Posted on 01/03/2008 9:51:20 PM PST by xjcsa
Several people had asked me to post an after-action report from my experiences tonight, so here it is.
I attended the caucuses in Waterloo, IA, with a few of my friends. Waterloo is in Black Hawk County (pop. 125,000), which was the only "urban" county in Iowa to have all the caucuses at a single location tonight.
We got there early, and it was a good thing. The main parking lot was filling up fast when we got there, and people kept streaming in. Turnout was HUGE. Local media reported turnout at our location of more than 5,000 voters!
We stood in line to get our ballots and info for our precincts, and then everyone who could fit went into the auditorium for the candidate speeches. Only about 800 of us fit in the auditorium (if that); the rest were crammed into the lobby trying to watch on closed-caption TV.
Candidate speeches were scheduled to start at 6pm, but due to the extremely long lines and people still trying to get into the building, they didn't start until 6:30. Even then, they had a US Senate candidate speak, and several others spoke, before the actual candidate speeches.
The auditorium session opened with a prayer, the national anthem, and Pledge of Allegiance.
The first candidate speech was for Mike Huckabee, and it was delivered by...Mike Huckabee, in person. He had apparently been stuck in traffic for 30 minutes trying to get to the school; cars were lined up for something like a mile trying to get in. Crazy. There was clearly a large Huck contingent; he got loud cheers.
The second candidate speech was for Ron Paul. It was delivered by...Ron Paul. Dr. Paul was actually in the lobby when we arrived, shaking hands. Very friendly guy. He gave his usual stump speech; parts got a good response and parts got silence.
The third candidate speech was from some guy from Alabama I've never heard of, but apparently he's running for president (yes, he was the actual candidate). I can't believe they let him speak, and he droned on forever.
The fourth candidate speech was on behalf of Fred Thompson, and it was delivered by Bill Salier (who was Tancredo's state campaign manager). Salier made one heck of a good speech, and kept it short and sweet. Just ripped on Tom "Dung Heap" Harkin as the worst person in Iowa. Great speech, might have changed some minds.
The final candidate speech was on behalf of Mitt Romney, and it was delivered by his wife, Ann Romney. She was classy but not very lively, but it was a good speech.
After some general announcements, the county sheriff's office made some announcements about parking (listed the names of about a dozen people whose cars needed to be moved for safety reasons) and let everyone know they needed to be patient leaving with so many people crammed into the building.
We then adjourned to our precincts, at tables throughout the building (lobby, gym, cafeteria, auditorium, etc.) There were STILL people trying to check in out in the lobby and people trying to get to the building; there was just no parking left and some people were walking nearly a mile from their cars to get there.
By the time we had adjourned to go to our precincts and vote, the night had been called by the media for Huckabee (yes, before we even started voting at the largest location in the state). I used that as an opportunity to peel off Huckster supporters for Fred. Huckabee people tend to despise Romney, so I told them to vote for Fred to try to push him past/close to Romney, and several agreed.
Getting out of there was like leaving a sold-out college football game. Slow traffic, cars lined up for a long distance. But it was a fun night, and a huge turnout, much larger than expected.
Well, at least we know there are 9 conservatives in Iowa.
I believe I coined that term, “goldbuggery,” which combines “goldbug” with the British term “buggery.”
Missed that one...very informative.
Strange state of mind...that’s what I thought.
My guess is these are good people starved for a real Christian to support. They don’t know much about the issues, just that Huckabee is a Southern Baptist preacher and that’s good enough for them.
As a Southern Baptist in SW Missouri, I can tell you they will be pretty hard to sway. They’re probably excited that a candidate talks about faith so openly.
However, I think Huckabee, intentionally or not, is using faith in much the same way Jimmy Carter did. Heck, I voted for him when I was 18. He turned out to be a liberal, socialist wackjob.
Those who support Huckabee have little interest in the details of politics and it will be a handicap for other Republican candidates. Romney and Rudy will not do so well for a number of reasons. Fred is probably going to have to visit a few churches to make his case.
I don’t think much of Huckabee, but I’m not going to bash those good people who supported him. I think many of them could be swayed, in time...they don’t get in a hurry about anything.
