Umm.."early on?" Palin endorsed him in February; this race between Paul and Grayson has been going on since May 2009. Not sure which "fringe comments" you're talking about (support for term limits?); but it's clearly having NO EFFECT:
Paul has led in the last six straight independent polls; four of them by double-digits and another (that for some reason wasn't listed on the Wikipedia) by eight points.
Kokesh for congress and thankgoodness he lost in the primary.
Not that I support Kokesh, but he didn't "lose the primary". He failed to make the ballot at the convention, and can still be on the primary ballot if his campaign collects and submits a paltry 1,000 signatures. Do you like to make a habit out of being wrong?