Mike Huckabee was the big winner in the 2007 IA straw poll, capturing the hearts of 2,587 voters (18.1 percent of the 14,302 votes cast). Sure, Mitt Romney got 4,516 votes (31 percent), but his first-place finish was so predictable that the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Dick Polman wrote the lede of his straw-poll story in advance [Hat tip: Howard Kurtz]:
By busing in the most loyalists, and paying for their tickets, Mitt Romney defeated similar vote-buying strategies employed by his more modestly-financed rivals, including Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback. But it’s doubtful that this Saturday night event was an accurate barometer of anything, given the fact that, as in the past, it attracted only two percent of Republican voters statewide …
As with CPAC, Romney likely spent more on the symbolic event than the rest of the field combined. As Huckabee pithily put it: “I’m not the best-funded candidate in America. I can’t buy you. I can’t even rent you.”
In addition, the number of Iowans who cast straw ballots this year is down about 40 percent from the historical (and perhaps anomalous) high of 23,685 cast in 1999, no doubt because of the buzz-dampening effect of Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Fred Thompson – all of whom handily beat Romney in national polls – being no-shows.
