Rep. Michele “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann (R, MN-6) has resoundingly won the Iowa Straw Poll by an overwhelming 152 votes. The Ames Straw Poll is an exercise in pure American democracy: Republican candidates pay to rent space to harangue Republican activists, pay $30 for each voter’s ticket, and pay to bus supporters to the voting place in Ames, where they may actually vote for someone else. Everyone eats fried stuff on sticks.
The Straw Poll has been a Republican tradition since 1979, when dinosaurs and Republican moderates roamed the Earth. All most many some a couple of Straw Poll winners have actually gone on to win the Iowa Caucus and Republican presidential nomination. A recent Straw Poll winner (G.W. Bush, MBA) went on to a brilliant Presidential career, wrecking the U.S. economy and plunging the nation into two protracted undeclared wars. Thanks, Iowa.
Apparently corporations didn’t vote in the Straw Poll this year, since Mitt Romney did poorly. And Ron Paul’s monetary policy failed: he spent $31,000 for a prime campaign spot near the voting place but finished second (Paulistas wonder why he didn’t mobilize The Blimp). Other also-rans included Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Thaddeus McCotter, Rick Santorum, Tim Pawlenty, and Herman Cain. It is not known if former Godfather’s CEO Herman Cain tried any fried pizza on a stick.
God-fearin,’ meat-eatin,’ gun-totin,’ Texas secessionist candidate Rick Perry wasn’t officially in the Straw Poll since he threw his Stetson in the ring too late, but he got some votes anyway. Non-candidate and former Alaska Temp-Governor Sarah Palin stopped by the Iowa State Fair and strongly endorsed fried stuff on sticks.
Mrs. Bachmann’s Straw Poll win, together with her outstanding record as a taxpayer-hounding IRS attorney, education radical, submissive wife, Tea Party loon, fundamentalist zealot, and prima diva drama queen should put her way ahead in the campaign for the GOP nomination. Of course, as Alexandra Petri reminds us, the real winner of the Straw Poll is …noise.
Related:
“A Deep-Fried Stick of Butter (On a Stick) at the Iowa State Fair,” Paula Forbes, Eater
“Why Mitt Romney was right about corporations,” Justin Elliott, Salon
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Tags: "Tea Party", Ames, Ames Straw Poll, Bachmann, Crazy Eyes, GOP, Iowa, Iowa State Fair, Michele Bachmann, Republicans, straw poll
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