Ames Straw-poll this Saturday! Rudy and McCain not on the list

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by hsmith

they are all biased

no degrees of seperation i imagine?

[lew]

Paul did excellent in Iowa


He'd campaigned there for about three days.

Most voters didn't know who he was.


Meanwhile, the other candidates had been campaigning there for months.


Also, Paul didn't bus anybody in or try to "buy" votes by offering BBQ and other gimmicks.


He did extremely well, regarding the circumstances.

[Thorgrim]

I'll say again, he got 0.0004% of Iowans to show up with $35...

[Simius]

I didn't realize it cost money to vote in the straw poll. Whoever thought of making $$$ off of it is a genius.

That said, it makes the whole thing that much more ridiculous. I guess it is kind of a gauge for how much hardcore support each candidate has/how well they can organize their campaign to get the votes out when needed... But the whole thing is kind of silly, IMO.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by Simius

I didn't realize it cost money to vote in the straw poll. Whoever thought of making $$$ off of it is a genius.

That said, it makes the whole thing that much more ridiculous. I guess it is kind of a gauge for how much hardcore support each candidate has/how well they can organize their campaign to get the votes out when needed... But the whole thing is kind of silly, IMO.

I wish democrats had it, but it cost $5 and there were multiple locations, and it was a cool state, like Pennsylvania

Really they need some sort of way to weed out the mike gravels and dennis kucinichs of the world so the primary is between like 4-5 people not like 8, or even worse the GOP was looking at a possible 13 at one point (11 at ames +newt and +dropout gilmore)

I mean honestly, 13 candidates on stage...how is that even a debate...and really you can make the case that each party has about 10 current or recently former senators AND 10 governors that would qualify as presidential material, one day we're gonna have 40 people running for president, 20 to each party and no one is going to know jack shit when they walk into the primary booth

[Simius]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

I wish democrats had it, but it cost $5 and there were multiple locations, and it was a cool state, like Pennsylvania

Really they need some sort of way to weed out the mike gravels and dennis kucinichs of the world so the primary is between like 4-5 people not like 8, or even worse the GOP was looking at a possible 13 at one point (11 at ames +newt and +dropout gilmore)

I mean honestly, 13 candidates on stage...how is that even a debate...and really you can make the case that each party has about 10 current or recently former senators AND 10 governors that would qualify as presidential material, one day we're gonna have 40 people running for president, 20 to each party and no one is going to know jack shit when they walk into the primary booth

Yeah... that makes sense. Still, it should be free and there should be many locations so people have more of an opportunity to vote at these things.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by Simius

Yeah... that makes sense. Still, it should be free and there should be many locations so people have more of an opportunity to vote at these things.

free makes it so people are just strolling by goin "oh ill come in here and vote for...hold on my eyes are closed...oops missed a button!"

since it doesnt count towards nomination or anything...

[lew]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

I wish democrats had it, but it cost $5 and there were multiple locations, and it was a cool state, like Pennsylvania

Really they need some sort of way to weed out the mike gravels and dennis kucinichs of the world so the primary is between like 4-5 people not like 8, or even worse the GOP was looking at a possible 13 at one point (11 at ames +newt and +dropout gilmore)

I mean honestly, 13 candidates on stage...how is that even a debate...and really you can make the case that each party has about 10 current or recently former senators AND 10 governors that would qualify as presidential material, one day we're gonna have 40 people running for president, 20 to each party and no one is going to know jack shit when they walk into the primary booth

People don't know jack shit when they vote now.