Mending those fences is where Mr Paul comes in. The son of Ron Paul, the cranky veteran libertarian who ran for president in 2012, the younger Mr Paul is popular with grassroots Republicans who prize the Constitution, small government and personal freedom.
Bookmakers also have him as joint second-favourite to win a tangled 2016 Republican presidential nomination contest when the race for the White House finally get under way towards the end of next year.
With just five weeks until polling day, campaign managers hope that Paul's endorsement can overcome the four point gap between Mr Tillis and his Democrat opponent, Kay Hagan, the incumbent Senator who was a strong supporter of Mr Obama's healthcare reforms.
Wedged into the corner of a diner in downtown Raleigh, Mr Paul tried to work up the crowd about the Obamacare health reforms, a topic that Republicans had expected to energise their voters but which has been somewhat overshadowed in recent weeks by the rise of the Islamic State.
Dressed in slightly ill-fitting jeans and a crumpled blue shirt - all part of Mr Paul's anti-establishment image - the senator attacked the 'arrogance' of the Obamacare requirement that all Americans must buy health insurance, which is seen by libertarians as an example of gross government overreach.
'These are fundamental America choices and it goes against the fabric of the country to have legislation that prevents you from choosing your own doctor,' said Mr Paul, 51, who is an ophthalmologist by profession.
It remains to be seen whether Mr Paul's star quality will be enough to convince sufficient numbers of hardcore Republicans to hold their noses and vote for Mr Tillis.
The North Carolina race has been complicated by the emergence of a third party candidate, a pizza delivery man called Sean Haugh who is running for the Libertarian Party and - polls suggest - is stealing precious votes from Mr Tillis.
'Which candidate should libertarians back?' someone asked, to which Mr Paul - a Republican with strong libertarian instincts - gave the establishment answer.
'There are many libertarian ideas that are Republican ideas,' he said. 'Lower taxes, the Constitution, limited government, balanced budgets, personal liberties - and I think Thom Tillis represents those ideas.'
Not surprisingly Mr Haugh, contacted by The Telegraph after the event, disagreed. He argued that no-one - Democrat or Republican - should be fooled by Mr Paul's attempts to pass off Mr Tillis as a true libertarian, or indeed even a conservative.
'I fully expect Rand Paul to say those sorts of things,' he said, 'but the people of North Carolina know that Thom Tillis doesn't stand for libertarian values - either on ending the war in Syria or accumulating this unsustainable national debt.'
Pollsters and analysts say the race remains difficult to predict, with an aggregate of polls currently showing Mr Tillis on 40 per cent, Ms Hagan on about 45 and Mr Haugh winning a potentially decisive four to seven per cent of the vote.
The result will depend on whether or not Republicans like Tiffany Berkner, a 40-year-old mother of three and self-professed Tea Partier in the crowd, grudgingly decide to vote for Mr Tillis.
'The North Carolina Republican party bullied us into choosing Tillis, but I guess I'm going to vote for him - not for North Carolina's sake, but to try and retake the Senate,' she said. 'It's the only way to stop this president from destroying our country.'
But others, like the activist Mr Piserchia, say they will not be moved; raising the possibility of a repeat of last year's Virginia governor's race, where a Libertarian Party candidate won 6.5 per cent of the vote, tipping the race in favour of the Democrats.
If that happens, then the Tea Party and libertarian grassroots, who appeared to have been so successfully squashed by the party establishment during this year's primary season, may yet have their revenge.
Posted by Unknown on Thursday, October 2, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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