Word: straws
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Like his rivals - Senator John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani - who skipped the Ames, Iowa straw poll for G.O.P. candidates last week, Thompson jetted into Des Moines and spent a couple of hours at the fair before heading off again. While pressing the flesh, he made sure to dismiss criticism that he has been waiting too long to enter the race. "I wasn't around when they made those rules and I'm not abiding by them," he said during a brief speech at the traditional fair soapbox. "We've got plenty of time...
When the ballots were finally counted in the Iowa straw poll on the evening of Aug. 11, former Governor Mitt Romney was the winner, with 31.5% of the vote. But it was Mike Huckabee, the laid-back former Governor of Arkansas, who bounded into the press tent ahead of the others to exult in his second-place finish. Romney's win was preordained--he spent a reported $2 million on the event and has led in Iowa polls since mid-May. But Huckabee, who has raised only $1.3 million all year and spent less than $150,000 on the straw...
Social conservatives have historically been overrepresented in Iowa politics: Iowa is the state, after all, where Pat Robertson won the 1988 straw poll. But in 2004, Karl Rove's strategy yielded 3.5 million newly registered Evangelicals nationally. Those born-again voters have been underwhelmed by the 2008 GOP front runners: a flip-flopping Mormon from Massachusetts; a pro-choice, thrice-married New Yorker; and John "Agents of Intolerance" McCain...
Enter Huckabee. He and Brownback are both true conservatives and devoutly religious. But with political skills that rival those of childhood neighbor Bill Clinton, Huckabee, who moonlights as a Baptist preacher, is simply the better candidate. At the straw poll, his campaign purchased about 1,800 tickets for supporters, but he earned almost 2,600 votes. That means 800 voters showed up intending to vote for another candidate but found themselves drawn to Huckabee...
...Which raised an essential question about Republicans this year: Given the Bush debacle and the possibility of a Democratic victory in 2008, how crazy are they willing to get? Are they tempted to pull another Goldwater and lose spectacularly, on principle, as they did in 1964? If the straw poll is any test, the answer is no. The Paul forces turned out mostly to be nonvoting out-of-staters. Tancredo tanked. The Iowans, including Taylor, even chose the milder brand of Christian conservative, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (with 2,587 votes), over Brownback (2,191). Huckabee, a Baptist preacher...