The Last Word on the Ames Straw Poll

Campaigns are furiously spinning the results from the Ames, Iowa straw poll in which less than 15,000 Iowans voted for GOP hopefuls. Tommy Thompson bailed out after placing 6th, and much is being made of Mike Huckabee's second place showing. However, all this spinning should be tempered with this post by John Podhoretz at The Corner:

I hate to be nasty, but anybody who takes the Ames Straw Poll results seriously is an idiot. A bunch of people spent ludicrous amounts of money to bus-and-truck 14,000 people to a big picnic, and the guy who spent the most bought the win with a mammoth 4516 votes. Goshers! 4,516 votes! Another guy who spent a lot less than the first guy got some people to eat his fried Oreos to vote for him too — 2,587, of them, to be precise. And he's claiming a big triumph and momentum blah blah blah.

This is ridiculous. The two leaders in the Ames straw poll received a combined total of 7,103 ballots. What exactly is this supposed to represent? If it's supposed to represent superior organization, then the idea that Romney "did what he had to do" is laughable. I've heard reports that Romney has dropped as much as $4 million in Iowa already. And getting 4,500 people on a bus is all he has to show for it? What am I missing?

I'm not saying Romney's candidacy shouldn't be taken seriously. Sure it should. But if you want to analyze the Ames Straw Poll on its own terms, then Romney did not do particularly well. Having said that, I don't want to analyze the Ames Straw Poll on any terms.

I'm even reading stuff suggesting it's significant that Fred Thompson beat Rudy Giuliani — by a total of 20 Iowans. Look, I understand that the political press sent to Ames for the weekend needs to have something to write about. What they should be writing about is that this event is to the Republican presidential nomination as a clown car is to a Formula One racer.

That seems about right.