Sting of the “Bee!”
January 7, 2008
Wow! The Iowa caucus has made some pretty exciting history, and I was there to see if unfold. It was fantastic : )
The following is a photo essay of the experience: (click the thumb for a bigger pic)
Late Thursday afternoon on the street outside the Huckabee Iowa HQ in Des Moines.
Small portion of the volunteers making calls to encourage people to get out and caucus just a few hours before they begin.
Almost 200 Republicans gathering at 7PM in a church to caucus on the north side of the Des Moines area (Democrats were gathering in the lower level). There were people representing Huckabee, Romney, McCain and Thompson that spoke for about 2 minutes on behalf of the candidate, and then blank pieces of paper were handed out to each person. In just a few minutes, everyone had made their selection and turned their paper in. It was all very orderly and everyone seemed to take it all seriously.
The sorting and counting of the simple handwritten ballots begins with volunteers on a table in the hallway.
Nothing fancy here, just a pile for each candidate beginning to grow as the ballots are sorted.
Looking good! The Huckabee pile is fast growing bigger than anyone elses : ) Everyone watched closely as they were counted to make sure it was accurate. The totals: Huckabee 82 / Romney 41 / Thompson 31 / McCain 29 / Giuliani 8 / Paul 6 / Keys 1 / Hunter 0. Everything done by about 7:30PM.
After leaving the caucus location, I headed over to the Embassy Suites in downtown Des Moines to check out the Huckabee campaign post-caucus gathering. The very sharp looking Huckabus was parked in front of the hotel.
It was a beautiful night and the bus was quite impressive.
A video projector and screen were set up in the hotel lobby so when you came in you could see the local news coverage of the caucus returns. This was my first indication of how the big picture was looking… Huckabee projected winner with 41% of the votes in, about 8PM.
Inside the banquet room where the gathering was beginnning to take place. Another video screen with live news coverage… Ed Rollins talking about the great results.
A little self-portrait as the very happy crowd begins to grow, about 8:30PM.
Ed Rolins live in the room to give a short speech about how well the night had gone, how Huckabee made the right call on not running the negatives ads, and how bright the future is looking.
Iowa caucus winner Mike Huckabee is greeted on stage.
Mike addressing the very enthusiastic crowd, with his wife janet behind him, daughter Sarah (Iowa field director) behind her, and Chuck Norris and his wife at the far left.
As always, a great speech… and pretty cool to be this close to the next President of the United States!
After the speech, greeting the crowd of locals and volunteers with the growing paparazzi doing their thing.
All in all, I was really impressed by the nice people of Iowa and their caucus process. And it was so cool to be part of history as Hucka”bee” put a little sting on the establishment!
GO MIKE GO!
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Martt Clupper 1.07.08
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