Yeah for Me! Iowa Impressions of the Candidates On the Way

I was trying to find another old post on the site and came across this post that I made after the Iowa Republican Straw Poll in August. I think my predictions have held up pretty well.

[By dumping big money into the state early, Romney] forced Giuliani and McCain to abandon the Straw Poll; he may well force them to abandon Iowa altogether, or simply put in token effort. If the other leaders--Fred Thompson, Giuliani, and McCain--effectively pull out of Iowa, conceding the state to Romney, they will also allow a space for Huckabee to finish prominently in the first caucus. If he were to finish a robust fifth place it would be no big deal. A second place finish could give him a big boost. But I think he has a shot at first, or a least a close second. He is an attractive candidate who typically appears thoughtful and comfortable in his skin. Romney comes across wooden and programmed. Maybe Iowa GOP voters will have a surprise in them come January.

Apparently the heavy lifting involved in making such prescient and weighty predictions left me so exhausted that I have only blogged once since August. So during the Christmas break (Yes, Mr. O'Reilly, I said Christmas), I will post a series on the Democratic Candidates, focusing on the ones I have heard in small-venue events. (I had to leave the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner early for a late-night meeting between my car and an eight-point buck. I made it just in time.) I will offer an Iowa perspective on their campaigns, their advertising, and the impact they seem to be having in the state.

Teaser: Bill Richardson thinks my daughter is a boy.

[That's All Folks]

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Straw Poll Eyewitness

Here is a link to a good post by a friend of mine who voted in the GOP straw poll last weekend. He found several aspects of the event disappointing. Chuck used to write a column for the Des Moines Register called "Iowa Boy". He also used to be a (Catholic) Democrat but changed largely because of his strong opposition to abortion. Otherwise, he is as moderate as a Republican can be. Here is a snippet of his observations:

Huckabee seems to me to have veered to the right – even for a conservative like he is – with his rigid positions on the war, the Middle East, immigration reform. I think he has pandered to the Fair Tax crowd and the National Rifle Association. Still, he has run a fun campaign here, using his strong sense of humor, his exceptional speaking ability, stories about how he lost 110 pounds in recent years, and his playing the bass guitar in his own rock ’n’ roll band.

Click on through for some more of his perspective on the campaign.

Update: Here is his report on the John Edwards appearance in Jefferson, Iowa today.

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Straw Poll Results

The local ABC affiliate just broke in to Charlie's Angels (movie!) to report the Iowa GOP Straw Poll Results. Only 14,302 votes were cast--far fewer than expected and, I think, about 9,000 fewer than 8 years ago. (This is good news if the Iowa GOP raises less money than anticipated.)

Mitt Romney 4,516 (32%)
Mike Huckabee 2,587 (18%)
Sam Brownback 2,192 (15%)
Tom Tancredo 1,961 (14%)
Ron Paul 1,305 (9%)
Tommy Thompson 1,039 (7.3%)
Fred Thompson 203 (1.4%)
Rudy Giuliani 183 (1.3%)
Duncan Hunter 174 (1.2%)
John McCain 101 (0.7%)
Cameron Diaz 100 (0.7%)
John Cox 41 (0.3%)
Tiger Woods -7

Romney didn't do quite as well as expected. He poured a huge amount of money into this race. There were probably quite a number of people who rode his buses but didn't cast their votes for him. Huckabee is clearly a big winner here. This should aid his fundraising. Brownback didn't do so horribly that it should cause him to pull out. Paul and Tancredo both did a little better than I expected.

The only ones I could see pulling out after this are Tommy Thompson and Duncan Hunter. But if Brownback's numbers cause his fundraising to dry up then he could be gone as well.

Incidently, the announcement of the results was delayed by over an hour because of some problems with one of the voting machines. They had to count 1,500 votes by hand. There was a last-minute lawsuit this week by a group that was trying to force the leadership to use paper ballots and to count the votes in public. The lawsuit doesn't look so silly now.

Update: Don't know why this post disappeared for a half hour, but I'm putting it back up with a new time stamp.

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