The Ames Straw Poll: Mitt Romney, His Wallet, and Some Other Guys
David Weigel | August 10, 2007, 8:29pm
I'm in an airport waiting for my (much, much delayed) flight to Iowa checking the latest on the Ames Straw Poll.
While I'd been told by the Ron Paul campaign that there wouldn't be a big ticket buy, the
Paul team sprung for
800 tickets (you need one in order to vote) that are quickly being snapped up by supporters. The cost: $28,000. That's enough to guarantee another romp over McCain, obviously, but Paul will need more than a thousand voters to buy their own tickets in order to compete with the make-or-break efforts of Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo and last-scene-of-Peter-Weir's-
Gallipoli charge of Tommy Thompson.
Paul supporters aren't exactly broadcasting confidence.
Voterfraud.org is suing to get the votes counted on something other than (or in addition to) Diebold machines.
Some sum-ups from people already in (or taking less languid methods of transportation to) Iowa:
Marc Ambinder.There are other interesting subplots, in no particular order.1. Tom Tancredo -- where he finishes, what he says.
3. The war of attrition between Sen. Sam Brownback and Ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee. Kansan and Arkansan. Catholic and Protestant. Comprehensive immigrationalist and comprehensive immigrationalist. In many ways, they're really quite similar. Based on anecdotes alone, the betting money is that Brownback has a better campaign organization and can expect, thanks to reliable stalwarts like pro-life activist Chuck Hurley, a solid turnout. But Huckabee has been working heavily Christian towns hard, and several Brownback rivals are spreading some tough (and arguably misleading) opposition research about him.
9. Whether Mitt Romney pulls campaign manager Beth Myers aside and asks whether they _really_ had to spend _all_ this money? (To which Myers will reply: "Yes, Governor.") Ron Kaufman will then join the conversation and start by saying, "Look it, Governor..."
Ryan Sager.Rep. Ron Paul: Mr. Paul's online supporters have made Web-based polls of the Republican primary essentially meaningless, swarming sites like the Pajamas Media straw poll and giving their man a 2-to-1 margin of victory over his closest competitor. No scientific poll, however, has shown Mr. Paul registering better than 1% or 2%, and it's unlikely they can adapt their cyber-tactics to the real world. Paulites are already calling voter fraud, but any low showing is likely to be legitimate.
Sager predicts a seventh-place Paul showing, behind Tancredo and ahead of McCain.
And
here's an ad running in the Ames Tribune tomorrow.
iih | August 11, 2007, 11:23am | #
Regarding Tancredo's "defending the border" thing--
First I even find it strange that anyone would waste time writing about Tancredo, but may be some of his supporters have decided to stop by and do a little bit of advertising among reason's readers.
Secondly, there are two two ways to defend the border and America -- the smart way, and the stupid way.
Lets start with the stupid way -- the Tancredo Way. US bombs their holy cites. Muslims (practically all of them -- 1.2 billion of them) will instantaneously harbor nothing but hatred (justifiable?) for the US. The Europeans, aside from pressuring the US not to do something as dumb as this, may actually stand up against the US because they do have a lot at stake here. Here in the US, where there is anywhere between 3 and 6 million Muslims, what about them? The seculars, the atheists, the separation-of-church-and-stateists (practically all Americans except Evangelicals), what about them? Coming from Tancredo, these people here in the US will be very restless about such a monstrously stupid act. Another conseuence is that the US will need to arm itself and (whatever remains of) its allies to the teeth. The US will have to create a iron curtain, and all of a sudden this Tancredo nut sounds like another Stalin. And, there, this is where Tancredo wants the US to end up -- an authoritarian regime so fearful of the people without as well as those within its borders.
The smart way -- if you really really have to (or love to?) bomb someone, just bomb the specific group of people who harm the US. Lumping all Muslims into just one monolithic group is very very stupid and quite ignorant. I sometime wonder, has Tancredo ever left the US?
Finally, after warlords like Tancredo are done with the Muslims (yeah right!), he his his like will find another new enemy -- the Hindus?, to make an enemy and wage a war against, and then another group, and then another, until we are all dead!
Good luck with that. But count me out.
