Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney shook hands with dozens in the downtown Des Moines lunch crowd today.
Romney walked around a well-traveled area of the Des Moines skywalks as folks who work in the downtown area stepped out for lunch. Nick Furleigh of Des Moines was among the first to shake Romney’s hand. "I guess he seems like a nice guy. Don’t know too much about him at this point," Furleigh says. "But brought a little excitement downtown."
Furleigh, who works at Wells Fargo Bank, plans to go to a Republican Caucus on January 3rd, but hasn’t settled on a candidate. "Don’t know who I want to go for, who I want to go against," Furleigh says.
Eric Wahlstrom and his wife, Courtney, of Des Moines are also undecided at this point, but "definitely" plan to go to a Republican Caucus. "With so much at stake, I think it’s important for us to go out and Caucus and figure out early on who we want to support," he says.
Wahlstrom, a 27-year-old tax accountant, has never caucused before. Wahlstrom says his 25-year-old wife, who is a math teacher, has been keeping track of the campaign and giving him advice. "We’ve looked at the websites and, you know, you take those quizzes that try to match you up with a candidate and I seem to always get matched up with the same candidate," he says. That candidate would be Duncan Hunter.
The couple plans to watch Wednesday’s Des Moines Register debate featuring all the GOP candidates. As for the one they met in person over the lunch-hour, both say Romney made a "good first impression."