By Donald Kaul
Via Minutemanmedia.org
Mitt Romney won the Iowa Straw Vote recently, thereby establishing himself as the front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Perfect.
The Straw Poll (a fraud) is the ideal event to set the stage for the Iowa Presidential Caucuses (a hoax) as we begin our presidential nomination process (a joke).
There is nothing scientific, random or even honest about the Straw Poll. It began life in 1979 as a fund-raising gimmick for the Republican Party in Iowa and a fund-raising gimmick it remains. Romney did not so win it as buy it.
He inundated Iowa with millions of dollars, so many that his truly serious rivals for the nomination fled the field of battle. Left behind were people the average voter couldn’t pick out of a police lineup.
The Straw Poll was never meant to be taken seriously. It was a way of getting Republicans to kick in a few bucks to the state party in years when no Republican incumbent was running for president. They went to Ames for a meal, maybe hear a speech or two and plunked down $25 to cast a vote for one of the candidates. As a poll it had even less validity than a Florida general election.
But the press began to pay attention to the results, so the candidates began to take it more seriously. In 1999, Bob Dole bused in supporters from Kansas in an attempt to fix the election, so they changed the rules to make only Iowans eligible to vote.
Then they found that some sneaky Republicans were voting more than once, so they began stamping voters with indelible ink, as in Iraq. One person, one vote.
And the Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press--hundreds of them, maybe thousands--faithfully chronicled the charade as though it mattered.
The tariff for voting went up to $35 this year. The “Washington Post” reported that when Rudy Giuliani heard about the fee he braced an Iowan and said:
“In New York, we call that a shakedown. What do you call it here?”
“Well,” replied the Iowan, “I guess we call it a fund-raiser.”
Which is why it is so difficult for a New York politician to win the hearts and minds of Midwestern voters. They don’t speak the same language.
Somewhere along the way, Iowa Republicans have convinced themselves that the Straw Poll, conceived as a scam, you’ll remember, is actually important. In a recent poll, 63 percent of Republican caucus-goers said that all the candidates should participate.
And they upbraid non-participants like John McCain with searing questions like:
“You ditched Iowa in 2000. I wonder why we should support you now.”
Someone should tell Iowans that if they vote only for candidates who suck up to them, they will get a president who sucks up to powerful groups, most of whom are more powerful than Iowa.
According to William Safire’s “Political Dictionary,” the term “straw poll” derives from a metaphor by John Seldon, a 17th Century writer who wrote: “A straw thrown up into the air will show you how the wind sits, which cannot be learned by casting up a stone.”
Well, the Iowa poll qualifies as a lightweight but I think the concept works better for judging wind than elections. I mean, really, is this any way to choose the leader of the Free World?
I know the arguments for letting Iowa and New Hampshire go first in the presidential nominating process and there’s some validity to them, but things have gotten out of hand. Both are quirky states, uncharacteristic of the nation as a whole--straws, not templates.
More than two dozen states, frustrated at being frozen out of the early voting by two small, relatively homogeneous states, have moved their primaries up to February 5. Which has caused South Carolina to move its primary up, which will cause New Hampshire to move up, then Iowa.
Merry Christmas, anyone?
Couldn’t we just go back to the smoke-filled rooms?
Don Kaul is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-losing Washington correspondent who, by his own account, is right more than he's wrong. Email: dkaul1@verizon.net.
