“Ron Paul is going to visit our delegation,” a Nevada delegate said shortly after 1 P.M. The appearance was meant to be a surprise, ahead of the opening of the Republican National Convention’s 2 P.M. session, and she looked pleased. I asked if she was a Paul delegate. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Well, I’m bound to Romney.” She called to her friend. “Are you bound to Romney?” She was. “That just means I have to vote for him. I can nominate whomever I want.” And that idea—to place Paul’s name in nomination, or at least make the process as un-smooth as possible, seemed to be an idea on many minds. They never got the chance.

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Paul did walk out onto the floor, half an hour later, with a thick line of cameras and enthusiasts, and headed for the Nevada section. The hall, once he was spotted, seemed happy in a way that it hadn’t been before. Maybe it was just that there was action—even the Romney forces suddenly had something to do, and it felt like a deliberation, rather than a ritual as empty as many delegates seem to believe Romney’s ideology to be. There were some calls of, “Romney! Romney!,” though those of “President Paul” and “Let him speaks!” were louder. Paul spoke for the cameras but mostly seemed to be there for his troops. He came out in shirtsleeves; a minute later he was wearing a Hawaiian lei. “They give us two leis, and we give them to our favorite people,” said Joe Kent, who put the flowers on Paul. Kent said that he was one of three Paul delegates from Hawaii; he gave the other lei to Ashley Ryan, who had been a Maine delegate until Romney’s camp used the rules in what Paul’s followers see as dubious ways to change the delegation’s composition.

And, a couple of hours later, the Maine delegates the Romney team wanted were formally seated, after chants of “seat them now,” and a couple of voice votes that may have been dubiously decided. Much of the rest of the Maine delegation walked out.

Mitt Romney is not one of the Paulites’ favorite people. Anna Flatt, from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who is technically a Romney delegate, said that she wouldn’t support him. “I would have, had they not cheated. It’s hard to get behind someone who’s cheated so hard to win.” Flatt said that when Paul passed by her delegation he gave her a hug and said something reassuring about winning the war, if not the battle.

The R.N.C. brought things to a point where the Paulites would have felt that just getting his name in the mix—no matter how badly he then lost—would have been a major victory. One wonders if that was wise, or worth it. Other factions with no natural sympathy for Paul have been drawn to the fight about credentialing standards and rules, including the suddenly notorious Rule 12 (and despite what appeared to be a compromise on many points Monday night). Those changes would, in effect, make it easier for whoever emerged as the winner from the primaries and caucuses to erase any divisions before the convention, Etch A Sketch style, and rewrite party rules in between them. That stripping of meaning has largely already happened—it has been a while since a convention actually decided anything—but the rule changes will remove the pretense. Whether that appears practical and efficient or cynical depends on more than one’s affection for Ron Paul. No matter, though: Romney’s forces won, the new rules were approved.

Paul has been a story so far in part because his supporters showed up early at the convention and spoke often. After Paul’s appearance, and some formal business, a line of lesser convention speakers, including John Boehner and the head of the Young Republicans, worked to get the event focussed on defeating Obama who, one speaker said, had “never seen the inside of a lemonade stand.” Tonight, Ann Romney will speak, and perhaps then there will be more love for her husband. Some delegates seemed ready for it. Linda Baker, one of a Kansas delegation that dresses in matching red Chiefs shirts (a gift from the team, one said), said that she was enthusiastic about working for Romney, or at least, “I am now.” It helped, from her perspective, when Romney chose Paul Ryan, with his anti-abortion record, to run with him. She thought that that was the moment when Romney himself seemed to get excited. “That very day, his enthusiasm level went up a notch.”

At 5 P.M. E.T., a single name was placed in nomination, by John Sununu: Mitt Romney. When the roll call began, several state chairs announced their Ron Paul delegates, including the three from Hawaii, still ten from Maine, and thirty-three from Minnesota, “Where,” one of them said, “we are very proud of running a fair state convention.” There were also some for Santorum and Bachmann and other stray candidates, but because none were nominees the chair only repeated the Romney totals. There were more boos, and then the announcement that Romney was over the top—looking like a candidate afraid of disruption, unbothered by artificiality.

_For more of The New Yorker’s convention coverage, visit The Political Scene. You can also read Kelefa Sanneh on Gary Johnson and Ron Paul, Jane Mayer on Republican women, Hendrik Hertzberg on the “We Built It” slogan, George Packer on foreign policy and the R.N.C., Amy Davidson on on the Romney love story and on Chris Christie, and John Cassidy on Ann Romney’s speech.

Photograph by Lauren Lancaster.