Mr. Paul said that he had recently read in newspapers that the so-called Ron Paul Revolution was over, and that whatever enthusiasm voters had shown toward his presidential campaign in the Republican primary season was gone.  “They only wish!” Mr. Paul thundered to an audience that seemed to become more energized with his every word, their roars of approval reaching a deafening level inside the Sun Dome at the University of South Florida.  On this evening, Mr. Paul, the longtime libertarian House member from Texas and presidential contender, was in characteristic form: animated, witty, irreverent and uncensored. He spoke for more than an hour to supporters who had waited five hours to hear him. At times, bursting with spirit, he shouted. At other moments, he lowered his voice to make his favorite points.  Mr. Paul, 77, was not scheduled to speak at the Republican convention. And in a credentials dispute, hard-bargaining party leaders left the Paul forces with only half the delegates from Maine that they had thought they had won — a blunt reminder of Mitt Romney’s grip on the proceedings.  Over all, the Sunday rally might be seen as something of a consolation prize for a campaign that was unable to leverage its grass-roots enthusiasm into party strength. But none of that stopped Mr. Paul from getting his message across.  “Seems to me,” he told the crowd, “they would be begging and pleading for us to come into the party.”  Mr. Paul added, “The worst thing we could do is be silent.”  At another rally on Sunday at a Tampa church, two other former presidential contenders, Herman Cain and Representative Michele Bachmann, spoke to a boisterous crowd of several hundred Tea Party supporters.  “There were some people who hoped you all wouldn’t show up,” said Mr. Cain, a former pizza chain executive. “Y’all fooled them.”  Mr. Cain, who quit the race after accusations of sexual harassment, revisited that episode, blaming his early exit on “lies and dirty politics.”  He said was not concerned that he did not have a speaking role at the convention. “It’s not about me, it’s about the grandkids,” he said, repeating a line that he often used during his campaign. “That’s what a lot of people don’t understand about what Herman is up to.”  In her speech, Mrs. Bachmann said the country was experiencing “a spiritual hurricane,” apparently a reference to Tropical Storm Isaac.  Mr. Paul’s rally, just a few miles from where the convention is to be held, was seen as an unpredictable element in an otherwise highly scripted week for the Republicans, as legions of Mr. Paul’s fans descended on Tampa, their larger intentions somewhat unclear. Would they try to disrupt the convention? Or distract from Mr. Romney’s moment in the spotlight?  Technically, Mr. Paul remains a potential nominee. But at least for now, any agitation by his forces has been limited to Sunday’s highly organized half-day assembly, where many carried signs and shouted for the elimination of the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Reserve banking system.  After several hours of musical interludes, videos and speeches by surrogates — including Mr. Paul’s wife, Carol, and one of his sons, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, among campaign workers and elected officials — the crowd grew restless for Mr. Paul himself.  When he finally took the stage around 5 p.m., he electrified the room.  Mr. Paul repeatedly stuck to the message he has been delivering since the beginning of the campaign season, and all of his political life, really. “We don’t want a more efficient government,” Mr. Paul said. “We want to get the government out of the business it’s not supposed to be doing.”  He railed against what he called the nation’s interventionist foreign policy, made his usual plea for broad individual liberties and called for the abolition of many government agencies.  “Look out for the seeds of authoritarian society,” Mr. Paul said. “Every one of us has a responsibility.”  Mr. Paul also showered praise on his youthful supporters, crediting them for bringing his message to their parents and others who might not have paid attention otherwise.  And young supporters — long the lifeblood of the Paul campaign — showed up in droves. The movement is not over, they repeated.  “This was a lot more than a campaign,” said Evan Donald Gregory, 19, a sophomore at the University of Central Florida. “And it is by no means a thing of the past. If anything, he was a catalyst.”  Mr. Gregory’s friend Jake Rakoci, 19, added: “What this rally shows, if anything, is that his ideas are only getting people going. People came here from everywhere to support the idea of liberty and the idea of Ron Paul, and we’re going to keep spreading those ideas.”
Denied a speaking slot at the Republican convention, Ron Paul told a gathering of 10,000 of his supporters that his âliberty movementâ was alive and well.