At a town hall meeting in a small library here, Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul said he hasn’t quite figured out why many of his most loyal supporters are young, despite that he is in his seventies.

“You know, I’ve been asking that question myself for a long, long time,” he said to a crowd of about 100 people who crammed into a small room to hear the presidential candidate speak, many of whom chuckled at his answer. …

“I’d like to think — I talk a lot about freedom. Freedom is a young idea. It’s only been tested in the history of the world for short periods of time … Young people are more open to new ideas than some of us, you know, that get stuck in our old-fashioned ways,” Paul said.