Paul in Iowa City: ‘I want to set you free’

IOWA CITY - At a rally on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul hammered home his hallmark small government positions such as limited military intervention and ending phone surveillance.

'I'm the only one in this race who doesn't want dominion over you,” Paul said. 'I want to set you free. I want government so small you can barely see it.”

He railed on leading GOP candidates businessman Donald Trump, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for excess in spending and personality.

'He used government to get rich and bully his competition and now he asks you to give him power,” Paul said of Republican frontrunner Trump at a campaign stop on the University of Iowa campus. 'Electing Gollum should not be our objective,” he said, referring to the evil character in 'Lord of the Rings.”

He knocked Rubio and Cruz for support of an amendment to increase military spending by $200 billion.

'That's the story of Washington,” Paul said. 'Everyone wants to spend and no one wants to cut anything. If I'm president, we will look at all spending across the board. … The inconvenient truth is you can't be a conservative if you are liberal with military spending. We don't become stronger or a safer nation if we borrow from China.”

Paul was joined by his father, former Republican Texas Rep. Ron Paul, at an event dubbed 'The Revolution Continues Rally” at the Iowa Memorial Union.

The elder Paul is an iconic libertarian who helped make 'liberty” principles mainstream within the Republican Party. Ron Paul, who ran for president in 1988, 2008 and 2012, finished third in the 2012 Iowa caucuses with 21 percent of the vote.

'Liberty is a moral issue and built around an idea of non-aggression,” Ron Paul said. 'There's a lot of talk about humility. It pays off to be a bit humble at times. Libertarianism encourages you to be humble. It encourages you to recognize what you don't know.”

The rally of about 800 people with a heavy dose of students broke into chants familiar on the campaign trail of both the older and younger Paul: 'End the fed.”

Rand Paul stopped in Iowa City as part of a five day, 12-city tour of Iowa, which ends today with a whirlwind of stops leading up to the caucuses.

Paul heads into the first-in-the-nation caucus trailing by a large margin, according to Saturday's Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll. It showed Paul in fifth place with 5 percent support.

Ian Dunshee, 22, a UI senior and Paul supporter, came with friend Emma Husar, 21, a UI junior who said she's leaning toward Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democrat, but has not made up her mind and is open to Paul.

Dunshee gravitated to Paul early in the campaign season largely because he agrees with his libertarian values on the economy and reserved military engagement.

'I agree with a philosophy of not messing with everybody, but having diplomatic engagement with everyone,” Dunshee said.

Recognizing Paul is lagging in the polls, Dunshee said his hope is the Kentucky senator can beat expectations and build momentum from there.