I am finally getting time to put this together from the notes I took Saturday at Senator Obama's appearance in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Direct quotes are in quotation marks. I have done my best to paraphrase the remainder while retaining their intended meaning. My comments and asides are set off in square brackets []. If some other remarks appear to be my own, they probably are. I apologize for the rough editing, but I think it will convey at least a sense of how the appearance went.
Senator Obama was scheduled to attend a "meet and greet" with local area Democratic elected officials and activists before the main "Town Hall Meeting" at the high school. We arrived a few minutes early. And the Senator was about 15 minutes late. Not bad for a politician making the trip all the way from Springfield, Illinois. All the usual suspects were there: Congressman Loebsack, Mayor Halloran, two of the County Supervisors, several state legislators, county central committee folks, and two county party chairs: Mike Robinson from Linn County and me from Jones County. I was impressed that he had Senator Durbin traveling with him today.
Picture below the fold, and a blog of the public event.
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