Stand with Rand or fall with Paul?

Whatever else that can be said about Rand Paul, he knows how to attract the eyeballs. The Kentucky senator's chances of winning the Republican nomination are slim. He is probably too wacky for a party that usually falls in line behind the establishment's choice. Yet in a field as crowded as this, Mr Paul's distinctiveness is a selling point - even if some of what he is peddling runs directly against the party's grain. Mr Paul's bet is that in a confusingly long roster of conservative hopefuls, he will emerge as the bushy-tailed alternative to Jeb Bush.

His case is based on one indisputable premise - the Republican Party needs to adapt to America's changing demography. Its failure to attract younger voters, women, African-Americans and other groups costs it a little bit more with each general election. Alone among Republicans, Mr Paul has ventured into black and millennial territory for votes. He has spoken at California's Berkeley campus - a bastion of student liberalism - and at Howard University, the leading African-American college. He has empathised with black protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, and backed marijuana legislation advocates across the country. He has by far the most sophisticated Republican social media operation. He is also its leading critic of the National Security Agency. On Tuesday Mr Paul vowed to "immediately end this unconstitutional surveillance" on the first day of his presidency.

It is a line that none of his Republican rivals are likely to echo. Yet are there enough Republican libertarians out there to carry Mr Paul through? The answer is almost certainly no. Mr Paul's father, Ron Paul, who tried three times for the Republican nomination, won up to a fifth of the vote in his best primaries yet never came close to taking a state. Paul junior knows he must dilute his libertarian philosophy to appeal to hardline social conservatives in Iowa, which holds the first caucus, and sound more hawkish if he is to win defence conservatives in South Carolina. Among the early states, New Hampshire is the only one that comes close to Mr Paul's "leave us the hell alone" politics.

Yet in broadening his appeal to the non-libertarian base, Mr Paul risks sacrificing what makes his candidacy unique. At times on Tuesday, Mr Paul sounded a little bit like Ted Cruz, the ultra-hawkish Texan senator, who was the first Republican to declare his official candidacy last month. Mr Paul declared radical Islam to be the enemy - "there is no getting around it", he said. He also promised to oppose any Iran deal that did not lead to the full dismantling of its nuclear apparatus. He was one of 47 senators last month who wrote to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, to warn against a deal with Mr Obama. It is a far cry from Mr Paul's lonely, yet courageous, 13-hour filibuster against Mr Obama's use of drones to kill US citizens on foreign soil. It is also very different to the unapologetic isolationism that Mr Paul used to espouse.

Yet the world has started to look a lot more dangerous in the past 18 months - and the Republican party is returning to its hawkish roots. If Mr Paul is to stand a chance of becoming the conservative standard bearer against Jeb Bush, he has to move beyond his father's standard "audit the Fed", "end NSA snooping" slogans. Yet in so doing, he will risk losing the support of his narrow but ardent libertarian base. It will be a hard circle to square. "Stand with Rand" could well turn into "Fall with Paul".

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