Paul offers hope for “liberty lovers”

IOWA CITY - Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul brought an anti-Washington, anti-establishment message to the University of Iowa campus Friday, saying the best hope for 'liberty lovers” young and old in America is to limit government's reach and empower individual creativity.

Paul, 52, a first-term U.S. senator from Kentucky, said he is carrying a message of liberty and hope from coast to coast to rally Americans who feel disenfranchised by the major political parties and believe Washington has lost touch with their dreams and is running 'roughshod” over their constitutionally protected rights.

'I have a vision for America. I want to be part of a return to prosperity. I want to see a true economic boom that lifts all Americans,” Paul told an appreciative crowd that rallied at the UI Memorial Union. 'It isn't about how government will lead us to prosperity. The debate is about getting government out of the way of human ingenuity.”

Making his first campaign stop in Iowa as an announced 2016 presidential candidate, the Kentucky Republican said he was buoyed by a Quinnipiac University Poll released this week showing he leads likely Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton with 43 percent support to her 42 percent among Iowa voters. Clinton is expected to make her campaign announcement on Sunday.

'Iowa definitely is a purple state now, particularly for presidential elections, and showing that we command enough of the independent vote to beat Hillary Clinton in Iowa I think is a huge plus for us this week,” Paul said in an interview. 'She's going to have to actively do something because her numbers are in a downward spiral.”

In his appeal to independent Iowans and 'the Instagram generation,” Paul differentiated himself Friday from Republicans who have won election but 'squandered our victory by becoming part of the Washington machine. That's not who I am,” he said in expressing concerns about government encroachment on privacy and personal freedoms and a spiraling $18 trillion nation debt that is crimping young people's future.

'We live in the greatest, freest, richest, most-humanitarian country on earth, don't let your parent's generation screw it up,” Paul told the morning rally.

'Washington is horribly broken. I fear it cannot be fixed from within. We, the people, must rise up and demand action,” he added.

During his nearly half-hour speech, Paul offered ways to clean up the 'mess” in Washington by limiting the terms of members of Congress and forcing them to balance the federal budget with a constitutional amendment requiring it.

He said he has worked to find common ground on bipartisan efforts to easing harsh drug penalties, allow an opportunity for Americans to get their voting rights back, guarantee government can't seize forfeited property without first obtaining a criminal conviction, remove federal prohibitions on medical marijuana and take a go-slow approach to international military intervention.

'I've tried to bring a different approach to Washington,” he said. 'I will work with anyone. I don't care whether you're a Republican, a Democrat, or a Lilliputian. I work with anybody who honestly wants to fix things.”

However, Jim Mowrer, vice chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, met told reporters before the Paul event that the GOP senator was attempting to repackage old Republican policies that haven't worked.

'Despite what Sen. Paul is trying to sell to young people, his ideas are not new or innovative. They're the same tired GOP policies that increase inequality and make it harder for young people to get ahead,” Mowrer said.

'He is here to sell the ideas of a far-right ideologue, not the family values we honor here in Iowa. Rand Paul is in the pockets of the ultrawealthy billionaires that want to destroy the middle class, not build it up,” he added. 'Rand Paul is not right for Iowa and is definitely not right to be our next president.”

However, GOP agribusiness leader Steve Sukup of Clear Lake who helped introduce Paul, said the Kentucky senator is attracting a broad range of Republicans, independent and libertarians with his inclusive message.

'He's solid on business issues, solid on social issue and yet he can bring in a different group willing to listen,” said Sukup, a former state legislator and 2002 GOP gubernatorial candidate.