“This campaign has a few months left to it,” he said. “It’s not going to end like some people pretend.”

But it’s not going to end with the Republican nomination, a fact that was apparent to outsiders all along, but one that even some of the most zealous Paul supporters are now willing to admit. (Not, they said, that that will stop them from writing in the candidate’s name.) And the Texan’s campaign and career are in their twilight. Paul hasn’t suffered the sort of calamitous fall as Newt Gingrich, who has left his private sector activities in a bankrupt shambles, whose campaign is deep in debt to vendors, and whose candidacy has been reduced to the status of novelty. Paul’s campaign has always ridden a separate track to a destination all its own, and he’s not out of money. He isn’t exactly a protest candidate, though many of his views have been formed in direct protest to trends in mainstream politics. He hasn’t won a state and garners little attention from the media, but turns out large, enthusiastic crowds wherever he goes.