Despite the media's endless attempts to create the illusion of Paul being some sort of tea party godfather he's not. Just because his supporters share some (slim) common ground with the rest of us does not make him a tea party candidate.
That you personally don’t like Paul or his politics doesn’t mean he and his supporters are somehow isolated from the grass roots and Tea Party. It’s pretty obvious now he’s a got a lot of vocal support at the ground level, unlike some of the lead RINOs, and a lot of that support is in the Tea Party ranks, whether you like it or not. If Paul’s supporters in the Tea Party, or his support of the Tea Party, aren’t recognized by your local movement or the Iowan movement, they’re both doing pretty well connecting elsewhere. Either way, seems to me that grass roots conservative activists were far more influential than anyone could have hoped given the relative lack of mention they’ve gotten in the press lately.
What’s funny is that, unlike you, I don’t recall the MSM spouting about how Paul was part of the Tea Party movement. I just know it from experience. So it must be that you follow the MSM a lot more closely.