But three years is not a very long time to be removed from a campaign run on your bloodline—certainly not long enough to make a convincing argument that ignoring it will make the association go away.

In a documentary about the notorious late Lee Atwater—an adviser to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush—reporter Sam Donaldson recalled him being the first to advocate the push poll. “The first few questions are routine. The next question is, ‘Well, if you came to believe that Governor X was a pedophile, would that change your opinion?’ Now, the poller hasn’t said that Governor X is a pedophile—they simply planted the idea that if he were…” It’s a transparently sinister way to make someone guilty by grouping them with an unsavory concept.

Similarly, Rand Paul is seldom discussed without a mention of Ron Paul, and vice versa. For the majority of the public who are not “I STAND WITH RAND” sign-wielding supporters, distinguishing Rand Paul the individual from the tree he fell so close to may prove difficult.

“The very thing that makes him formidable could very well prove to be the very thing that makes him difficult to vote for—and that’s his last name,” Hogan Gidley, a veteran Republican operative, told me. To be electable, Paul will have to find the balance between appealing to the libertarian base that he inherited, and to establishment voters. “I don’t know that it’s balanceable,” Gidley said. “It’s just a very difficult balance. Rand Paul is a very talented politician … but the question you asked me wasn’t ‘Is he a skilled politician?’ The question was, ‘Is he skilled enough to master that balance?’ And I don’t think he is, and I don’t know that anybody is.”