Straw Poll writeup

[Eric_Boyer]

first off - sorry to miss you Danny. We were just too busy herding angry cats to catch up. Mitt Romney had people coming in all day on luxury bus's and we were converting as many as we could. This is the first year I didn't even make it into the coliseum or the other candidates tents. I did eat in the Fair Tax tent though and took my kids on the rides but otherwise it was all work.

If you recall, the media initially predicted 50,000 votes cast, then downgraded it to 35,000 votes. I predicted 16,000 votes would be cast.
The reality is that about 14,000 votes were cast - the least amount in recent straw poll history. I also predicted a top 3 finish but that false bravado is purely campaign bluster and wishful thinking.

The big winner: Huckabee. The media will try to claim Mitt as the winner, but when you have to spent $2,000+ per vote, that isn't a win.

the biggest loser: It's a tie. The republican party is a big loser. This is just another sign of the coming bloodbath the chicken hawks will be bringing to the GOP. The other big loser of course is Tommy Thompson - who has dropped out. Duncan Hunter is a big loser as well, but he is also a stubborn loser. I imagine he is gunning for a cabinet position so he won't drop out for a while. Of course Cox is also a loser but we all knew who would finish last.

DW will have to speak for himself on Brownback. Coming in 3rd is fine. The problem is he bought more tickets then Huck, he provided free transportation - Huck didn't, and spent far more time in the state. Plus he is from a neighboring state. That Brownback and Huckabee are both vying for the same religious right vote - it appears Huckabee took an early lead in that race.

Paul's day was a mixed bag. 5th place and just shy of 10% of the vote is good - but it could of been much much better. We woke up to news that Mrs Paul was sent to the hospital that morning and Dr. Paul may not show up at alll. That is quite demoralizing to find out at 7:00 am. And although he did show up - it wasn't until noon. We also found that a large number of Iowan's that came to support Dr. Paul refused to vote. they would march and chant - but refused to participate in a GOP fundraiser. For those that don't know - it costs $35 to vote and the money goes for election efforts for the GOP. So our day was spent trying to herd the angry cats who currently despise the GOP into a voters booth. The propoganda stunt that copied the Iraq election by inking your thumb certainly didn't help us either. Our primary goal was to finish 5th or higher and to beat Tancredo - so we met one goal and failed in another.

I enjoyed all the out of state support for Dr. Paul very much however. Many of you remember the comraderie we all felt as American's following 9/11. As it turned out, that rejuvinated national spirit was short live as it was motivated by anger, not love. The Ron Paul revolution is completely different. We might not of owned the voting boot, but we owned the area outside the coliseum.

anyway - as a first timer to the Straw Poll I'm interested in what you thought of the event DW.

[Sasquatch]

Originally Posted by Eric_Boyer

first off - sorry to miss you Danny. We were just too busy herding angry cats to catch up. Mitt Romney had people coming in all day on luxury bus's and we were converting as many as we could. This is the first year I didn't even make it into the coliseum or the other candidates tents. I did eat in the Fair Tax tent though and took my kids on the rides but otherwise it was all work.

If you recall, the media initially predicted 50,000 votes cast, then downgraded it to 35,000 votes. I predicted 16,000 votes would be cast.
The reality is that about 14,000 votes were cast - the least amount in recent straw poll history. I also predicted a top 3 finish but that false bravado is purely campaign bluster and wishful thinking.

The big winner: Huckabee. The media will try to claim Mitt as the winner, but when you have to spent $2,000+ per vote, that isn't a win.

[View Full Quote]the biggest loser: It's a tie. The republican party is a big loser. This is just another sign of the coming bloodbath the chicken hawks will be bringing to the GOP. The other big loser of course is Tommy Thompson - who has dropped out. Duncan Hunter is a big loser as well, but he is also a stubborn loser. I imagine he is gunning for a cabinet position so he won't drop out for a while. Of course Cox is also a loser but we all knew who would finish last.

