Dallas County GOP Voters Turn Out for Paul Ryan 'Victory Rally' in Adel

About 500 people have gathered on the Dallas County courthouse lawn in Adel this morning to hear from GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan.

The event is running behind schedule; doors were supposed to open at 7 a.m. but it was nearly 8 before the crowd was allowed through security checkpoints. 

Lou Lemke of Adel said, "I lived in Wisconsin and met Paul Ryan when he was running for Congress in 1997. When I got home that night I said, 'That guy is really smart for a young guy.' I really think he's a good vice presidential pick, he has a lot of good ideas."

Patch will update this story through the morning as GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan speaks in Adel.

Marge Westphal of Adel was at the event dressed in patriotic colors. "I really just wanted to see Paul Ryan. We need to reform Social Security, I think we've really got to bite the bullet."

This wasn't Ryan's first stop in Iowa this week. After the long Labor Day weekend, to speak with a sold out crowd at Kirkwood Community College.

During that stop Ryan railed against Obama and the "failure" of his administration.

"Jimmy Carter was fired in 1980 and Ronald Reagan was fired," Ryan said. "And if you look at his jobs record, Obama was even worse than Jimmy Carter."

Jake Chapman, who is running for State Senate District 10, began warming up the Dallas County crowd by noting that the national debt hit $16 trillion on Tuesday.

"It's immoral, reckless and we need to replace Barack Obama," Chapman told the rally.

David Oman, state co-chairman for the Romney/Ryan campaign, asked the crowd: "How many of you think Barack Obama is getting a little nervous about Iowa?"

The crowd cheered in response to Oman's allusion -- Obama was in Ames and Urbandale last week, and will hold a rally in Iowa City Friday afternoon before starting a weekend bus tour in Florida.

Ryan's Tuesday Stop in Cedar Rapids

During his nearly half hour speech Tuesday, Ryan danced around remarks made at the Republican National Convention last week. Fact checkers found multiple inaccuracies in Ryan's acceptance speech including this remark cited by The Washington Post:

"Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: 'I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years,’" he said, according to the Post, adding, "Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year."

On Tuesday, Ryan said he was actually blaming Obama for not re-opening the plant, rather than being responsible for its closing.

Ryan also came under fire recently for a little white lie he told about the time it took him to run a marathon in 1990. Ryan boasted that it was just under three hours when in reality, it took him more than four hours to complete it.