Posted on 08/13/2007 4:51:52 PM PDT by rob88888
The much-hyped Iowa Straw Poll finally took place tonight, and the results are in. As expected, Mitt Romney was the victor. Of course, with top-tier candidates like Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Fred Thompson refusing to participate, anything less than a solid first-place finish would have been devastating to the Romney candidacy.
Anyway, here are the complete results, along with my commentary:
1. Mitt Romney - 4516 votes - 31%
This is roughly the same percentage George W. Bush got in 1999. And we all know what happened after that: the momentum from his victory here helped secure Dubya's place as the front-runner for the GOP nomination, and he of course became the eventual nominee. The Romney camp is probably somewhat disappointed that they didn't get a higher percentage, but they still won by a comfortable margin. Romney has the "big-mo" now. Let's see if he can keep it.
2. Mike Huckabee - 2587 votes - 18.1%
This was somewhat surprising.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogcritics.org ...
No, I don't think so.
What Iowa really shows is that the bottom-tiered candidates are really bottom-tiered.
I dunno -- Huckabee went in, spent little money, campaigned a bit, and came away with 18%. When you compare against Mitt, who poured money and resources into winning this and only got 31%, Huckabee's showing was very, very impressive. Or Mitt's was sad. Either way...
If Romney had not gone to Iowa, not spent the money and not brought in thousands of volunteers would he have still won?
Dr. Freud, what's this mean?
You need to lose weight.
In 2007, top-tiered candidates (except Romney) skipped Iowa. In 1999 none did. Romney had no real competition this time.
And learn to write.
This analysis and commentary is inane.
Romney won in a one man race.
And still with less than a third of the vote.
It’s nothing like GWB’s 1999 victory where he actually had serious competition.
A lot of the anti-Paul mouth foamers are calling his 9% a defeat because he didn't finish second. Pretty strange when they kept telling us he never had a chance to top 1%
Ya know bill, every other thing L. Ron Paul says is freakin insane, but I have to admit there are a lot of Republicans out there who actually make him look pretty good by comparison.
No--he's polling about 300 votes more than a guy who just pulled out of the race.
According to my brother, Mormon by marriage, their church scuttle butt has it that there were at least 4,000 mormons who were bussed to this event. Therefore this poll result is not a reliable indicator of the actual comparative strength of support for Romney. A man worth a quarter billion, who has already spent $9 million of his own money attempting to garner support.
I also saw the people who were wearing those yellow Romney shirts. Frankly, they did look like they were families yanked out of church by their Bishop...and wondering what all the heck was this political stuff?
All while misrepresenting himself by echoing themes that parallel that of a true conservative such as Duncan Hunter as closely as he can....
So why didn't the real deal do better? Is Duncan a poor speaker, or campaigner? No. Not from what I saw. I went down to see what the heck was going on. And it comes down to money. There was no pile of money to marshall supporters with paid staff, golf carts, and busses, nor hookups with local churches of his faith (Baptist) or an impressive soundstage on the outside, and a massive set of freebies...it comes down to the fact that this was an event that catered to the opportunity to orchestrate. The top four candidates did so. Clearly spending major money. Huckabee spent far more than was reported. They spent the money they had to.
Duncan either didn't have it, or declined to play that game. After talking with Mrs. Hunter, I am inclined to believe he simply felt it was repugnant to recruit voters that way. Unfortunately...that IS the name of the game in the Iowa Straw Ballot.
Duncan, when he went up to speak, was given a quiet welcome, as if to say...who the heck are you, and why are you up there? After the crowd heard the video...they knew better than to be so skeptical. By the time he was a third of the way through his speech, you could see a very pronounced increase in crowd enthusiasm for him. But still, they didn't know him. By the end, I believe they knew they could trust him. For the few undecideds who had come to Ames, however, it wasn't enough. They wanted to see large crowds. And so on. But still, it was the pre-decideds who made the outcome. Otherwise Ron Paul would have walked off with it. He must have had at least 3,000 people there...but they weren't from Iowa and hence not eligible to vote. The bandwagon effect only got him up to 9%. Actually seriously poor considering the crowds he had.
Duncan just didn't have enough "pre-decideds"....and there weren't enough persuadable undecideds to influence...or perhaps even enough numbers of "undecideds" period.
Frankly, it is so reassuring that Duncan has such idealistic and high scruples.
But those scruples are apparently going to torpedo his campaign. He is too clean to get into this fight in the way that Romney is.
I believe someone with more "get down, get dirty" campaign savvy is needed to be brought on board the Duncan Hunter campaign. And major money is needed for that kind of talent to be recruited. They have to know they have a roll to play with. MAJOR MONEY. So we may have a chicken-egg situation. One, unfortunately, Romeney doesn't have.
No sir. Hunter has just begun to fight.
Fortunately, with Tommy Thompson leaving that helps. But we need both Tancredo and Fred Thompson to leave the field as well. Both of their showings should encourage that result. Fred in particular. Then the money can be more successfully recruited from the "fence-sitters".
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