You are right, and to be honest, I am surprised that Newt is still in the race. Now, to your point...while this might allow a candidate to grow a base, is it really growing it when you buy 6000 tickets for an event, but only 4500 of them vote in your favor. If anything, it shows that people like Cain, who didn’t advertise and didn’t bus people in, were the real winners of this event (Santorum included).
Calling Cain, who came in fifth, one of “the real winners” of the Iowa straw poll misses the point that getting the most votes is winning.