Inscrutable Iowa Straw Poll?

Yes, there will be a GOP Straw Poll on Aug 11, 2007 in Ames Iowa.

Is it inscrutable? (For those of you from Mars that means "not easily understood, mysterious").

Not really.

Just follow me here!

No, it is not an official political event but it is still intriguing.One of the things I will be watching like a hawk is how well Rudy Giuliani and John McCain do in the poll. Oh, sure, I know they are not officially participating but that's tough cookies for them because they and Fred Thompson and all the other GOP wannabes are going to be on the straw poll ballot. So, by NOT participating they are in danger of "coming in last".

If you look at how John McCain did in the 1999 Straw Poll, the last time the White house race in the GOP was open, you will see what I mean.

McCain was 10th with 83 votes even though he was not participating. A BIG LOSER!

The Iowa Straw Poll is unique.

You (GOP prez wannabe) are going to be "running" whether you are running or not! McCain and Giuliani will either come in very low on this list or they will encourage a stealth campaign in order to pump up those numbers and being able to spin it as "an amazing result since I was NOT a candidate" or dismiss the low numbers by insisting "I was not a candidate".

An interesting problem!

I will also be carefully scrutinizing how well the new front runner Mitch Romeny does. Will he blow away the field the way W Bush did in 1999? Bush received 31% of the vote, bested Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Dole who came in second an third, and pin-pricked the balloon of Lamar Alexander, Dan Quayle, Gary Bauer, Alan Keys, Pat Buchanan, Orrin Hatch, ... then dead last Kasich, and Smith (no one remembers who they were!). If Romney gets 31% he will have won.

Finally, I will be watching the "munchkins" - the low ranking candidates who hope to break through with a better than expected placing - Huckabee in third place would be huge!

So, I feel very str9ngly that we should not dismiss the Iowa Straw Poll as a gimmick or "just" a fund raiser for the GOP.

There are nuances and very interesting side stories that we should watch as we examine the road to the White House 2008. The Straw Poll is one of those.