By Vernon Robison
Moapa Valley Progress
The Mitt Romney campaign came to downtown Overton earlier this week. A 35 foot campaign tour bus for Romney drove into the community at around 9:30 a.m. on Monday morning and parked in front of the Inside Scoop for about 90 minutes. The colorful bus attracted a steady stream of curious locals who came by to see what was going on.
Some hoped to get a glimpse of the candidate. But Romney himself was not on the bus. He was campaigning in Colorado that day.
But Romney campaign worker Aaron Bradley, who was riding the bus along with a couple of other campaign staffers, said that the bus visit was still important.
“The small communities are going to be so important in this election,” Bradley said. “So we are going out to visit a lot of those outlying communities to let people know that their votes really do matter.”
Overton was the first stop on a rural bus tour that will wind its way through the state. Immediately after the downtown Overton stop, the bus went up through Alamo, Caliente, Pioche and Ely. In the days following it was planned to touch down in most of the small towns in the state.
Bradley said that this particular bus was significant as it was the first campaign bus put into service for the 2012 Romney campaign.
“This is the first one and the official Romney bus,” Bradley said. “It has been in 48 states. The campaign now has 5 buses like this in operation.”
Local residents were allowed to climb aboard the bus in small groups and see what the inside of the campaign bus looked like.
Inside Scoop owners Chris and Tish Cook said that they were pleased to have the bus park outside of their establishment. Chris said that the campaign had called several days ago to arrange the visit.
“They didn’t give us a lot of details on who was going to be coming,” Chris Cook said. “So we weren’t entirely sure what to expect. I stayed up most of last night worrying about it. But I think it was worth it.”
Cook said that he was glad to see so many interested people coming over to see the bus while it was parked there. A few of the visitors took the opportunity to register to vote while they were touring the bus.
“I think this is good and encouraging for the community,” Chris Cook said. “We hope that it encourages people in town to register and vote on election day.”
