FREEPORT — U.S. Sen. Rand Paul brought his presidential campaign to Maine on Tuesday, telling his audience in a packed restaurant that he would work to cut taxes and “audit the Pentagon” while also protecting civil liberties.

The Kentucky Republican stopped in Freeport as part of a multiday swing through New England in an effort to energize a campaign that has struggled to gain traction within a large field of Republican candidates dominated so far by business mogul Donald Trump. He hit familiar themes from his libertarian-themed campaign, criticizing the estimated $18 trillion national debt and the National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ phone data, as well as the “war on drugs.”

Speaking to a crowd of more than 250 gathered in Linda Bean’s Maine Kitchen and Topside Tavern, Paul blasted both parties’ spending habits and tax policies.

“If we want jobs in America, let’s make it a good place to do business,” Paul said. “I would make America a place where (businesses) will beat the doors down … because I will eliminate all 70,000 pages of the tax code, I’d eliminate the IRS and I will let you fill your tax return out on one page.”

Paul took several shots at the perceived front-runners in the 2016 race – Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republicans Trump and Jeb Bush – but received some of the most enthusiastic cheers when he accused President Barack Obama and generations of presidents from both parties of attempting to consolidate power within the executive branch.

“I promise you this … that if I am your nominee and if I become president, I am not going to go there to accumulate power,” Paul said. “I am going to go there to give it back to you, to the states and to the people,” Paul said.

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An ophthalmologist first elected to the Senate in 2010, Paul is running a campaign focused on issues such as federal spending, limited government and reining in what he sees as abuses of Americans’ constitutional rights, particularly by the NSA. He has accused many of his Republican rivals of abandoning key party principles, such as small government and defending the Constitution. But Paul also strays from the party mainstream by advocating for marijuana legalization, immigration reform and a more limited U.S. role in foreign affairs and wars.

A libertarian favorite regarded as a potential change-maker in the “Grand Old Party,” Paul has struggled to pick up support in national polls of likely Republican primary voters and to compete financially with some of his well-connected Republican rivals. The results of a Public Policy Polling survey released Tuesday showed Paul polling at just 1 percent, compared with Trump at 29 percent support, followed by Ben Carson at 15 percent and Bush at 9 percent.

Paul’s swing this week through the traditionally Democratic-leaning New England – with stops in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine – could be aimed at courting the region’s healthy libertarian segment. It was notable that Paul held his rally at the restaurant owned by Linda Bean, a prominent Maine Republican who also campaigned on behalf of Paul’s father, former congressman Ron Paul, during the 2012 campaign.

Turning his attention to the challenge of Islamic militants, Rand Paul pledged to seek to cut off U.S. financial support for countries that support the persecution of Christians. He expanded upon his call to “audit the Fed” – or Federal Reserve – by adding he would also seek to “audit the Pentagon,” a statement unlikely to win favor with Republican defense hawks in Congress. But Kentucky’s junior senator said there was “an unholy alliance in Washington between the right and the left.”

“The right believes in unlimited spending for the military and the left believes in unlimited spending for welfare. What happens? They get together behind closed doors … and your spending goes through the roof and debt goes through the roof,” Paul said. “While I believe defending the country is the most important priority of the federal government, it still cannot be an unlimited checkbook.”

Tuesday’s crowd included many people who supported Paul’s father in 2012, including Bean, now-state Sen. Eric Brakey of Auburn and Republican National Committee member Ashley Ryan.

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Back in 2012, Ron Paul’s supporters won control of the state party convention and then elected 20 Paul delegates to Maine’s 24-member delegation to the Republican National Convention in Tampa. National party leaders later stripped half of Maine’s Ron Paul delegates and filled them with Mitt Romney supporters, prompting outcries from libertarian-minded convention attendees from Maine and other states.

Introducing Paul on Tuesday, Brakey called the senator “the only fiscal conservative” in the pack of 17 Republican presidential candidates.

Peter Frink of Kennebunkport was another Ron Paul supporter now backing his son.

“I’m a registered Republican and my philosophy is libertarian, so I like Rand Paul,” Frink said. “Everything he said is ringing true with my philosophies. He is an individualist.”

Poland resident Zachary Maher was a solid Ron Paul supporter in 2012 who, three years later, appeared to be leaning toward his son. Maher said he wasn’t sure he could support anyone else in the current Republican field, and he was looking for a candidate who was “fiscally conservative and socially liberal.”

Paul ended his roughly 25 minutes of remarks by calling on the Republican Party to become a “party of justice” that defends the civil rights of the poor and “shows concern” for those in poverty by creating tax-free zones for businesses that open in inner-city areas with depressed economies. He also called for an end to drug-related criminal justice policies that imprison people for drug possession.

Paul is the latest 2016 presidential hopeful to visit Maine.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie visited Portland in July to receive an endorsement from fellow Republican Gov. Paul LePage. Bush held a fundraiser at the family compound in Kennebunkport later that month, and Republican Carly Fiorina will be the guest speaker at a Maine Heritage Policy Center luncheon on Thursday. The largest crowd, by far, was drawn by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent running as a Democrat who drew more than 7,500 people to Portland’s Cross Insurance Arena on July 6.


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