McCain tells an anecdote involving Grantland Rice, Joe Louis and Billy Conn, who everyone as old as McCain (75) no doubt still remembers, bashes President Obama and then wraps up with patented “heh-heh” McCain sarcasm.

Turning to Romney and then the audience, McCain says, “We forgot to congratulate him on his landslide victory last night!” Heh-heh.

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Then Romney starts taking questions. The big gym swallows up sound, and so Romney staffers rush around to bring handheld microphones to the questioners. But each question is oddly hostile.

Oddly hostile as in Romney’s opponents — Republicans? Democrats? — have packed the hall early and Romney keeps taking questions from people in the front rows, which is a mistake. (Note to Romney staff: Put actual Romney supporters in the front rows next time.)

Romney is asked about corporations being people and where the next war will be, and he calls on an Asian woman directly in front of him who says, “I’m Chinese-American, I pay my taxes and I vote and don’t put Asians down!”

A staffer takes the mic away from her but she keeps talking and Romney says, “I love legal immigration and if I am president, we will have more of it!”

Then he looks around for someone who might be safe and he calls on a boy of about nine or 10 who has just stood up from — where else? — the front row.

The kid reads from a piece of paper saying, “Now that the troops are out of Iraq, do you intend to form alliances there?”

Not your average grade-schooler question. I am sitting a few rows back on one of the other sides of the room, and the woman next to me, who has been studying a piece of paper with a dozen printed questions on it, stands up and asks Romney — what else? — a hostile question.

Romney answers, calls on another person, but there aren’t enough handheld mics for a crowd of this size and his staffers are slow in getting to the questioner and Romney says in icy tones: “We decided to save money on microphones here.”

Did you hear those thuds? Those were the sounds of heads rolling at Romney headquarters.

Things like this happen to low-rent, seat-of-the-pants, run-of-the-mill campaigns, not the Romney “crispy good” campaign.

After a few more questions, Romney says, “I am told we are out of time for questions.” But I wonder how he was told this. No staffer has come up to him or handed him a note.

But Romney has decided it is time to end the event from heck and walks off the stage into the crowd, where he shakes hands and answers questions that are not miked or broadcast.

And as I leave the gym, there is a whole bunch of eager young volunteers with eager young faces, who are politely handing out campaign literature to one and all.

For Ron Paul.

Roger Simon is POLITICO’s chief political columnist.