The Wall Street Journal editorial page, assailing him for defending Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked classified documents about the agency’s spying, said he was unsuitable as commander in chief. “As president, Mr. Paul couldn’t behave like some A.C.L.U. legal gadfly,” the editorial said.

Mr. Paul sometimes muses aloud about his prospects in 2016. “Imagine what a general election would be like it were myself and Hillary Clinton,” he said in an interview last June. Asserting that the Democrat would be more hawkish than the Republican, he added, “You’d totally turn topsy-turvy the whole political spectrum.”

Playing the Game

Rand Paul was a presence at the Liberty Political Action conference in September, a reunion of sorts for supporters of Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign, even though he barely flitted through.

“I want a tiny revolution,” said Dave Wahlstedt, from Minnesota, selling T-shirts that read, “Don’t Drone Me Bro!” At a booth nearby, Matt DeVries, from Iowa, complained about the growing infringements of traffic cameras and speed traps. Other tables were sponsored by the Young Americans for Liberty, an outgrowth of Ron Paul’s presidential bids.

“We exist to maintain the infrastructure to mobilize young people willing to work on a Rand Paul campaign,” Jeff Frazee, the organization’s leader and a former Ron Paul aide, said in an interview.

The speakers included a spokesman for the National Association for Gun Rights (formed in opposition to the National Rifle Association, which is seen as too accepting of gun-regulation laws); Bruce Fein, a lawyer who represented Mr. Snowden’s father (Rand and Ron Paul helped enlist him); Brian Bieron, an eBay executive (Rand is a champion of technology and the Internet); and Mr. Hunter, the former aide, who had served as a kind of master of ceremonies at the previous year’s conference but had a diminished role this time.

The night before the convention closed, Ron Paul took the stage to the whanging guitar opening of “Revolution” by the Beatles. He delighted the audience when he facetiously suggested, “Let’s repeal 1913,” the year the Federal Reserve Act and the 16th Amendment, which authorizes a federal income tax, were passed.