IOWA CITY, Iowa -- Congressman Ron Paul was greeted with chants of "President Paul" from a crowd of more than 1,000 at the University of Iowa Friday night, where his campaign held a "Youth For Ron Paul" event on homecoming weekend.

"I was told this was a special weekend and not too many would show up," Paul said. "Thank you for coming!"

The 76-year-old congressman was enthusiastic and tailored his speech to the 20-something crowd, receiving multiple standing ovations, as he placed particular emphasis on personal liberty.

"I think of liberty as being self ownership. Who owns you; who owns your life; who has the responsibility for you. … Some of this comes from self ownership, of course it means that it’s your body and people shouldn’t tell you what to do with your body," said Paul, who is staunchly anti-abortion rights.

"You should use your liberty, from my viewpoint, and my advice is use it in a productive manner. I see liberty as the release of creative energy and the purpose is to work for excellence and virtue. … If your spiritual life, which is a serious responsibility, and your intellectual life is a serious responsibility, why is it that we assume you can have free decisions there,\; why shouldn’t you have free decisions on what you eat, drink, smoke and put into your own body!"

Paul continued to focus on the war on drugs, as he did on Wednesday at the UNLV "Youth For Ron Paul" event. To emphasize his position, Paul told the story of Jose Guerena, a former U.S. Marine who served two tours in Iraq and was killed May 5th by a Pima County SWAT team, which mistakenly raided his home on the assumption he was in possession of marijuana -- as Guerena's wife and 4-year-old child hid in a closet. Guerena was holding a rifle when he was shot, according to police. Police also said they found a large sum of money in his house.

"He had nothing in his house," Paul said. "What are we doing to ourselves? … Right now, I fear for the destruction of my liberty and your liberty from domestic threats."

Talking about the Republican presidential campaign, Paul contrasted his donors with GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney’s by sharing his recent fundraising totals -- his top three individual donations come from members of the U.S. Air Force, Army, and Navy.

"There is another candidate, and I'll let you guess who it is, but he's top in the polls right now," Paul said. "And he's got top three donations, and they all came from three big banking institutions." That was greeted with boos.

"I wonder if they expect to get some special benefits from the Federal Reserve or just what -- another bailout."

Paul also went after President Obama and the U.S. role in Libya.

"Oh yeah, great victory yesterday," Paul said sarcastically of the death of Moammar Khaddafy. "And the President is bragging, 'Got another one.' How can we be proud of that? No matter how bad a guy he was, who’s responsibility? It’s the responsibility of the people of Libya to make their self determination and deal with that. But no, we ended up paying for this. It was our bombs and our weapons that do this and believe me, it will be our burden. It is not going to go away."

Reports indicate members of Libyan rebel forces are the ones who found and killed Khaddafy, not the United States. The United States played a support role in the overall mission in Libya.

Paul named a number of individuals that the U.S. government had previously supported, including Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Nicaragua's Manuel Noriega, Iran's Mohammad Mosaddegh, and even Osama bin Laden when he was a member of the Mujahideen fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

"It makes no sense whatsoever," Paul said. "It’s a schizophrenic foreign policy. … They only have two options -- we tell a dictator what to do, and if he does it, we give him a lot of money. If he doesn’t do it, we kill him!" He added, "If you look at Pakistan, they actually came up with a third option. The third option is we’ll do both -- we’ll keep bombing you and undermining, killing people making them mad at their own government, because their government supports us, and we give the government money. And we wonder why there’s chaos in that country. But I tell you what, there’s another option … that is the one the founders advised … making friends with as many people who want to be friends and trade with as many people who want to trade. Not try to get involved in the internal affairs, not to get involved in entangling alliances."

Paul also said the reason he chose to go into medicine, a first on the campaign trail in Iowa, was because he didn't want to fight in war, carry a gun, or "shoot anybody."

"One of the reasons I went into medicine, because I do remember World War II and Korea," he said, "and I hadn’t decided what profession to get into. One of the things that motivated me to go into medicine is the fact that I never wanted to carry a gun. I never wanted to shoot anybody and I thought well, I’ll probably get drafted someday, and I certainly am not going to play that game in war. And lo and behold, I was drafted in 1962, ended up being in the service for five years."

LAS VEGAS, NV –- Yesterday afternoon at the Venetian Hotel, presidential hopeful Ron Paul unveiled his 11-page “Restore America” economic plan in front of a crowd of enthusiastic supporters. 

“I am here today to release a plan I have for balancing the budget and cutting in the first year, $1 trillion,” Paul said. “A lot of people will say, 'Well cutting $1 trillion in one year, that sounds radical.' But you know, I operate on the assumption that the radicals have been in charge way too long.”

