It wasn’t billed as such, but Ron Paul’s moment at the Republican Convention Wednesday evening marked the effective end of a long and remarkable political career as the libertarian gadfly within the GOP.

He gave no scheduled speech here; he had refused to let the Romney campaign pre-approve any comments he might have made. And his supporters fought hard and very vocally to the end – unsuccessfully, as it turned out – against the Republican Party’s last-minute efforts to restrict the number and voice of future insurgents, obviously referencing the 177 delegates Mr. Paul had won in the party’s presidential caucuses and primaries and were pushing to have his name at least entered into nomination before the roll call vote.

But it does the Republican Party and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign no good to alienate an active and unique slice of conservatism – one with considerable overlap with the tea party movement.