DW will have to speak for himself on Brownback. Coming in 3rd is fine. The problem is he bought more tickets then Huck, he provided free transportation - Huck didn't, and spent far more time in the state. Plus he is from a neighboring state. That Brownback and Huckabee are both vying for the same religious right vote - it appears Huckabee took an early lead in that race.

Paul's day was a mixed bag. 5th place and just shy of 10% of the vote is good - but it could of been much much better. We woke up to news that Mrs Paul was sent to the hospital that morning and Dr. Paul may not show up at alll. That is quite demoralizing to find out at 7:00 am. And although he did show up - it wasn't until noon. We also found that a large number of Iowan's that came to support Dr. Paul refused to vote. they would march and chant - but refused to participate in a GOP fundraiser. For those that don't know - it costs $35 to vote and the money goes for election efforts for the GOP. So our day was spent trying to herd the angry cats who currently despise the GOP into a voters booth. The propoganda stunt that copied the Iraq election by inking your thumb certainly didn't help us either. Our primary goal was to finish 5th or higher and to beat Tancredo - so we met one goal and failed in another.

I enjoyed all the out of state support for Dr. Paul very much however. Many of you remember the comraderie we all felt as American's following 9/11. As it turned out, that rejuvinated national spirit was short live as it was motivated by anger, not love. The Ron Paul revolution is completely different. We might of owned the voting boot, but we owned the area outside the coliseum.

anyway - as a first timer to the Straw Poll I'm interested in what you thought of the event DW.

Thanks for the exciting recap. I personally find Huckabee's sanctimoniousness to be abrasive and hypocritical given some of his positions. As for the impending "bloodbath," it's still too early to make that call, even if signs are pointing to a national shift leftward.

[Eric_Boyer]

Originally Posted by Sasquatch

Thanks for the exciting recap. I personally find Huckabee's sanctimoniousness to be abrasive and hypocritical given some of his positions. As for the impending "bloodbath," it's still too early to make that call, even if signs are pointing to a national shift leftward.

Here is my actual exciting recap:

My 5 year old daughter and I was taking a break in the shade - with tons of litter floating all around. One Ron Paul supporter walked by picked up a ballon off the ground and approached us with it - it was a Mitt Romney tube shaped ballon. She wrinkled her nose - said no thanks - so the guy popped it. All of a sudden some guy in a Mitt Romney volunteer shirt comes running up cursing like a drunken sailor. "that's my kids balloon f'en this f'en that". I asked the guy to watch his language in front of my kids. "F you. you Ron Paul supporters are arseholes" he replies. All of a sudden a large group of Ron Paul supporters come over shouting him down. He looks terrified at this point. My kid is with me so I can't say anything remotely close to what I wanted to say. I apolgized for the balloon being popped and mention that like Mitt - he should learn to pick his battles better. Fighting over free crap when tons of it is blowing all over the place is moronic. I then grab my daughter and start walking away. the shout down is still going on - but it was rattling my 5 year old so we headed away from it all.

I hope that guy got nothing but a good scolding but the way he was acting, I wouldn't be surprised if it escalated even further.


--------------------

There was also a cool Ron Paul RV - The Granny Warriors. Decked out to the hilt. On the side window it said something about being tired of the government monkeying around and they had an actual monkey on a tether and wearing a diaper. He would hang outside the window shaking hands of people passing by. It was a huge hit with the local media and kids.

The Straw poll is an absolute circus - but the heat this year seemed to bring the energy level down for all camps except the Ron Paul ones. I understand Brownback had airconditioning, which explains why I saw so few of you guys walking around.

[Danny White]

Yeah, sorry we didn't meet up Eric.

I was working "security" at the Brownback tent for most of the day, making sure Romney supporters didn't mooch food off of us, but I still wandered around quite a bit and took in the sights.

The Paul camp was out in force, but your analysis doesn't surprise me. I got the sense that a lot of them were from out of the state, and that a lot of them weren't exactly Republicans... so it doesn't surprise me that they may have resisted helping out a GOP fundraiser. What they should have done, though, was gobble up some of Romney's free tickets.

