(BUSINESS INSIDER) Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul broke ranks with his father's political army this week and endorsed Mitt Romney as the Republican Party presidential nominee, setting off a firestorm of outrage in the Ron PaulUniverse.
As the comments suggest, Sen. Paul's endorsement appears to have seriously damaged his credibility within the Movement — at least among its most hardcore activists. The virulent backlash indicates that the endorsement could have harmful political ramifications for the Kentucky Senator, raising doubts about his ability to unite his father's grassroots army with more mainstream elements of the Republican Party base. "I think Rand Paul believed he could build from his father's base," said Brian Doherty, a journalist who has been covering the Ron Paul Revolution since the late 1990s. "But I think he has probably found in the last 24 hours that this might prove more difficult than he expected."