Lol. Just got back from the Sedgwick county caucus. They said about 2,000 people showed up.
Romney’s support there was so lousy they didn’t even have a representative available to make a speech for him. So one of the officials there read a boilerplate letter written by Romney boasting about what a great businessman he is and how he saved the Olympics or something.
Newt’s guy (apparently a HS debate coach, hah) made an eloquent and impassioned speech on his behalf. Spoke of how Newt inspired him into conservatism, the menace of socialism that’s storming the country, the historic imperative to defeat Obama, and that Newt is the right man at the right time to do this and advance a vision of liberty. Very substantive on ideas IMO, but unfortunately I wondered if it was ‘too smart’ for people.
Ron Paul’s representative made an alright speech, but there wasn’t much oratory prowess to it. Paul supporters were out in force, and vocal of course.
Karen Santorum showed up, mostly talking about what a good and principled guy her husband is, etc. I wasn’t thrilled by it, since personally I’d rather hear more about the kind of stuff Newt’s guy talked about. But I can see she probably warmed a lot of hearts. I didn’t stop to shake her hand afterwards, but she seemed like a nice person when I walked by.
At my caucus today, there was a speaker for each of the candidates. I don’t remember much about the guy who spoke for Paul other than that he accused all the other candidates of supporting Planned Parenthood. I wanted to boo. Santorum and Newt’s speakers both made good case in support of their candidate but I was irritated that the Santorum guy attacked Newt saying, “We don’t need another philanderer in DC!”. Newt’s speaker, in true Newt style, made a strong case to support his candidate based on Newt’s record and ideas to bring fiscal discipline to Washinton. Some GOP party insider out of Topeka was there to speak on Romney’s behalf and repeated the same BS and lies we’ve been hearing from the Romney campaign make for years. There were Santorum signs everywhere, a couple of Paul signs, but zero Newt or Romney signs. I regretted not ordering a couple dozen to line the sidewalk outside like the Santorum folks had done.