Seriously, though, that's what happened with the Huckabee supporters.

As I'm sure you noticed, people who were visibly with Huckabee were a distinct minority. There were far more Romney, Brownback and even Paul supporters there than there were Huckabee.

What happened, though, is that a large majority of the Fair Tax people went for Huckabee. They were bussed in by the Fair Tax group, and they ended up getting their voting tickets by taking advantage of the free tickets being given away by Brownback and Romney.

We gave out over 3000 tickets (more than enough to come in a strong second) but only ended up with 2100 votes. From my observation, a lot of those went to people wearing Fair Tax shirts and hats, but we didn't realize the full implication of who these guys were voting for (Huckabee) until after the fact.

I'm sure the same thing happened to Romney... he just had a big enough cushion where it didn't matter.


As for Brownback, you are correct that third is a fine showing. The bad thing is that it was third to the one guy we couldn't afford to finish behind -- Huckabee. IMO (this is not the campaign's position) we needed to establish ourselves as the pre-eminent social conservative in the race. And now I think Huckabee can lay claim to that.

After being there all day, I was really stunned that we didn't get second. After seeing the supporters and the organization, I'd have said: Romney, Brownback, Paul/Tancredo, and then maybe Huckabee.

In fact, until minutes before the vote was announced, we thought we had second in hand, and when we found out we were behind Huckabee, it felt like the air had been let out of the room (which is saying something since we had the only air-conditioned tent! ).

All in all it was a fun day, though. I'm still exhausted from being out in the blazing heat all day (and trying to track you down! )

Let's see... other observations. I like Duncan Hunter a lot, but his presence there was embarrassing. He did have good old-fashioned ice cream though. I think he'll stick it out until the South Carolina primary.

Tommy Thompson had a ghost town there... he had to know going in he was finished.

I know some Tancredo people, and I hear he was very disappointed to not have finished higher. He put a lot of hope into this event and he may now be not much longer for this race.

Fifth isn't bad for y'all... but I'm sure it's a little disappointing to not have been able to translate all the bodies you had on the ground into more votes. You guys did have the most hand-made signs and t-shirts though!

The turnout has to be very worrisome for the Republican party. I'm seeing depressed and unmotivated Republican voters/donors all over the place. Hopefully all this will change when Hillary gets the nomination (nothing will motivate Republicans like another Clinton to run against).

[Crown Royal]

I just read the results this morning. Although there are only 2 other candidates I have researched, paul is my early candidate of choice. I was really hoping he would make a shocking win at this poll and start to get media attention. If anything, this poll probably sealed his fate. :-(

[Eric_Boyer]

Originally Posted by Crown Royal

I just read the results this morning. Although there are only 2 other candidates I have researched, paul is my early candidate of choice. I was really hoping he would make a shocking win at this poll and start to get media attention. If anything, this poll probably sealed his fate. :-(

Don't be silly.

Hitting 10% when Dr. Paul only started working the state on Aug 5th is good news.

We could of bought our way into 2nd place, but why? Spending $2,000 per vote is a waste of supporter money.

Personally I wish Paul would of skipped the event. We would of had nearly the same number of votes - but less out of state support.

What would the media do if Paul as a no-show beat the other no-shows at a rate of 10-1?

I know what FOX would do, but how about the others.



"We report, you decide"

umm how come you fail to report the only 2 guys that plan to solve illegal immigration? Why jump from 3rd place to 6th place FOX?

Wake up America

[jterrell]

To me,as a Democrat I think it's beautiful.

Romney is the weakest potential candidate imho.

He is certainly the one I'd take the least seriously as a Mormon conservative from the far East. I don't think he can win his own state against a Dem.

The fact Paul didn't rate higher is to me why Repubs will never get my vote. They are too far right and refuse to consider anything less than all out religious right or big business dogma.

Dems have some of the same issues in the opposite manner so its a matter of whichever irks you most I guess

Hillary in '08.