The “Restore America” economic plan claims to balance the budget in three years, eliminate all foreign aid and dismantle at least five federal departments -- the Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, and Interior departments. "That’s a start,” Paul said with a laugh.

“Many of those important parts of each of those departments will be held in another department ... so nobody gets laid off immediately, they get laid off through attrition, because we’re going to learn to live with a lot less government and we don’t need to keep hiring more and more people to replace those who should be retiring.”

Earlier Tuesday afternoon, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh seemed to endorse Paul’s economic plan and the elimination of federal departments, telling a caller who asked about the deficit, “You’re not going to believe my answer. Ron Paul has a good idea.”

“Fooling around the margins in all this spending isn’t going to get it done... Genuine big spending cuts are the only thing that is going to bring us back into some semblance,” Limbaugh said. “Nobody on our side’s ever really proposed it, and Ron Paul is going to. Everything Paul is suggesting ... he will be the first candidate to actually do so. It’ll be interesting to see how they react to this.”

CONCORD, NH -- Jon Huntsman cemented his one-state New Hampshire campaign strategy by registering for the Granite State primary at the State House this afternoon. The former Utah governor handed Secretary of State Bill Gardner a $1,000 check and autographed a commemorative election form that removed any remaining doubt that he is focused here.

"In the Hunt -- and only in NH!" Huntsman wrote in black marker.

Earlier today -- the first day of a two-week filing period -- Ron Paul registered first via a proxy, campaign staffer Chris Younce. Fred Karger also registered this morning, presenting Secretary of State Bill Gardner with an oversized check and campaign frisbee.

Vice President Joe Biden will file on behalf of President Obama on Thursday, according to the Secretary of State's office.

Huntsman expressed confidence about his campaign in New Hampshire, despite dismal campaign finance numbers that show him in nearly $900,000 in debt and low national poll numbers.

"I'm not at all worried at all. I was the co-chairman of a candidate by the name of John McCain who was flat broke -- in fact more than that, he was a couple million bucks in debt when he was sitting right here in New Hampshire," Huntsman told reporters. "And he turned it around in this state, because he had a message the people felt strongly about."

Huntsman, who is boycotting Tuesday's GOP debate in protest of Nevada's early caucus, will hold a town hall meeting at approximately the same time as the televised debate. He will also host a separate town hall event tomorrow afternoon.

Earlier last week, Huntsman was the first GOP candidate to publicly boycott the Nevada caucuses, accusing Mitt Romney of pushing for an earlier date.

"To upend the calendar at this point really does smack of politics to some degree," Huntsman said today.

"I would call on those who haven't already expressed a boycott toward Nevada to do so," he told reporters.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul raised $8 million in the third quarter with 100,000 donors, his campaign confirms to NBC News.

Paul has now announced the news -- at his speech at the National Press Club in Washington, NBC's Carrie Dann reports.

Paul raised $4.5 million in the second quarter.

Paul has a devoted following that has bolstered his fundraising this cycle and in 2007-2008. In the latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, Paul was third with 9% behind Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Ron Paul said President Obama should be impeached for the killing of the al Qaeda-linked, American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. But, then again, so should every other president he's known, he said.

An "impeachment process would be possible,” he told students at a University of New Hampshire town hall. “You could do more investigating into this. I put responsibility on the president. This is obviously a major step in the wrong direction.”

Asked on what crime or offense he would impeach Obama on, Paul responded: "I just said almost every president I've known I'd probably have to vote for impeachment, because there's very little respect for the Constitution -- and certainly there's no respect for the Constitution for assassinating American citizens."

MANCHESTER NH -- Ron Paul aggressively criticized President Obama today for al-Awlaki's death.

"No I don't think that's a good way to deal with our problems," Paul said in a media avail after his remarks at the Politics + Eggs event here. "He was born here, Al-Awlaki was born here, he is an American citizen. He was never tried or charged for any crimes. No one knows if he killed anybody. We know he might have been associated with the underwear bomber. But if the American people accept this blindly and casually that we now have an accepted practice of the president assassinating people who he thinks are bad guys, I think it's sad.

"I think what would people ... have said about Timothy McVeigh? We didn't assassinate him, who certainly he had done it. Went and put through the courts then executed him. To start assassinating American citizens without charges, we should think very seriously about this."

Does he feel the same about Bin Laden? "

Not exactly. "Because he was involved in 9/11 and I voted for authority to go after those individuals responsible for 9/11," Paul said. "Al-Awlaki nobody ever suggested that he was participant in 9/11."

