Paul told reporters that the former secretary of state was 'absolutely responsible.' Paul talks Clinton, Benghazi in Iowa

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – The battle over Benghazi has come to Iowa, colliding head-on with the earliest phase of the 2016 presidential race.

On a campaign-style visit to the first-in-the-nation caucus state Friday, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul sharply and repeatedly accused former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of failing to stop the chaos and bloodshed at the American diplomatic facility there in September.


At a pair of events here in eastern Iowa, Paul seized every opportunity to assail Clinton, the popular former first lady and potential Democratic presidential candidate.

( PHOTOS: Who's talking about Hillary for 2016?)

He drew the crowd to its feet at the Iowa GOP’s annual Lincoln dinner, a desirable speaking slot for presidential candidates, with a Clinton-whacking discourse that began: “First question for Hillary Clinton: where in the hell were the marines?”

Speaking to a group of about two dozen voters at an earlier household event hosted by the Iowa Federation of Republican Women, the first-term senator went so far as to say Clinton should never be allowed to serve in government again.

“I think it precludes Hillary Clinton from ever holding office,” Paul said of the Benghazi affair. “I think her mistakes were of such significance that she should never again be in that position, to make those decisions.”

And hours before that, Paul told reporters at a press conference that Clinton was “absolutely responsible” for the inadequate security at the U.S. mission in Benghazi. The facility sustained a terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2012, that claimed the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

( Also on POLITICO: Paul: Clinton 'absolutely' to blame)

“She was in charge of the State Department. She was asked repeatedly for increased security for Benghazi,” Paul seethed. “I fault her absolutely for not reading the cables.”

He continued: “Part of being in charge is triaging what comes to your desk and what doesn’t come to your desk. And to say that Libya wasn’t important enough for her to be reading the cables from the ambassador asking for more security, I think was inexcusable.”

A Clinton spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment. At a Wednesday briefing, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the administration was fully confident that Clinton had handled her job appropriately. He accused Republicans of trying to politicize the terrorist attack.

“This is a subject that has, from its beginning, been subject to attempts to politicize it by Republicans, when, in fact, what happened in Benghazi was a tragedy,” Carney said

Paul’s appearance at the Lincoln dinner caps off a week in which Republicans in the House of Representatives have grilled State Department and other executive branch officials over the response to the attack in Libya last fall, inquiring whether the Obama administration did everything possible to avert fatalities and inform the public about the details of the tragedy.

Paul says he has not yet decided whether to run in 2016, but by going after Clinton so insistently in a key presidential state, he may hope to convince the GOP faithful that he’s a worthy standard-bearer in three years.

At the same retail event with Republican women, Paul explicitly warned listeners about Clinton as a 2016 candidate – in response to a voter’s musing about the possibility of President Barack Obama seeking an FDR-style third term.

“I tell people, don’t worry so much about a third term of Obama. Worry about a third term of Clintons – because it may not be Bill, but it could be Hillary in 2016,” Paul said.

A woman in the audience called out: “She’s too old!” Paul joked back: “Tell her that – I defy you!”

It remains to be seen whether the controversy over the Benghazi attack will take a toll on Clinton’s public image. Recent public opinion polls have pegged her as one of the best-liked politicians in the country, a prohibitive favorite for her party’s 2016 nomination and a strong general election candidate.

In that light, it’s no surprise that Republican politicians and advocacy organizations – including the conservative outside groups American Crossroads and America Rising – have sought to hype the congressional hearings this week as a blemish on Clinton’s record.

And Paul is not the only would-be Republican president taking a bat to the Democratic party’s most pined-for potential candidate. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio penned a USA Today op-ed Thursday declaring that new revelations from the House inquiry undercut Clinton’s reputation and credibility.

“The House hearing raises new questions about Secretary Hillary Clinton’s role in the administration’s efforts to portray the attack as the result of a spontaneous demonstration, despite abundant evidence to the contrary and efforts by one of her top lieutenants to intimidate those who were asking the right questions,” Rubio wrote. “We need to bring those behind this attack to justice and make sure that a tragedy like Benghazi does not happen again.”

If this week’s anti-Clinton pile-on has turned into something of a rhetorical bidding war, it may be difficult to top Paul’s extended bombardment Friday.

Indeed, at his public appearances Friday afternoon, Paul sounded like an undeclared candidate eager to draw aggressive contrasts with the most formidable of his possible Democratic foes.

Whenever an Iowa Republican brought up Benghazi, Paul immediately trained his fire on Clinton, casting her as a delinquent leader at the State Department who failed to heed calls for additional diplomatic security.

“She came before my committee and said she never read any of the cables,” Paul told his fans in a Cedar Rapids living room.

While others in his party have focused on allegations that the White House misidentified a terrorist attack as a spontaneous riot, or failed to provide reinforcements to the consulate on the day of the attack, Paul said he’s most alarmed by the run-up to that bloody day.

He trashed Clinton for suggesting the State Department didn’t have enough money to secure its embassies, and questioned why State – as opposed to the military – had taken charge of protecting the installation to begin with.

“The ambassador wrote a direct cable to her [requesting security] and she said she didn’t even read it. That was a month before the attack,” Paul said. “She says, ‘oh, I didn’t have enough money.’ They spent $100,000 on an electrical charging station at the Vienna embassy.”

At his afternoon press conference, the senator likened the Benghazi incident to the Black Hawk Down catastrophe in Somalia in the 1990s, when 18 Americans died in a botched rescue mission in Mogadishu.

And lest any reporters failed to remember who was president at the time, Paul was ready with a reminder.

Benghazi, he said, was “a tragic lack of leadership, similar to what Les Aspin did in Mogadishu under Bill Clinton. And he ultimately resigned his office.”

Paul acknowledged at one point that as a member of the Senate minority, there’s relatively little that he can do directly to force accountability on Benghazi from the executive branch. That task, he said, will fall mostly to the GOP-held House.

“I have less power, other than being on television talking about it,” Paul said.