My presidential moment

September 3rd, 2008 at 09:15am Wally Haas

Michael Hakanson, vice president of Gambino Homes, is at the Republican Convention. He’ll be filing reports all week. Here’s the latest.

The convention really hit its stride last, with fred thompson, joe lieberman, president bush and a host of other speakers delivering their messages of trust and belief in john mccain and sarah palin.

I had the chance to meet Newt Gingrich and speak with him for a minute. He was surrounded by people and handlers and his wife (who calls hime “newtie”(!) told him to give this nice young man (me) a minute before he left! He got a big smile on his face when he found I was running for office and I was from “manzullo country”.

He had some nice words and told me to “keep telling people the truth and always do the right thing, regardless of political fallout. ” I told him I would continue to do those things and he said I should be fine in this election. Not sure how well he knows winnebago county, but it sure was nice to hear.

Something cool happened to me on the floor while fred thompson was speaking. I was walking in front of the box president bush and his wife barbra were sitting in. I looked up at them, he looked directly at me, smiled and gave me a slow deliberate salute. I couldn’t have been more 6 feet from him! It was pretty cool having a president of the united states of america acknowledge and greet me. Definitely my “goober” moment.

I shared a shuttle ride with a gentleman and his wife who were part of the “friends and family” contingency. Friends for 39 years with john mccain and knew general borling, without ever having met him, only through taps on the wall of the hanoi hilton. He’s an amazing character and absolutely overwhelmed with the idea that one of his best friends could be president in a few months. I hope to talk to him again today.

Joe Lieberman was greeted with a rousing round of applause and loud cheers. I was quite curious as to his reception and 95 percent was warmly recieved. It was pretty amusing when he start to describe how president clinton was a great collaborator as opposed to barack obama, who “has achieved no legislation of any significance. He has no record of getting anything done by working across the aisle.” People were ready to hear about obama’s lack of record, but not praise for bill clinton. You could’ve heard a pin drop! Pretty interesting.

Tonight it’s SARAH! She’s moved into first name only stature around here. It should be great!

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