‘i’OWA IN POLiTiCS
Thursday,
August 22—Ames, Iowa, by Bob Rohden
Per his vote-purchase options, Mitt Romney won the 2008 Iowa Republican straw
poll aka carnival in Ames, Iowa on August 10th. By bussing his paid-for voters
in to Ames, he carried easily over 30% of the 14,000+ tally and said he felt
“pleasingly punched” by the experience, or something like that. Left unsaid was
that he proved the old saw that “if you pay enough, they will play on your
dime.”
Previously this
cash cow generated super big bucks for the Iowa Republican party. The final vote
count of 14,302 was substantially under the 23,000+ paid for in 1999, the last
year of this GOP carnival. This year, acting inabsentia, nationally undisclosed
VP Cheney claimed the 500 Gs for his new national security political action
committee, 2009 Mortgage, Inc., a Delaware corporation.
In previous
years, this straw poll has early-on slashed the number of candidates looking for
the ultimate handout in Washington.
Amazingly, a
number of “hot” candidates (if you consider Blue to be a hot color) actually cut
themselves out of the poll before the voting began. Both NYC self-appointed
Mayorus For Lifus, Rudi G. and Arizona Senator McCain were no-shows, claiming
the scary power of Romney’s cash which made him the eventual shoo-in. Actual
fact is that neither candidate could find any buses to lease for their own
potential voters.
Arkansas’ Mike
“Big Bass” Huckabee registered an 18% share of the votes for second place.
Another rocker wanting to be president.. He couldn’t find any buses either.
On to the
Thompson twins – one a no-show from Tennessee, Fred Thompson, who has not
officially declared his candidacy, but was on the ballot anyway – the other,
Tommy from Wisconsin, who has been seen actively campaigning around Iowa and was
on the ballot, expecting to be either first or second. Busses here? Nada. Zip.
With his vote (1039) stuck in the single digits at 7+%, he now has to live up to
his statement that he will “drop out of the race if he did not place first or
second in the event.”
Republican-Void-Filler Fred Thompson with 203 votes, came in 7th. So we see that
14,100 Iowa Republicans actually don't care about this Tennessean’s
“Quote-unquote Campaign” enough to take a free $35 to vote for him. Or, maybe
they really believe that he isn’t going to run, since he can’t even enter the
race. Maybe he couldn’t find a pickup truck to rent for the event. No matter
that he has been criss-crossing the state garnering votes for the poll –
“testing the waters” is his campaignspeak.
The burning
question at the end of the day seems to be “who is this Chicago Businessman John
Cox who came in at the bottom of the heap with 41 votes?”
Final answer
from thousands of non-attending Republicans? Bye - bye to Tancredo, Hunter,
Paul, et al. All talk—no action. Too little, too late.
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