NEW YORK -- After he predicted his campaign is “on the verge of an explosion of interest” in an appearance on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Texas Congressman Ron Paul drew chants and cheers from the crowd of 1,862 supporters (according to the campaign) that packed Webster Hall’s Grand Ballroom Monday night.

In both events, the presidential hopeful highlighted the consistency of his message.

“So much has changed in the last four years.” Paul told the predominantly 20- to 40-year-old crowd at the venue that's also hosted events for Madonna and Mick Jagger. “The country has changed, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my message hasn’t changed.”

And in his earlier "Daily Show" appearance, host Jon Stewart also joked with Paul that it may be his steadfast message that is holding him back. “It seems like what gets a lot of attention is saying one thing a few years ago and then changing your position. Have you thought about… flip-flopping?” Stewart asked Paul.

The 2012 cycle marks Rep. Paul’s third run for the White House, but central points of his platform have remained the same including economic and personal liberty. He placed fifth in the recent Florida Straw Poll, and has struggled to gain recognition as a viable option from party establishment and some in the media.

Still, Stewart noted, “Your 15% or 12% or 10% will yell harder than Romney’s 30%” -- and yell they did from the floor and the balcony at Webster Hall. Organizers moved the event to the larger Grand Ballroom less than 24 hours ahead of Paul’s remarks when ticket demand exceeded the capacity of the previously booked venue. 

Lisa Favara, 32, who attended the event at Webster Hall, told NBC News the 76-year-old Congressman is her choice because “the other Republican candidates have co-opted his message. In 2008, he was saying the same things, and in 2012 they have come around to his message.”

On the same day as the Republican presidential debate in Orlando, Congressman Ron Paul is playing a little offense.

In a USA Today op-ed, Paul takes a shot a Mitt Romney and the health-care legislation he signed into law in Massachusetts.

"The idea that more government involvement in health care is the solution, especially at a time when the nation is dealing with record deficits and debt, is preposterous," he writes. "And the promised effectiveness of forced mandate health care is easily disproven by looking at how such a system has worked in Massachusetts."

"Whether in Massachusetts or at the national level, even more government involvement will make things worse. There are no easy answers or silver bullets, but solutions lie in moving toward freedom, not more corporatism or socialism."

In addition to his op-ed, Paul's campaign is taking to the airwaves. As part of a $1 million ad buy, the Paul campaign has a new TV ad detailing his work for veterans and highlights his own military service. (Rick Perry is the only other military veteran running for president.)

The ad -- entitled “He Served” -- shows images of Paul in uniform as a United States Air Force flight surgeon in the 1960s, and it features two veterans who describe their experience during the Vietnam War. U.S. Army veterans Joe Pena and Rene Reyes detail how Congressman Paul helped them get long overdue medals. 

“It takes a veteran to understand a veteran, and he is a veteran himself," Pena says in the ad.

"Ron Paul is a veteran's best friend," Reyes adds.

And in a continued push to defend his non-interventionist foreign policy, Paul cites how his campaign received more donations from active duty military service members than other candidates combined –- including President Obama -- saying this Iowa on Tuesday: "It's very logical for the military people to say we want a commander-in-chief that will be cautious."

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, who's making his second third bid for the White House, was the featured guest at this morning's Christian Science Monitor breakfast, where he was asked about his strategy.

Paul's response:

"I have one goal in life politically, and the goal is to make this a better country." He said he also wants to "change economic policy, change our foreign policy, change the monetary policy, and explain to people why we have booms and busts."

He continued, "You can't get out of a bust if you don't understand where the boom came from. The bust is the consequence of the boom. So my strategy doesn't change. I have political people that work and do things in strategy."

One thing was missing from his answer: winning the presidency.

Ron Paul's presidential campaign used the occasion of Constitution Day for a 24-hour money bomb that raised more than $1 million from over 18,000 donors, according to the campaign.

Following Paul’s win at the California GOP straw poll on Saturday, where the presidential hopeful grabbed 45% of the vote, the campaign sent fundraising emails urging supporters to continue to donate and use the victory as “more proof of what polls have been saying for months” -- that Paul is “a top tier contender to WIN the Republican nomination for President,” and the Republican to “defeat President Obama.”

In a statement about the money bomb, Ron Paul 2012 Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton said:

“Our campaign continues to grow in strength and numbers, and the success of these truly grassroots events is a telling example of Dr. Paul’s support. Our rising poll numbers and successful fundraising demonstrate that Dr. Paul’s strong message of Constitutionally-limited government, a traditionally Republican non-interventionist foreign policy and a return to sound money is clearly resonating with the American people.”

