DES MOINES - The buzz among the press at Fred's kickoff event is all about the small-ish size of the crowd. I believe the campaign is circulating an official number of 450 people, but it looked to be considerably fewer than that. I'd guess more in the 250 range, and a decent percentage of folks in the room (perhaps 20-25%) were members of the media.

I asked David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register how Fred's crowd compared to the size of crowds pulled by other top-tier candidates at recent events. Yepsen said he thought Romney could come to Des Moines any weekday afternoon and generate the same sized crowd.

As to the proceedings, radio host Michael McCoy led off with some introductory remarks about Fred followed by a brief video highlighting Thompson's life story. Fred's speech was smoothly delivered and well received. He spoke for roughly fifteen minutes without a teleprompter and hardly ever glanced down at his notes. Thompson spent the first few minutes outlining the challenges he sees America facing -- in particular national security -- before moving on to outline his "first principles," which he described as "common sense conservative beliefs" based on the idea that the "Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are not outmoded documents that can be cast aside."

All in all, there was much for conservatives to like in Thompson's speech, and much to like in Thompson himself. But after this first event the jury is still out on whether he has the capacity to connect with and inspire voters in the way he must to ultimately capture the nomination.

More later. We're off to Council Bluffs (just outside of Omaha) for another event.