Council Bluffs, Iowa — “A lot of the candidates you’ll be voting for tonight support a one-world government, the North American Union, and NAFTA, which is a giant highway going through Mexico to Canada, which we will pay for,” said an impassioned supporter of Texas Rep. Ron Paul (R.), a candidate for president. The speaker pointed at his hand. “Ron Paul wants to protect your privacy. He opposes a national I.D. card…This president will make a decision on if we all get implanted with chips that have radio-frequency identification on them.”

It was the beginning of the 7th precinct Republican caucus in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The program allots each candidate’s supporters an opportunity to speak at the beginning — often resulting in a bit of unintended comedy.

“It’s great that Mike Huckabee is a Christian,” a supporter of Mitt Romney told the small crowd in the library at Kirn Junior High School on North Avenue. “But Mister Rush Limbaugh” — he invoked this name with conspicuous reverence — “points out that to vote for Huckabee because he’s a Christian would be the same as voting for Hillary because she’s a woman, or for Obama because he’s black. I think you understand where I’m going with this.”

This was the most negative speech of the evening, but in this precinct, they did understand. When the votes were counted, Romney had 34 to Huckabee’s 19 and Paul’s 14. Needless to say, this was nothing like the statewide result.

Republicans gathered here at Kirn last night to go through their simple caucus process — really a process of a party-run primary. After the speeches, they cast their secret ballot votes and waited for the tally. Those interested in becoming very involved hung around after the vote to elect precinct delegates, but this is basically an afterthought. The so-called “straw vote” is the result that goes to the media, and it is therefore all that matters in the Iowa precinct caucuses.

Down the hall, in the school cafeteria, Republicans from the 8th precinct were preparing to take their own straw vote.

“We’re for Mitt Romney, said Stan Wilcox.

“Ahem, no we’re not,” said his wife Geneva.

“Well, we’re a broken home,” he quipped. Their son had talked Geneva into supporting Paul. Mr. Wilcox had only decided for Romney in the last month. “I was for Fred,” he said. “But he doesn’t want to be president. And I don’t force anybody to do anything they don’t want to do.”

James Kunkle, 43, was prepared to support Huckabee, just as he did when he attended the Ames straw poll in August. “Number one is his core beliefs — his values. That’s my biggest reason,” he said.

“Second, I like his ideas with regard to health care. Instead of just spending all that money treating diseases, he’s trying to find a better way to get healthy and reward people for that process. And I think he hasn’t been infected by special interests in Washington. It definitely adds to the credibility of his candidacy.”

Kunkle said he had chosen Huckabee when he met the candidate in person before the straw poll.

Kunkle was badly outnumbered in his precinct. Once the votes were counted, Huckabee finished third, 25 votes behind Romney (54) and behind McCain (26), even as he racked up an enormous statewide victory. Despite Romney’s vaunted organization in Iowa, Huckabee’s supporters were the ones most dedicated, most willing to spend their time getting to the caucus site and listening to kooky speeches from their neighbors.

With the results in, the reporters and political operatives will now bail out of Iowa as though it had never existed. But they’ll be back in the fall, because Iowa is still an important general election state. And there are signs that Republicans will have a more difficult time in Iowa this fall than in recent elections.

Although the turnout for their caucus exceeded 110,000 (and everyone’s expectations), it was less than half the Democratic turnout. More alarming for them should be the sight I saw as I entered Kirn that evening. Twenty-seven-year-old Joshua Turek, who plays for the Spanish Professional Wheelchair Basketball League in Madrid, Spain, was sitting at the table for the site’s Democratic precinct. He was changing his party registration from GOP so that he could support Barack Obama.

“I voted for Bush the first time,” he told me.

“But I’m just a bit upset at the direction the country is going. The second time, I voted for Kerry, even though I didn’t change my party affiliation. Obviously, the war is to me the most important part. But there’s the economy as well. And then health care. After living in Europe, I think it’s embarrassing that 40 million Americans don’t have health coverage.”

Moreover, in contrast to Republicans, who have agonized over selecting the least-bad choice, Democrats were happy with their choice of three liberals.

“I don’t care who wins here,” said one caucus-goer, Bill Lane, in the Democratic 9th precinct, which also caucused at Kirn. “I get to go and be happy with whoever I get to vote for.”

Iowa has settled nothing for the Republican field — except perhaps that Mitt Romney will exit it soon — but already the failures of the Bush administration have made it a difficult prize for the eventual GOP nominee.

–David Freddoso is an NRO staff reporter.