Deseret News, UT
08-09-07
Romney is likely a shoo-in in Iowa
By Lisa Riley Roche
Deseret Morning News
AMES, Iowa — There's little doubt that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney
will win Saturday's non-binding straw poll here of Iowa Republicans, which
political observers say is the first test of the 2008 race for the White House.
Romney's chief competition for his party's nomination — former New York Mayor
Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain — announced earlier this summer
that they were skipping the daylong event that serves as a fund-raiser for the
Iowa Republican Party. The event is being held at Iowa State University's
basketball arena and is expected to raise $1 million for the party, to help cover
the cost of January's presidential caucus.
The straw poll doesn't count for much other than as a show of a campaign's
organizational abilities in Iowa, where the votes that do matter will be cast in
January. The Iowa caucus kicks off the nation's presidential primaries.
"It is a beauty contest, but it's also an opportunity to demonstrate how efficient
and deep your organization is," said Kelly Patterson, director of Brigham Young
University's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy.
While both Giuliani and McCain have said they're still committed to winning the
caucuses, they decided not to invest time and money in the straw poll. Romney
has said he scaled back his efforts, but he's spending the rest of the week hitting
"By winning the straw poll, we can flex our muscles and show we have the
resources on the ground," Carl Forti, Romney's deputy campaign manager and
political director, told the Deseret Morning News. "It shows Romney can win
Iowa."
Romney, who led the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City before being
elected governor of Massachusetts, has campaigned long and hard in Iowa in the
hopes his front-runner status there will translate to other states, where he often
lags behind Giuliani, McCain and even Fred Thompson, an actor and former
Tennessee senator who has not yet formally entered the race.
"There's not much for him to gain" from winning the straw poll, explained
Christian Grose, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University in
Nashville, Tenn. But Romney has a lot to lose if he can't claim a decisive win
over the so-called second-tier candidates who are scrambling to gain attention
from the hundreds of national media covering the straw poll.
Three of the GOP presidential contenders — Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas,
former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy
Thompson — appear to be Romney's toughest opposition in Iowa. The others in
the running are businessman John Cox, California Rep. Duncan Hunter, Texas
Rep. Ron Paul and Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo.
Diane Bystrom, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and
Politics at Iowa State University in Ames, said there may be more interest in
the straw poll's second- and third-place finishers than in Romney, especially if
Brownback, Huckabee or Tommy Thompson are able to significantly close the
gap with Romney.
For those candidates who don't finish in the top three, it could mean an end to
their campaigns, she said, noting some are already talking about the straw poll
being make-or-break for their presidential bids.
The 10 declared GOP candidates, plus Fred Thompson, will appear on the strawpoll ballot, according to Mary Tiffany, the communications director of the Iowa
Republican Party.
The straw poll began in 1979 and this year is anticipated to attract some 35,000
Republicans from around the state. The $35 ticket required to vote in the straw
poll that's sold by the party is just the beginning of the expense to a campaign.
Although Iowans can buy their own tickets, it's typically the campaigns that pick
up the expense, along with chartering buses to bring in supporters from around
the state.
Candidates who want to be taken seriously at the straw poll set up huge tents
outside the arena, where they provide barbecue and other food as well as
entertainment to keep their supporters occupied and to attract new interest.
Romney's campaign wouldn't say how much it had invested in Iowa for the straw
poll, but the amount is expected to be less than the $2 million that publisher
Steve Forbes spent in 1999. Forbes finished second to then Texas Gov. George
W. Bush, who went on to become president. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who later
dropped out of the race, came in ninth.