend to stay in Washington for votes related to raising the debt ceiling. A tea party favorite who some expect will run for president in 2016, the senator stressed his own success in winning a competitive primary and general election last year to push back on the idea that his father is too much of a long shot to be competitive against President Barack Obama.

“You and I saw it all across the country in 2010,” he writes. “Folks are waking up, and things CAN turn around.”