CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Ron Paul declined to predict where he would finish in Tuesday's caucuses but, asked how he felt his campaign was going, he told The Hill that "the size of the crowds tells me it's going very well."



Paul was speaking Monday as he walked to his car amid a throng of supporters, autograph-hunters and media following a campaign event. Although recent polls have indicated some erosion of Paul's support in the Hawkeye State, he is still in a de facto three-way tie at the head of the field with Mitt Romney and the late-surging Rick Santorum.



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The Texas congressman offered the opposite of a hard sell for his candidacy during his remarks, which lasted 20 minutes. He never explicitly asked people to vote for him, nor did he make the kind of appeals for organizational support or money that are the stock-in-trade of most office-seekers. Instead, he outlined the many ills that, he argued, are ailing the nation.His points ranged from foreign policy (the United States is too involved in other nation's affairs), to monetary policy (the Fed has too much unchecked power) to civil liberties (the government is too quick to infringe upon them).Paul's views — particularly on foreign affairs — cause consternation to much of the Republican establishment, but here they were frequently met with applause. The most boisterous reception of all greeted his pledge to repeal the Patriot Act."Your privacy is being invaded all the time," Paul said. "At the same time, the secrecy of government is expanding. That needs to be reversed. We need open government and more privacy in all your affairs."Paul offered no direct response to the criticism he has received from rivals for being outside the GOP mainstream. Nor did he criticize any of them individually. He instead collectively, but mildly, referred to them as part of the "status quo."Paul was introduced by his son, Sen.(R-Ky.). The younger Paul quoted the poet T.S. Eliot, whom he said had written of "putting on a face to meet the faces you will meet." That artifice was "something you are never going to get from Ron Paul," he said.The locations that the candidates have chosen for events in this final critical period — and the kind of audiences they have drawn — are telling.While Santorum has been holding meetings in coffee shops and local businesses, primarily in the state's most conservative northwestern reaches, Paul's event was held in the airy atrium of the local community college here in actor Ashton Kutcher's hometown. The area, speckled with technology parks as well as farms, is one of the more liberal in the state.An organizer said before Paul spoke that the campaign had expected around 50 people when the event was first organized. The crowd actually numbered around 200. Many of them, as the candidate himself noted, were young people."When I look out here, I don't see anybody over 40 in this crowd," he said. "I am a little bit over 40."

Paul is 76.



Still, the problem for Paul could be whether those young people who come to cheer him will also caucus for him.



"At this point, I am pretty much a committed supporter," Brendan Kelly, an 18-year-old student from nearby Marion, told The Hill. "What appeals to me is just the idea that the government shouldn't be able to take my money. "



Kelly is eligible to vote but is not registered as a Republican. Under the rules of the caucuses, it is possible to register as a Republican on the day of the event and participate in the voting.



Asked if he would do so Tuesday, Kelly replied: "Definitely," before adding, "unless wrestling practice gets in the way."