According to the campaign, this marks the fifth time during the 2012 election cycle that Paul has raised over $1 million dollars for a single fundraising event.

The third fundraising quarter of 2011 ends on Sept. 30.

AP

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX).

At the CNN-Tea Party Express debate last night, the Tea Party crowd that gathered in Tampa, FL booed Texas Congressman Ron Paul after describing what he believed was the motive behind al Qaeda's attacks on 9/11. Paul also was challenged by former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum over a blog post written on 9/11 by his campaign blogger.

In response to a question moderator Wolf Blitzer read from Twitter -- "Do you plan to decrease defense spending to balance spending? Or do you believe high spending is essential to security?” –- Paul (only one of two military veterans on the stage) tried to explain the difference between military spending and defense spending.

“There's a lot of room to cut on the military, but not on the defense. You can slash the military spending,” Paul explained, “We don't need to be building airplanes that were used in World War II -- we're always fighting the last war.”

He went on to say, “Most of the danger comes by our lack of wisdom on how we run our foreign policy,” and he repeated a statistic he uses on the campaign trail in Iowa:

“We're under great threat, because we occupy so many countries. We're in 130 countries. We have 900 bases around the world. We're going broke. The purpose of al Qaeda was to attack us, invite us over there, where they can target us. And they have been doing it.”

Paul went on to claim that al Qaeda has committed “more attacks against us and the American interests per month than occurred in all the years before 9/11” -- because the U.S. is “occupying their land.”

This didn’t sit well with Santorum, who has attacked Paul’s foreign policy views previously, and went after him for a blog post written by the campaign’s blogger Jack Hunter -– a conservative radio host and columnist for The American Conservative Magazine.

“On your Web site on 9/11, you had a blog post that basically blamed the United States for 9/11... You said that it was our actions that brought about the actions of 9/11."
Santorum fumed, "Now, Congressman Paul, that is irresponsible... Someone who is running for the president of the United States in the Republican Party should not be parroting what Osama bin Laden said on 9/11.”

Santorum received a loud applause from the audience, which later cheered at the idea that it is time to get out of Afghanistan.

The blog post on Paul’s campaign website that Santorum questioned asked what America has learned from 9/11, and concluded it is highly questionable that the nation learned anything. Hunter pointed to a statement made by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who said if Congress cuts the defense budget, “We’re doomed to suffer another attack.” The blogger called Rumsfeld’s conclusion “beyond absurd,” and then quoted the former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit, Michael Scheuer, to defend the position.

“Our growing number of Islamist enemies are motivated to attack us because of what the U.S. government does in the Muslim world and not because of how Americans live and think here at home,” Scheuer is quoted as saying.

Santorum strongly disagreed with that assertion. “We are not being attacked and we were not attacked because of our actions. We were attacked ... because we have a civilization that is antithetical to the civilization of the jihadists. And they want to kill us because of who we are and what we stand for.”

Paul didn't retreat from his position.

“This whole idea that the whole Muslim world is responsible for this, and they're attacking us because we're free and prosperous, that is just not true. Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda have been explicit... They wrote and said that we attacked America because you had bases on our holy land in Saudi Arabia, you do not give Palestinians fair treatment, and you have been bombing…”

At this point, Paul was interrupted by a chorus of boos. He tried to talk over them, pleading with the audience to understand his position.

"I didn't say that. I'm trying to get you to understand what the motive was behind the bombing, at the same time we had been bombing and killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for 10 years. Would you be annoyed? If you're not annoyed, then there's some problem.”

Immediately following the debate and the boos from the crowd, the Paul campaign sent a Tweet highlighting that Paul has raised more money from members of the military than all the other campaigns –- including President Obama –- combined.

A day after the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks and hours before tonight's Republican debate, GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul doubled down on his non-interventionist foreign policy, arguing that occupation is the reason for suicide terrorism.

"Though it is hard for many to believe, honest studies show that the real motivation behind the September 11 attacks and the vast majority of other instances of suicide terrorism is not that our enemies are bothered by our way of life. Neither is it our religion, or our wealth," he said in a statement posted on his congressional website.

"Rather, it is primarily occupation. If you were to imagine for a moment how you would feel if another country forcibly occupied the United States, had military bases and armed soldiers present in our hometowns, you might begin to understand why foreign occupation upsets people so much."

Paul added, "Yes, the attacks of 9/11 deserved a response. But the manner in which we responded has allowed radicals in the Muslim world to advance a very threatening narrative about us and our motivation in occupying their lands."

He concluded, "The truth is that ending these misguided wars and occupations will make us safer, more prosperous and more free."