LIBERTARIAN LEANINGS
While Romney's campaign uses the personal touch, Paul's operation is wooing Mormons with policy. It plays up his strict adherence to the Constitution, which Mormons view as a divinely inspired document, and promises to shrink the U.S. government and budget by $1 trillion his first year.
To cut defense spending, for example, Paul wants to pull U.S. military forces out of Iraq, Afghanistan and other war zones as he carries out a non*interventionist foreign policy.
Michael Cox, a sixth-generation Mormon who caucused for Romney in 2008, said Paul has won him over because of those strict fiscal stances as the U.S. debt hits a record $15 trillion.
"The day of reckoning is going to come unless this reckless spending stops," said Cox, 30. "It's going to destroy our country, and probably in our generation, unless something is done."
Cox said he doesn't agree 100 percent with Paul, but believes he would shake things up more than Romney, whom he sees as an establishment GOP figure tailor-made for Washington.
For now, the rest of Cox's family is leaning toward Romney as the safer choice.
"My father says he agrees with two-thirds of what Ron Paul says, but the one-third concerns him enough that he doesn't know who he's going to vote for," Cox said, adding his father lives in Utah.