National / World Politics 14 Apr 2007 09:42 pm
Rudy Visits Iowa
Sorry but this is the best picture I have of Rudy’s visit to Iowa today.
He was in Des Moines for about 5 hours, first speaking to a group of about 50 for over 30 minutes at Noah’s Ark (an Italian Restaurant) in Des Moines then later (below) at the Lincoln Day Dinner at the Des Moines Convention Center. I think he also went to a coffee between these two events.
In the afternoon talk Rudy mentioned building a fence between the US and Mexico and requiring IDs for all currently undocumented aliens and searching out those who were not documented. I thought that might go over well with the evening crowd but he didn’t mention it and there is nothing on his website on his stance on Illegal Aliens in the USA, so that was new to me.
Rudy’s talk in the small group was better; for obvious reasons his message was more measured at the Convention Center. Since I drove by myself and Rudy was the first speaker, I only listened to the first three then left before dinner. (Mitt Romney was next and John Cox after him). Cox was pretty funny, I don’t remember hearing of him before but he’s a Chicago Republican, almost as rare a breed as a New York City Republican.
Rudy spoke about the WoT, smaller government, reduced taxes, reworking the health care system and education as well as dependence on foreign oil. Fair day for Rudy, he was received well by what could be his toughest crowd in Iowa. Both Romney and Cox were better speakers. I just don’t think he has a script down yet. He didn’t try to differentiate himself, and made several efforts at enforcing his Republican roots by saying he would support “any of these 9 other candidates over Hillary, Senator Obama or Edwards”. Setting the standard for the debates, he evoked Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment, not to speak ill of any fellow Republican.
Mitt, in what I felt was an obvious dig at Rudy, brought his wife and one son (of five) who were traveling with him up on the stage to be with him for the first minute of his talk.
I left as Hucklebee took the stage then stopped to watch Paul Shanklin be introduced as “the other” Arkansas Governor – that got a few laughs, but the crowd seemed tired. Romney said there were 1000 Republican’s there but I don’t think there were more than 750. Seemed to me that there were a lot of empty seats.
Duncan Hunter did not make it to Iowa because of transportation problems.
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