Last night the Dane County Young Republicans held what was originally going to be a debate. I am not going to trash Governor Thompson too much for not showing up, I know scheduling conflicts do arise. As far as I can tell he had nothing else going on during those two hours. So instead of a back and forth discussion between the three top candidates in the race, we received two fifteen minute long stump speeches and a few pre-written questions.
Before the main event started the Republican candidate for the 2nd Congressional seat spoke. Mr. Chad Lee previously ran against Tammy Baldwin for that same seat in 2010, but failed despite the Republican avalanche. Granted that district includes the entire city of Madison and it is unlikely to ever go Republican. That has not stopped Chad Lee from trying. His short speech spoke of his experience starting a cleaning business. While Mr. Lee seemed well put together and gave a good speech it appears that the district itself will keep him from having a real shot at victory.
On to the main event: the 'forum'. The event was downgraded to a forum because only two of the four candidates in the race were in attendance. Neumann was the first to address the crowd of roughly 60 Young Republicans. He began by praising Walker and the efforts of those who campaigned against the recall. The rest of his fifteen minutes held his go to short stories. How he got kicked off the appropriations committee, how he claimed a formerly democratic congressional seat. The Q&A section was a little more interesting. Neumann asserted that a balance budget amendment is vital and the 10th amendment is key to restoring the countries finances. When asked about Iran he essentially said that he would research the topic more if in that situation and not use military force unless it was cost effective and quick. Probably not enough to keep the libertarian fringe happy but seemed hesitant to an extent.
Overall Mark Neumann gave his rather typical stump speech. It was not necessarily bad, just slightly recycled yet still spotted with a few rounds of applause. His campaign appears to remaining at the same course it was on prior to the recall. I will be interested to see if it kicks into high gear as the primary draws near.
Next was Eric Hovde. Mr. Hovde is still a very new face in Senate race. I imagine that a good majority of the crowd had not heard him speak in person and was curious about this guy who is willing to spend millions on t.v. ads. When Hovde began to speak the event had been going on for almost an hour already and the mood in the room was pretty boring. He did the whole "stand up and get the blood flowing" thing which seemed a little forced. He appeared to be a lot more energetic than the his last event I covered.
His remarks stuck to the political outsider message. Hovde said that he had no desire to run for office but felt that he had to do something. He then laid out the eight point plan his campaign released last week. While I appreciate him giving the meat and potatoes approach to the forum, it did feel rushed. He had to fit the last 5 points into about a minutes time. The two big applause topics for him were auditing the fed and energy independence. During the Q&A section he took the questions from the moderator who was having trouble reading them. The crowd laughed and it showed how comfortable he was on stage. It also reminded me of how knew he is to this whole game.
Eric Hovde did a good job at the forum, but is still struggling with name ID. He seems to be getting better at campaigning, but will need to be careful not to get too comfortable. It is a good thing he is willing to put so much of his own money into the race, he will need it.
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