Posted on 11/23/2012 1:08:09 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
DES MOINES, Iowa - In the days since Republicans lost an election many in the party thought was theirs, chatter has been bubbling about what the GOP should do to recover.
For Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, it starts with the smallest of actions: abandoning the state's now-infamous straw poll.
Once a festive checkpoint on the road to the leadoff Iowa caucuses, the poll has devolved into a full-blown sideshow, Branstad and other critics contend. They say it's an unfair and false test that has felled good candidates and kept others from competing in the state.
"It's just something that's gotten totally out of control," said veteran GOP presidential campaign consultant Charlie Black. "It's been bad for years, but no one has had the guts to say it until now."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
LLS
What is wrong with a lottery and casinos? You have a problem with them?
Many of those commenting seem unfamiliar with the Ames Straw Poll.
Yep the Straw poll gets a lot of attention amongst some groups but in reality isn’t that important as a measuring device as to who will win the Iowa Caucuses or the Presidency.
Since the Straw poll began only one winner has gone on to win the Iowa Caususes and the Presidency... George W. Bush.
The last two winners of the Straw Poll didn’t even win the Iowa Caucuses.
2007.... Romney won,... Huckabee won the Caucuses... McCain Gop nominee
2011.... Bachmann won... Sanatorum won the Caucuses... Romney GOP nominee
The Straw Poll is a fund raiser and big party ... nothing more.
I'm for that!
All the states need to have their primaries on the same day; all the primaries need to be closed primaries; and the candidate should be the one with the highest vote total. This way the left-wing states and the left-wing GOP-E do not get to dictate the candidate, it shortens the primary season and thereby saves money better spent in the main campaign.
Yes I DO! Your Corrupt State(and Nevada) is who pushed and pushed and pushed both here all during the 1980s and 1990s. Brandstad and our Idiot “Legislature” passed it and signed it(Casino Gambling and the Lottery) in the early 1990s by using the LIE that it will be “for the Children” and for “Schools”(BULLSHIT)! Turns out that MOST of the State’s Ill-Gotten “gains” have been put into organization’s like the “Iowa-West””Foundation(politician’s SLUSH-FUNDS)” and the like. SO NO I do NOT Like “Gambling” it is a TAX on the poor.
Then they need to dump New Hampshire hard and fast. For far too long that state has been saddling the rest of us with RINO’s.
I doubt the press would like spending that much time in the middle of the country but who cares what they think.
IN SC, it may be that a TEA third party is the only way to beat “Lovable Lindsey”, but I guess even that would fail. People in SC don’t even know his record.
followed by Fla and Colorado
That's a loy of R money that can used to desconstruct liberalism and its impact tp the voteers who count the most.
Saddling us with RINOS, yes, but it’s a willing complicity on the part of uninformed Republican primary voters, along with divided intraparty opposition to the head RINO for that year.
You’re exactly correct. The Straw Poll only is as relevant as folks think it is. Does it have relevancy? Yes, because it always seems to eliminate some from the field but it has very little to do with predicting an eventual winner. No one has to come and no one has to participate—it is a giant party with a straw poll.
Well, yes, but...
The current version of the Iowa GOP is indeed run by a bunch of shiny-pants "business" types in Des Moines/Polk County (Cedar Rapids used to count for more than it does now) who are in it to benefit themselves and their cronies. It used to be the ag bloc that they kissed up to, but the insurance and banking types superceded it to some extent, and now even the teachers unions get to pull on the reins. This group of GOP bigs will pay lip service to traditional values, but they are not traditionalists in anything other than looking out for their own interests.
However...
There is that nominally "fundamentalist" or "evangelical" component to the Iowa GOP that perennially attempts to grab the wheel of the ship away from the cronies, the result being a zig-zag heading smack into an iceberg; they - and the state in general - always seem to go right into the freezing water, while the GOP-e always seem to be in the first-class lifeboats (relatively dry and with a flask of brandy... unfazed and ready for the next cycle).
When I was still a Republican who thought I mattered, I would get upset at the parade of GOP-e approved empty suits that would inspire absolutely NOBODY to vote, let alone be enthusiastic. Conversely, I would cringe when the grassroots - which they are, by-and-large - Christian fundamentalists would go scorched-earth to maneuver someone grotesquely unqualified for office into a race largely on the basis of their religious testimony (or some such thing).
So one can watch with dismay the "we must put forward this guy because he's part of the club" people square off with "we must put forward this guy because he's part of the church" people. Oh, boy! Another choice between some political functionary representing the good-old-boys club or a born-again dark horse who can't describe the difference between arson and incest.* I think the vast majority of voters are long past being tired of it, but the local GOP organizations seem to lack their previous ability (or possibly desire) to tell either faction to get its respective crap together. The various media "kingmakers" in the Iowa market are often less than helpful in that they tend to poison both wells so that nobody wants to drink from either one as the primary process moves forward.
About the Iowa primary (okay, caucus), I have already said my piece repeatedly, so the short suggestion for the GOP is for Iowa to have its first-in-nation status pulled immediately, to be restored only when Iowa is rid of Tom Miller and Tom Harkin, and not necessarily in that order. The Ames straw poll? It's an amateurish PR fest cum agricultural fair in a land of low-hanging fruit, and largely a joke to anyone who isn't jockeying for a position on a campaign staff or making a buck off it by catering, so if the Iowa GOP wants to hold a talent show in the school gym, let them do so... and then ignore the hell out of the winner. Please.
Mr. niteowl77
*Hat tip to Mark Twain.
I agree with MOST of what you say here(minus the Christian “Fundamentalist” “Thing”. Iowa have NOT been right since that BASTARD Hughes was Governer/Senator. Ever wonder WHY Iowa now has 4 Congessional Disticts?
I agree and while we are at it why don’t we move the first primaries to the red states and quite letting blue state Republicans chose our candidates.
Fair enough. I consider myself a "Christian fundamentalist," but the term is admittedly pretty broad; in any event, I do not cut my co-religionists any more slack than anyone else.
Harold Hughes was a MAJOR figure in the turning point of this state, and certainly not for the better. Unfortunately, the Robert D. Ray years were not unalloyed sweetness and light, especially in view of how many skids were greased up during those years so that Terry Branstad's signature was something akin to a foregone conclusion. The Iowa GOP-e (who always got along well enough with the Dems off-camera) helped lay the groundwork for a lot of garbage that came to fruition in Branstad's term(s).
(BTW, I'm not a big Terry Branstad fan either. Tom Vilsack and Chet Culver managed to make the guy look almost Washingtonesque by comparison, but Vilsack and Culver would make a lot of people look Washingtonesque by comparison.)
Mr. niteowl77
Bob Ray was/is a RINO’s RINO. Witness his behaviour during the 2010 Iowa Supreme Court Non-Retention Campaign.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.