Political Football

Rudy was in Muscatine today – we got what we asked for and what we needed. We can relax again, we did our job – for now. The event was on, then off, then on again – we just learned The Mayor’s arrival time late Sunday so we could actively start promoting the event – we had three days.We turned out 200 people on a rainy day to hear his message – in our opinion a roaring success.

Rudy spent mid-day in Des Moines, with Governor Perry of Texas, who just announced his support for Rudy. That was exciting and a big deal for the campaign. For a few minutes we thought Governor Perry was on the plane with Rudy to appear here but he headed back to Texas. Tommy Thompson’s support for Rudy will also be good for Iowa – I want to try to get Tommy to Muscatine in November, maybe early December.

At our event, about 100 people RSVP’d and another 100 were walk ins – it was standing room only which was our goal.

Rudy started his talk fairly slowly, in my opinion, tentatively. It was crowded, it was 5pm, rainy, and he just got off a plane 30 minutes ago driving into who knows what… Muscatine is a typical Iowa town whose active Republican base is Conservative. I am a moderate; with that, Rudy and I are a fit politically. Rudy is also the kind of President we need in these tough times.

Those who support Rudy need to continue to create momentum for this candidate, the only Republican that can win in 2008. Conservatives will not be disappointed in this man if he reaches the White House. I feel like our numbers are growing and our voices are attracting more attention.

Now we need to pull in other previously disenfranchised Republicans and Independents to join us.

The biggest applause he got related to discussions on the WOT and Immigration.

I’m not sure how important it is to write here about what he said, am hoping to post some video links and pictures as soon my friend emails them to me. And the news reports. That will be interesting. I think I will report on the reports, that will be more interesting.

I just watched the evening news, showing Mitt in Davenport and Rudy in Muscatine. (Mitt was 35 miles up the river)

The news report represented Muscatine well with Rudy, then an interview by our County Republican Women’s Group President adding a well positioned statement about the change in caucus dates. The Quad Cities area is more than 10 times larger in population than Muscatine and Rudy pulled the same number here as Mitt did in Davenport with two week’s notice and a postcard direct mail! Yes!

I will talk about the questions Rudy fielded – they were good.

A young “reporter” (maybe 8 years old) asked Rudy if he had any advantages over the other candidates and if he did would he explain them. (cute) Of course Rudy noted his experience running the 17th largest economy in the world – where Hillary, Barack, or John have not run a city, state or even a business – made a payroll – or truly understand they need to find revenue to pay for what they are talking about spending.

Another question was from an independent voter who some in our group thought was divisive, or a plant. I thought his question was fair, and was based on what we’re fed by the Main stream media. He asked, as an independent, why would he support either party when Republicans don’t think they’ve done anything wrong in Iraq and Democrats think we should pull out. He also wanted Rudy to relate the importance of finding Osama Bin Laden versus the fight in Iraq. Rudy spent a lot of time on this question, taking us through where we would be today if we had not deposed Saddam Hussein. Two very strong ME countries in IRAQ and IRAN – a very bad situation. He also quickly said, even the President has said mistakes have been made. No war is perfect. “I don’t think any Republican has said there have been no mistakes made in Iraq – but we did the right thing removing Saddam.”

The final question was on the CIA and torture. Would he ban it. Rudy had some great points on that issue 1) He couldn’t really speak to the issue today, because what goes on is top secret 2) We need a strong CIA and President Clinton gutted not only the military but the CIA during his administration 3) generally speaking he didn’t feel from the limited amount he’s read on the issue – what we do to protect ourselves and getting answers could be considered torchure… “The CIA is filled with honorable and patriotic citizens who are working to keep us safe.” But he wisely deflected the issue, as he has no real way of knowing what’s going on at this point and he should not know. We should not know.

We got some time with Rudy before the press, and one of our group told Rudy to tell Judith she did great on the interview and she really admires what she’s done with her life and that is from one single mother to another. Rudy stopped writing and told her, “thank you very much I will be certain to tell her that” with a look that almost made us think he was reaching for his phone…

The questions were good. The answers were better. Now back to work, building our base for the caucus and beyond.

Addition #1

The number of converts are building by the day… A comment from a member of our County Rudy Group indicated she loved Rudy’s statement about the changes in Texas, capping some damages on law suits. (Maybe this is something Gov. Perry talked about – sounds to me like it deserves a blog post of it’s own).

Rudy started by telling us many women have told him across the country they have to drive quite a bit to get see an OB/GYN.

What Rudy said was that the effect of this change was a 7% increase of Doctors practicing in Texas the first year. The Second year, there was a 30% increase in Doctors practicing in Texas. “At that rate, we’ll all be going to Texas for medical care!” Rudy concluded. I’ll get the details on that this weekend and post more.

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