The MSM is going to promote Huckabee to these folks, in a bait and switch. If he is nominated, they’ll pound him as a crazy Christian who will administrate from the pulpit.
We need to get the party united as soon as possible. Fred Thompson is our only shot. Romney, Rudy and McCain cannot...the divisions run too deep, even here on FR.
Yuk. Thanks for the report.
Good analysis.
Those folks elected Bush twice.
“...his name was Hugh Cort, and he would just not shut up.”
Thanks! Cort is from the Birmingham area. Our local Phenix City nut probably could not find Iowa. You should see the campaign billboard vehicle he drives around. He is way out there. If I have to deal with local Phenix City politicos much more I’ll go nuts too.
Excellent observations...you have done a fantastic job hosting the results thread and such.
I have an ad agency...we do market research and focus groups as well. Much can be learned by listening and asking the right questions.
The candidates had better learn something from Iowa, cuz the Northeast is NOT going to carry a Republican to victory.
That just irks me. Yea with the differences in percentages it probably didn't change anything but I really wish news outlets would stop calling elections before some people have even voted.
Learn something about Iowa voters ping.
This is real information, not cheerleading. The Thompson campaign needs to learn from people on the ground.
“Yep. I should also note that the Huckabee people tend to despise Romney; they *really* don’t like him at all. But they like Thompson.”
Do they have an aversion to Romney’s faith? It seems that the majority of obsessive-compulsive Mitt-bashers think “Mormonism is a cult” is a top issue for 2008. How much of that is a factor, since this is ‘identity politics’?
Thanks for a great report.
Thanks for the report. I am sad that out of 125,000 people, only 5000 turned out to vote. Americans are truly sheep!
You said if the caucuses had been a few weeks away, many of them probably would have voted for Fred.
That is very important for South Carolina.
Fred has time to make the case while hoping these voters learn more about Huckabee.
They are NOT going to make quick decisions.
Those are Huck's only two conservative stances, pretty much everything else he's pure liberal.
The Rs were in the middle school library, and the Ds were across the hall in the lunch room. Soon we were too crowded, so we moved to an older gymnasium and the bleachers. Then the Ds got too crowded, and they had to move to the new gym. Funny thing is, the only way there was thru the old gym, and every D caucus attendee had to parade in front of all the Rs in the bleachers. There was some light hearted jawing going on, so that was fun.
We said the Pledge of Allegiance, formalized the meeting chair, and elected two central committee members. A supporter for each candidate was found, and given up to 3 minutes to discuss the candidate. Guiliani's guy read the website bullet points, no one spoke for McCain, or Hunter.
I was the speaker for Ron Paul. I know his majority opinion on FR. I'm not psycho. I like Fred and didn't decide until yesterday. I started with a "I'm Pappy Smear (well actually my real name), and I approved this message." Got the cheap laugh. Mentioned how next door they were talking about the witch. More cheap laughs. Talked about how instead of voting for the lesser of two evils, we all had a lot of pretty good choices. A older guy spoke for Huck, a reluctant guy got up for Fred, and a guy got up for Tancredo, and then basically said he was voting for Paul. That was nice for me. Everybody pretty much clapped for every speaker.
Ballots were passed around, and the reps for each candidate went to observe the vote counting. Very friendly, we are all on the same team you know. We double counted the votes, and after 149 votes it went:
Huck 64, Paul 25, Romney 25, Fred 25 (freaky, huh?) McCain 8 and Guiliani 2.
We called in our votes to the Iowa Gop, and then whatever people were left voted on platform planks for the county convention. I didn't stick for all of that, and was home by 8:30.
Well, there are probably only about 30,000 registered Republicans, so one out of six is a little better. I don't know how many Dems caucused in the county; they were dispersed to a lot of locations.
In my opinion Fred should go negative on Huckabee on foreign policy and environmental alarmism.
I still think that if Fred would come out and poke a sharp stick in Al Gore's eye (call global warming a hoax and a scam), he would gain a ton of support.
And the media knows this. Fred was the choice in Iowa.
Huckabee's issues were never examined by the press. They knew Fred would have won Iowa if prople knew about the Huckster.
yitbos
Thanks for the report and your support of Fred.
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