Palin stop timeline
Here’s a short version of the timeline of the stop this morning at Sioux City’s West High School by Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, where the preprogram was to start at 10 a.m. and Palin to speak about 11 a.m.:
9:52 a.m.: Iowa 5th District Congressman Steve King walks in, smattering of applause directs faces toward the stage.
9:54 a.m.: Iowa House Minority Leader Christopher Rants of Sioux City takes the stage, leads rally participants in Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem. He introduces State Sen. Ron Wieck, who says the “GOP is the party of the people,” while statehouse Democrats “truly believe they have an open checkbook.”
10:01 a.m.: Rants says his “resume took a dip” in 2006, when Republicans lost control of the Iowa House and he lost the House Speaker title. “That’s not a lot of fun.”
He said that swing of 51-49 for Democrats was a loss of merely 1,500 votes, so he looks for a change in 2008. Rants said that could be accomplished with wins in two Iowa House positions in the city, where Jeremy Taylor and Rick Bertrand are looking to unseat Dems Wes Whitead and Roger Wendt. Bertrand doesn’t get to speak, but Taylor holds forth for a few minutes, saying, “I may not be Joe the Plumber, but I’m Jeremy the Teacher.”
10:12 a.m.: King gives the first of what will be two speaking opportunities, this one the longer, for nine minutes. He lays out several versions of the words “liberal” and “socialist” in describing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. He mentions the ACORN group and earns a big “Booooo.” King said a Google search of “Acorn Fraud” gets you 2 million hits of possible stories.
King said it’s not a stretch to link Obama to the ACORN group, since he worked for them in voting matters. “Obama is ACORN… When I see Obama, I see ACORN branded on his forehead,” King said.
10:30 a.m. : Red, white and blue pom pons are passed around.
10:31 a.m.: King takes stage to introduce Col. Bud Day, who was a Vietnam prisoner of war with McCain. Sioux City native Day says “Joe the Plumber had it right,” that Obama would use a “socialist” bent to redistribute tax money. Day said he saw Palin a few weeks ago in Pensacola, Fla., where women at the rally “brought the house” down, giving a 5-minute applause to Palin as she was introduced.
He then gets the honor of introducing Palin, who comes on the stage at 10:43 a.m. and receives two minutes of applause before beginning her speech, including a 20-second breakout of a “Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!” chant.
10:45 a.m.: Palin’s first remarks to the crowd were, “We have so many patriots here today in Sioux City, who love our freedoms.” She begins a 28-minute speech, heavy on mentions of Joe the Plumber and tax policy. She cites happiness that so many people turned out in spite of today begin the opening of pheasant hunting season. Daughter Piper Palin is introduced up on the stage.
One of the interesting elements is the shouting of comments from audience. As Palin cites “our opponent,” a yell responds, “He’s a socialist!” A few seconds later, “That’s socialist!” comes forth as Palin describes Obama’s tax increase plans.
11:13 p.m.: Palin ends her speech and begins shaking hands. She move out into the crowd, and a minute later a man yells, “GitRDone Sarah!”
The Nov. 4 election is 10 days away, and tomorrow the Journal will unveil a poll on the McCain/Obama race.
Tags: joe the plumber, politics, Sarah Palin, sioux city, Steve King
November 11th, 2009 at 9:27 am
[...] heard from up the chain that Palin specifically asked to come to Sioux City. Seems she’d been buoyed by a crowd of 4,500 people at West High School here in the last few days before the 2008 election. I was there, Palin was definitely embraced by [...]