“There are some people from the more libertarian side who don’t see Rand as libertarian enough, even though he has a more libertarian voting record than any senator in my lifetime,” said Doug Stafford, one of Paul’s political aides. “He is not a libertarian, he is a libertarian-leaning Republican.”…

Much of the anxiety surrounding Paul in South Carolina is coming not from his activist base but from the traditional donor class — even some with long ties to former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, who supported Paul in 2010 and welcomed him into the Senate’s “Tea Party Caucus” after his victory.

“Rand Paul is probably a little too out there, maybe, for me,” said Barry Wynn, a longtime financial backer of DeMint’s who said, for now, that he’s more intrigued by Floridians Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush in 2016. “I don’t have anything against him. He is just a little more outside of the tradition of the people I would tend to gravitate towards.”

Republican donor Peter Brown, a Columbia signage manufacturer who tried, unsuccessfully, to lure DeMint into the 2012 presidential race, was more blunt.

“The biggest thing that will hurt (Paul) with people like me is he’s got to distance himself from his dad,” Brown said.