When there’s a lull in political action — go shopping!
ST. PAUL — After three dizzying days of receptions, train rides and speakers, Missouri’s Republican delegation got some down time today.
Many hopped the state party’s shuttles and headed toward Mall of America, the nation’s largest, situated in neighboring Minneapolis.
(Around lunchtime, some delegates are doing charity work related to Hurricane Gustav. We’ll report on that later.)
The shopping trip came after breakfast, where attendees heard from former U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican from Arkansas who later took on the job of Under Secretary for Border & Transportation Security at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Hutchinson left that post to make an unsuccessful 2006 bid for governor of Arkansas.
Hutchinson said that Republicans in his state are in a trough, with Democrats holding all statewide offices and most of the congressional posts. But even so, Hutchinson predicted that Republican presumptive presidential nominee John McCain will easily carry the state in November.
Earlier, the audience heard from pollster Mark McKinnon. Among other things, he told reporters afterwards that Democratic nominee Barack Obama was wasting time and money with his aggressive efforts to pursue rural voters. McKinnon said Obama was approaching Missouri like Iowa (which Obama won). The two aren’t the same, he indicated.
I was really hoping that we would have a republican ticket that we could really rally around, however, John McCain chooses a vp candidate whom he had only met once in person and only talked to once on the phone. Does that sound like someone whom we want as our president? What happened to McCain? He started of so well.