This morning I had an opportunity to listen to President George W. Bush speak for the better part of an hour at what I would characterize as an ‘intimate’ townhall-style ‘talk’ to several hundred Orange Countians who were arranged bleacher-style in a 360 degree layout around the President.  It was a respectful audience, and clearly everyone in the room was proud to be an American, and was relishing in the opportunity to hear in such a direct, familial fashion from the President of the United States.  Of course, to get into the Hyatt Hotel (about four blocks from my home in Irvine) you had to pass the two distinct groups of protestors — the ones who disagree with the President’s ‘guest worker’ solution for the illegal immigration problem, and those who just disagree with the President on everything.
 
The event was hosted by the Orange County Business Council and I want to give a shout-out to FR friend Todd Priest (and to RD with Team43) for the hook-up, and being able to have a great seat to hear from the POTUS.
 
The most impressive part about the President’s remarks and the program, frankly, weren’t found in the content of what he said — but rather in HOW he presented himself.  I am guessing that the event lasted about 50 minutes or so, and at least half of that was the President speaking off-the-cuff, without any prepared remarks.  As someone who has been to a lot of events, you are trained to look for teleprompters, notes or even some note cards.  Other than glancing down briefly at notes to make sure he didn’t miss out on important introductions (that would be the Congressmen present, as well as a thank you to Irvine Mayor Beth Krom for having him to our city — note to the President, my Mayor seemed genuinely honored to have you in our city, but…um…I’m certain she didn’t vote for you…either time), the President was remarkable unrehearsed.  He did give a mention to "Brulte" in reference to his long-time friend and former California State Senate Republican Leader Jim Brulte, and also to George Argyros, who served in his administration for several years as United States Ambassador to Spain.
 
When listening to the President talk at length, you really do get to appreciate his ‘style’ and the way he carries himself.  He is very plain spoken, and very sincere.  These characteristics came across as he talked to us about two issues — the War on Terror, and on the challenges facing America on the illegal immigration issue.  No where in his remarks were there any new policy announcements. 
 
I’ll leave it to all of the various reporters and punsters to talk about the content of his remarks, but I will say that in his talk on immigration issues, the President does get credit for coming here to Orange County to discuss the issue.  He, once again, articulated his support for a guest-worker program, which would have been controversial except for the fact that he has been an advocate for this form of amnesty all along.   I have issues with this position, but this post isn’t where I am going to talk about them.
 
After the President spoke, he then took questions from a number of folks in the audience.  It was refreshing to see the President take questions from folks he clearly picked out of the audience at the spur of the moment, and give thoughtful, heartfelt responses.  I am sure, like many in the room, I was left wondering what I would ask if somehow he called on me!  I decided I would praise both he and the Republican House of Representatives for their support of abolishing the unfair death tax, lament that it has not been able to pass the U.S. Senate, and ask the President if he thought something might pass this year.  That said, alas, I did not get a chance to ask my question.

I could try "Romper Room" style to tell you all a list of the who’s who of politicos and community leaders that were there at the event, but I would invariably miss "important people" and upset them.  I will say that there were four members of the Congressional delegation there — Congresswoman Mary Bono from the desert, as well as Congressmen Ken Calvert, Gary Miller, and the "host" Congressman John Campbell.  It was interesting being a ‘fly on the wall’ listening to the Members of Congress take questions afterwards from the news media.  Clearly there is a significant difference of opinion between the President and the GOP Congress about how to deal with this immigration issue.  I must say that I saw some artful ‘praise of the President’ with ‘polite disagreement on the policy’ mixed in.
 
I walked into the event with GOP uber-political-law expert Dana Reed, and his partner Cary Davidson (funny, I couldn’t tell you Cary’s partisan registration, but we did discuss that his mom gets most of her news from talk radio – so that is a good sign).  We sat together as well, and we were all impressed with the remarks.
 
When I was walking out after the event with Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona (my boss), we both got to talking about how impressive the President is, and how well he carries himself in an event like that one.
 
I’m sure I will be writing more about the President and this visit, with perhaps more intel on some of the folks I saw there — but I wanted to get this up right away.
 
PS:  I hope the photo I took can convey the intimacy of the room and how close we all were seated to the Commander-in-Chief.  The seats must have been good since I got a few "we saw you on TV" e-mails from friends.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 24th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.