DENVER – Surrounded by passionate fans, Ron Paul brought his Republican presidential campaign to Colorado on Tuesday for the first time in the 2012 election.

The Texas congressman fired up the crowds with an anti-war, anti-federal power message, saying the country has drifted far from its small-government, republican origins.

“I believe we have morphed into the dictatorship of the majority,” he said.

Paul attracted more than 1,100 people Tuesday morning at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and an even larger crowd for a noon speech at a Denver hotel.

His appearance – along with Rick Santorum’s on Tuesday morning in southern Denver – marked the start of a furious week of campaigning in Colorado in advance of the state GOP caucuses next Tuesday. Santorum has a full day scheduled on the Front Range today.

Paul and Santorum abandoned the Florida primary early to focus on the next states, including Colorado.

Paul has the most unconventional positions of the four major GOP candidates. In his stump speech, he called for a repeal of the Patriot Act, an end to fiat paper money, cessation of the war on drugs and a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and other places around the globe.

He attracted a different sort of crowd from the type that usually frequents GOP events.

Skateboards and tattoos were at least as common as pinstripes and polo shirts, especially at the CSU event.

One supporter sat in the back row in Fort Collins, a round Ron Paul sticker plastered onto the back of his shaved head.

The Fort Collins man, who gave only his first name, Mick, said he appreciates Paul’s strict interpretation of the Constitution.

“I like his views on foreign policy, because I’m an Iraq veteran,” Mick said.

In his Fort Collins speech, where college students dominated the crowd, Paul condemned both Democrats and Republicans for engaging in foreign military adventures without approval from Congress.

In Denver, he lingered longer on money and finances.

In his first year, Paul would cut the federal budget by $1 trillion – a little more than a quarter of all federal spending.

“If the government quit spending a trillion dollars, and you get to spend a trillion dollars, maybe you would spend it a little more wisely than the bureaucrats in Washington,” Paul said.

Paul harangued Congress for its reaction to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, especially its quick passage of the Patriot Act, which granted enhanced powers to search people’s property and detain suspects.

“There is never a need to sacrifice personal liberty for security. Never,” Paul said.

He also singled out the Transportation Security Agency and its infamous airport pat-downs.

“It doesn’t keep us any safer. It teaches us to be submissive to the state,” he said.

In a phone interview, Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Rick Palacio pointed out news reports this year that revealed a company Paul owned published racially inflammatory newsletters in the 1990s, claiming, among other things, that Martin Luther King Jr. seduced underaged girls and boys. Paul has denied knowledge of the newsletters’ content.

Palacio also used Paul’s campaign to bash the GOP frontrunner.

“I think the big reason this campaign seems like it is going so long is their frontrunner, Mitt Romney, people are just not enthusiastic about,” Palacio said.

jhanel@durangoherald.com