I was able to attend both of Mayor Giuliani’s Iowa events on Tuesday, where I compiled extensive video footage of both the Cedar Rapids and the Des Moines events.

Unfortunately, a fried motherboard on my desktop has forced me to pawn the video off to a helpful friend for editing and uploading. So I do not yet have anything to show you. My intention was to give everyone as much of a “you are there” presentation of the visits. However, I do not expect my friend to spend as much time editing the footage as I would have to accomplish that end. But I should still have some very nice video to show everyone soon.

What was my impression? Well, the two events were very different. Cedar Rapids was a media affair where officials conducted a walking tour to showcase their success in urban renewal of the area. Mayor Giuliani seemed impressed with their accomplishments and compared their efforts to his own in revitalizing NYC.

What struck me the most about Cedar Rapids was the energy Hizzoner showed. After all, this is a man in his sixties who conquered a very serious illness. We walked downtown Cedar Rapids at a fairly brisk pace for over an hour. Mayor Giuliani bounded with energy, which is even more impressive considering that he had flown in from NH after attending an event there earlier in the morning.

The Des Moines event was a political rally that was very well attended. I agree with Caucus Cooler that the amount of young people in the audience was worth noting (there is no comparison between this rally and McCain’s Cedar Rapids rally last month). However, I will part with them on their opinion that the speech was “very very very impersonal.” I thought Hizzoner was quite animated and energetic in his manner of speaking which served to form a connection with his audience (perhaps the presence of so many young people is what animated him). I was standing at the back of the room with the press corps and was able to hear a cameraman from a local TV station mutter “Yeah! Yeah!” several times under his breath. The speech will be posted here in it’s entirety, so our readers will be the final judge.

More to follow soon…