Rand Paul, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, raised over $172,000 in his first web-based fundraiser of the general election campaign. While this isn’t his most impressive haul — he raised more than $400,000 in a 24-hour period during one of his primary money bombs — it is solid enough to allay concerns that Paul’s libertarian donor base was cooling to him as he began to work with the mainstream GOP. Paul’s opponent, Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway, is no slouch as a fundraiser himself.
