Like father, like son. Less than 12 hours into his latest online “money bomb,” Rand Paul had already raised more than $100,000 for his race to win the Republican senatorial nomination in Kentucky. Buoyed by scientific polling that shows the Bowling Green ophthalmologist and son of Ron Paul leading Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, the party establishment’s favorite, Paul has begun to attract the kind of mainstream conservative support propelling primary campaigns by Marco Rubio and Chuck DeVore.

Rand Paul has already won the endorsement of RedState’s Erick Erickson and Sen. Jim DeMint might be next. The younger Paul has been able to win over the kind of traditional Republicans who balked at his father’s presidential campaign. If this success continues, it may more closely resemble Ron Paul’s return to Congress in 1996, when the elder Paul put together a coalition of Old Right libertarian types and such mainstream conservatives as Steve Forbes and ace pitcher Nolan Ryan to defeat Democrat-turned-Republican Greg Laughlin in the GOP primary — against the establishment’s wishes. Either way, this has emerged as a race to watch.