Black Box Report

What If They Gave A Straw Poll and Nobody Cared?

Certainly Mitt Romney would disagree, but a lot of people are calling the results of the Iowa Straw Poll significant of exactly nothing:

I hate to be nasty, but anybody who takes the Ames Straw Poll results seriously is an idiot. A bunch of people spent ludicrous amounts of money to bus-and-truck 14,000 people to a big picnic, and the guy who spent the most bought the win with a mammoth 4516 votes...

This is ridiculous. The two leaders in the Ames straw poll received a combined total of 7,103 ballots. What exactly is this supposed to represent?...

...this event is to the Republican presidential nomination as a clown car is to a Formula One racer.

"Mitt-Mentum" may be a little overrated here. The former governor of Massachusetts outspent his rivals by about 10-1, pouring anywhere from $4-6 million into Iowa ad buys, campaign materials, busing in paid "volunteers" and getting tutored on the geography of his home state. This is like entering Carl Lewis in the Special Olympics, considering the top GOP candidates who are beating Romney in polls that aren't made of straw didn't even participate:

Romney's victory in the Iowa straw poll was not by any standard impressive. Facing marginal opposition -- none of Romney's competitors in the money-driven, pseudo-event has a serious chance of winning the nomination -- Romney won ('bought' would be more accurate) less than a third of the vote.

Which just proves that Mitt Romney has the economic chops to proudly carry forth the Bush tradition of smart spending:

In a state with a population of approximately 3 million people, Mitt Romney spent close to $6 million dollars to garner 4516 votes. Which, if my calculations are correct, means that I finished a mere 4516 votes behind him without spending a penny.

But maybe it was all worth it? After all, you know the saying, "As go conservative Iowans, so goes the nation." Actually, you probably don't know that saying, as I just made it up. Of course, conservative Iowans don't like being misunderestimated - any more than they like being referred to as "fly-over country" - and consider their straw poll very significant, gosh darn it!

Yes, the Straw Poll was mostly a dog and pony show that can be easily “bought”. We know it, you know, even the candidates know it. But it’s still an important event that tests support within the Republican Party and among conservative-leaning voters, and it’s a traditional indicator of how well they will do at the Iowa Caucuses.

So you guys on the coasts who think Iowa doesn’t matter, think again. If a candidate can’t win here, if they can’t get the support of traditionally conservative voters (not Republican, mind you, but conservatives), then they aren’t going to win anywhere else in the midwest. And I needn’t remind you that Republicans, in order to win the White House, NEED the midwest.

An interesting point. Another interesting point is that, in the 4 previous Iowa straw polls, only 2 winners have gone on to win the GOP nomination, and only one of them - George W. Bush - went on to the White House. But still, it's very significant. If for nothing else that it finally made the crowded GOP field a little smaller:

Tommy Thompson, by recognizing reality and calling it quits when others fail to do the same (John McCain, call your office), makes him, in a bizarre way, more qualified for the job than many others in the field.

He's a man of his word. Just the quality you'd want in a President.

Coincidentally, "recognizing reality and calling it quits when others fail to do the same" is just the quality you'd want in someone running the Iraq War.

Which is why poor Tommy Thompson never had a chance.