Live From Des Moines -- GOP on ABC
Update [2007-8-5 13:6:57 by Ross Smith]:It's back to the hotel then to Chicago. I'll use the drive to contemplate a big picture story. I also have lots of fun little stories, including Tommy Thompson on Iraq policy and Duncan Hunter's military obsession. For this debate I'll just say for now that the winner is DebateScoop.
Update [2007-8-5 12:4:28 by Ross Smith]: Back in the filing room now where about twenty are writing stories. There is a message from the Obama campaign in my inbox responding to this morning's debate! The Romney campaign has two messages in my e-mail, the second one already has a long list of quotes constructed to show he won.
I did get in the spin room where I got to talk in person with Huckabee, Thompson, and Hunter. I also asked a question of Lindsay Graham who is McCain's loyal soldier, and spoke with the Romney and Brownback surrogates. Rudy's people disappeared quickly. A sign holder for one of the campaigns was in my debate class just a year ago. Outside the spin room afterward, Frank Luntz was less than enthusiastic about DebateScoop and further research on how people watch debates.
Update [2007-8-5 12:4:28 by Ross Smith]: People are scurrying in all directions right after the debate. Some remain in filing room, writing their stories. Otheres off to the spin room, off for a smoke. I think I'll wander around.
It's nice and convenient to have transcripts in the inbox, but no time to use them now.
Update [2007-8-5 9:52:8 by Ross Smith]: My e-mail is receiving "fact checks" on the abortion dispute between Brownback and Romney.
Pre-debate
Ron Paul supporters and rain greeted me at Drake University this morning at 6:30. A group of forty plus Paul supporters braved wild rains, wind and thunder outside the auditorium where the debate would be held ninety minutes later.
Three lonely "Rudy" sign holders and a Fair Tax (is Gravel here, too?) bus were the only other signs of campaign life if you don't count the media trucks.
I checked out the empty spin room first, a small theater with little platforms on the stage set up for each candidate. It seems strange that the campaigns would not insist on a larger space with more room for more reporters -- credentials to the spin room are separate and harder to come by.
I asked a few reporters here what they were looking for, how they would watch the debate. The consensus is that with the Ames straw poll about on the near horizon the maneuvering of the "second tier" candidates, Brownback, Huckabee and Tommy Thompson would be their focus. Brownback in particular has been picking fights with Romney, the only front runner to be "in" the straw poll. Brownback and Huckabee have also had tiffs and Tommy Thompson has declared success (measured by shifting bars) in the straw poll necessary for his own campaign.
I will track my reactions and musings using the comments thread below. Join Tim O'Donnell and me there.
