Thursday, January 3, 2008

Iowa Caucus in Grimes

So I thought I would fill you in on the results of my precinct for the Iowa Caucus. It was held in the Elementary school here in Grimes. First off there was about 5 times the expected turnout. They figured 50 people would attend and actually had between 200 and 250 or more. They had a person from each campaign give a two minute speech on why his or her candidate was the best choice. No one was there for McCain, Giuliani, or Duncan Hunter, but a former Arkansas Congressman spoke for Huckabee, a local woman volunteered to speak for Ron Paul, and another Grimes local spoke for Fred Thompson. Josh Romney was there to speak for Mitt, and received the loudest applause from the audience. Then the people filled out little pieces of paper with the name of the candidate and submitted it. In all it took about 45 minutes to complete. The results from my precinct were..
88 Huckabee :(
66 Romney
Some for Fred and McCain
12 for Paul
0 for Hunter
0 for Giuliani
It was a little deflating for a Mitt fan, but for all the Mormon Conspiracy theorists, I only knew of 7 people in Grimes who are active Mormons, and there are alot of people who are not LDS, but support Mitt because he is the best candidate, and does not rely on the LDS congregation network to spread his message and the congregation's leaders to promote his candidacy (yeah maybe a veiled comment on another candidate...) The results look like a Huckabee win with Mitt in second trailing by 8% points. The race for third is a race with McCain and Thompson. All that is on the TV is the Caucus results. Mitt is a little disappointed, Huckabee is promoting his evangelical network, and maybe the biggest news is that Hillary is running in 3rd for the Democrats (albeit a close 3rd).

I hope that Mitt will pull out a good one in New Hampshire, and South Carolina leading into Super Tuesday. Of all the candidates he has dedicated time and resources to all these states and wants people to know that he has the experience and ideas to take the nation in the right direction.

3 comments:

Shane said...

Dave, thanks for the "behind the scenes" report. I was disappointed as well. I really thought it would be a much closer race in Iowa. Oh well... on to New Hampshire!

Daniel, Kari and Co. said...

Great to hear an update - We've been wondering, but don't get much news out in yonder SD.

Lani said...

I've always been interested in those Iowa caucuses... very interesting