I was in attendance in Ames, IA yesterday for the GOP Straw Poll, a regular event sponsored by the Republican Party of Iowa. This isn’t an official primary, it’s a promotional event for candidates to mingle with activists in the state. The straw poll is actually quite devastating… first-tier candidates in the past like Elizabeth Dole, Lamar Alexander and Dan Quayle have had their campaigns ended because of it. A poor showing here will dry up your fundraising, which usually means the bottom half of the candidates are out by Labor Day.
First of all: Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Fred Thompson were not in attendance in a deliberate attempt to snub Iowa, whose primary is first in the nation. McCain isn’t a surprise, he skipped Iowa completely in 2000 and paid dearly for it. Rudy’s pro-choice, pro-gay agenda would never fly in this state, so he’s avoiding it. Fred Thompson still isn’t officially running, but he’s a political twin of McCain.
That left Mitt Romney as the only first-tier candidate that showed up yesterday, and boy did he whup some ass. His bid earned him the largest tent in the entire fair—this entire valley section belongs to him:
He was also handing out bright yellow “Team Mitt” tshirts, which were being worn by at least 70% of the people around yesterday. Impressively organized.
I met over half the candidates in attendance, including Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo (for the second time, we met in Colorado last year), and Tommy Thompson (who’s positively insane). I also got a chance to hang out with Libertarian talk show host Neal Boortz. Mitt, I met at the Iowa State Convention last summer, and Sam Brownback was nowhere to be found all day.
Of the bunch, Huckabee (former Governor of Arkansas) is by far the most likeable and Duncan Hunter (Congressman from California) looked the most presidential. Huckabee also stole the show by bringing out the the band he plays bass for—a group called Capitol Offense, comprised of former Washington and White House insiders. For a classic rock/blues band of 50 year old politicians, they actually threw down something fierce:
The FairTax.org people were in attendance, in such large numbers that their tent actually exceeded the size of half the candidates. (This is a good thing, the Fair Tax may be the single most important issue of the next ten years.)
Ron Paul had people EVERYWHERE, but they were all bussed in from out-of-state. The straw poll only allows people with Iowa drivers licenses, and they checked them rigorously. We also saw a respectable amount of support for Tancredo, Huckabee and Brownback. Mitt Romney had first place locked up from the word “Go,” but second place was up for grabs. Nobody could tell from all the out-of-state saturation how many votes the candidates were actually going to get.
Here’s the final results from last night:
Mitt Romney - 4516 - 31.5%
Mike Huckabee - 2587 - 18.1%
Sam Brownback - 2192 - 15.3%
Tom Tancredo - 1961 - 13.7%
Ron Paul - 1305 - 9.1%
Tommy Thompson - 1039 - 7.3%
Fred Thompson - 203 - 1.4%
Rudy Giuliani - 183 - 1.3%
Duncan Hunter - 174 - 1.2%
John McCain - 101 - 1.0%
John Cox - 41 - 0.1%
Here’s how it translates:
Mitt Romney’s finish was subpar. With the presence he had yesterday, and the lack of Giuliani and McCain, he was expected to get at least 40%. He didn’t. Mitt is not as strong as people think he is, and this shows it. Same for Ron Paul, whose 9.1% is an abysmal failure in this field. His senior staffers (from Washington State, like myself) were expecting at least 2000 votes, and hoping for 3. Big missed opportunity for Paul.
Tommy Thompson, Duncan Hunter and John Cox are out.
The big winner yesterday was Mike Huckabee. Between his band playing and his well-delivered speech, he swayed a lot of voters and proved to be a real, bona fide candidate. Sam Brownback’s showing was actually subpar, considering he came in with more clout and had bid for the second-largest tent in the grounds. The fact that he lost to Huckabee is a stinging blow, even if it wasn’t by much. Tancredo also didn’t finish as well as expected, given the buzz that he was doing grassroots under the radar for the last two months.
Giuliani, McCain and Thompson got punished severely for not showing up.
There’s now basically 90 days left until the Republican Primaries. Florida moved theirs up to January, which means South Carolina by law has to have theirs at least a week sooner, which means New Hampshire by law has to be a week before that, which means Iowa by law has to lead at least a week before that. First in the Nation Caucus is now being held in mid-December. We’ll know by January who our Republican nominee for President is. Simple as that. It won’t go to Super Tuesday, like Giuliani is hoping. Done deal. It’s going to be Mitt Romney.
The images came from the Cyclone Conservatives blog, which has DOZENS more, and at full size. You can check that out, along with summaries of the day’s events here:
(sarcasm)
