Post script to Saturday’s IDP event

You know that Bush the elder — President George Herbert Walker Bush — is "41" and Bush the younger — President George W. Bush — is "43," right?  Well, Hillary Clinton’s Iowa campaign staff ensured that she sat at table #44 on Saturday night in Cedar Rapids for the Iowa Democratic Party’s "Hall of Fame" dinner.  Jeff Zeleny of the NYT has the story.

Also, during the Iowa Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner this spring I posted a comment from a Republican about how much bigger the crowd would be if the Democrats were having an event with all their presidential candidates taking a turn at the microphone.  While not all the Democrats running for president were there in Cedar Rapids on Saturday night, there were five.  And the crowd of Democrats on Saturday night was a tad bit smaller than the crowd in April when the nine Republican candidates spoke at the Lincoln Day Dinner in Des Moines.   

The flat-bed truck I mentioned in a previous post — the one that had the six-foot tall letters "H-I-L-L-A-R-Y" on it — was what Democrats who attended the event Saturday night in Cedar Rapids saw when they walked out of the hotel.  The letters were in white against a blue background.  The campaign had spotlights on ’em.  Next to it was the Edwards banner which was about two stories high, also illuminated by spotlights  and suspended in air by a crane.  There were also revolving Edwards campaign logos projected onto a building across the street from the hotel. 

If you watched the event on C-SPAN, you probably heard the clanking of silverware on china plates during the early speakers.  The food to event-goers was served early and the clanking was loudest (at least in my headphones) during Hillary Clinton’s speech.