Colbert Wins the Ames Straw Poll

With his political Pac running ads in Iowa, Stephen Colbert knocked off Mitt Romney. The write-in votes for Rick Perry topped the votes for Mitt Romney. This actually raises more political questions for Romney's campaign than I'm sure they want to answer. While Romney basically wrote off the Straw Vote ,despite winning it in 2007, the question is whether he can write off Iowa, wait for New Hampshire and then plunge into the conservative waters of South Carolina.

There were three basic losers today--Jon Huntsman, who polled a pitiful 69 votes, Newt Gingrich, who netted 385, and Tim Pawlenty, who came in third with 13.57% of the vote. Luckily for Pawlenty, he at least outdrew Frothy Mix.

Michelle Bachmann barely topped Ron Paul--4,823 votes to 4,671 or 28.55% to 27.65%. Michelle Bachmann is projected as the possible winner for the Iowa Caucus next year.

But the day belonged to Rick Perry, who announced he was running for President in the Palmetto State. Perry has managed to play the media perfectly so far and has overnight become the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. The author of "Bush's Brain" appeared on Chris Matthews and called Perry "the most naturally gifted politician coming out of Texas since LBJ" but did comment that he has been a horrendous governor. But that's the beauty of this year's Republican contest, no one has had to do anything positive in the political arena because the whole lineup is running against government both as an idea and as a reality.

Steve Benen wrote a nice piece in Washington Monthly about the fate of supposed saviors in presidential years and noted the demise of people like Fred Thompson, Wes Clark and others who got in late in the day. Mark Plotkin appeared in local radio to dismiss Perry as another one of these types that enters to a big splash and fades away.

I disagree with this. Rick Perry has any number of SuperPacs raising funds for him and will have more money than anyone except Barack Obama and possibly Mitt Romney. His bravado and definiteness comes across to the Republican base as the type of assuredness they relish. And people knowing how Texas is now the 21st century Mississippi forget that the nation backed another 100% political animal with some pretty bad state statistics--Bill Clinton and Arkansas. From his announcement on the web, it's clear he has married the rhetoric of the neocons with economic nationalism and the social conservatism. This will be potent among Republican voters. How he actually fares in retail campaigning will test whether his act--which is 100% Texas compared to George W's--can sell nationally.

For an excellent and short summary of Rick Perry's record, I refer you to a post by Sandy Berman at www.dailykos.com entitled "Ladies & Gentlemen--The Real Rick Perry". It starts off with Perry being rated as one of the worst governors in American history for ethical problems. And from there his record descends. But when these issues come up, all he has to do is blame the "liberal media" and all will be forgiven.

My apologies to a reader who chastised me for my comments on Mitt Romney's Mormonism. She pointed out that Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann are connected to more crazed people than the Mormons and they pose a real threat to the United States. Altnet has an expose of when the New Apostalic Reformation approached Rick Perry and told him of the biblically important role Texas would play in the future of the United States. My reader was right. Mormonism is basically a 19th century version of scientology compared to these people.

Howard Fineman at Huffington Post comments on how Phil Gramm, a "controversial former Senator" backs Perry. Well, what a surprise! Gramm was Perry's mentor and both men have shared staffs. No surprise there.

How much is pure cynicism and how much is it belief? Rick Perry embraced the Tea Party when it began,while Washington politicians egged them on but kept a distance. Perry was down by 25% points to Kay Baily Hutchinson in the race for the governor's mansion. He then made his famous secession statement and instantly leaped ahead to win the race. The man running Kay Baily Hutchinson's campaign was Karl Rove. It was Karl Rove who convinced Rick Perry to convert from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party and Rove has acted ever since like he regretted it.

In the governor's race, the Hutchinson campaign kept encoding "Perry is gay" in its literature. A pure Rovian move. When Perry recently complained that this rumor was planted by the Democrats, I wrote that I had only heard it from Republicans, never a Democrat. In 2004, the Austin-American wrote an extensive report about this whole rumor and about Perry's wife leaving the governor's mansion. The rumor was so intense that Texas newspapers characterized the situation as a crisis in government. The rumors had Perry having a boyfriend named Geoffrey Conor, a dapper former Secretary of State. The whole Perry staff was summoned to the governor's mansion and given a pep talk by Perry himself who blamed the whole thing on the internet. And clearly in the 2010 race, Karl Rove used these rumors to advantage until Perry broke the race wide open. It remains to be seen whether this rumor gets picked up again in this year's primary season. For whatever reason, the Bush family and Karl Rove still bear a grudge against Perry.

People looking for Sarah Palin will note that she got only 1% in the write-in vote today. But political observers mention how close she has become to Rick Perry. There is speculation that once out of the primaries, Rick Perry must "moderate" and talk about the economy, leaving Sarah Palin to performed her function as attack dog whipping up the Tea Party. This leads to the idea of Sarah running as Perry's Vice Presidental nominee. I didn't make that up.

This all almost makes one feel sorry for Mitt Romney, who still is name number 1 on Team Obama's list of opponents. Romney just can't compete with Perry on the Right. It would totally warp him and make him seem even weirder. And it will be interesting to see where the Bush family comes out. After all it was George H.W. Bush who gave Romney the forum last election to defend his religion. And we have already heard that Karl Rove will not raise money for Perry.

What was interesting today was to see Rep. Issa of San Diego absolutely rip into the so-called "Texas Miracle". Issa, who wants to earn his reputation investigating the imaginary crimes of Barack Obama, blasted Perry before the California GOP as someone who pillaged California and stole jobs, not created them. Issa said he had backed Mitch Daniels because he was a governor who really earned respect. So expect this fight to get bruising.

And it looks bad for the Washington pundits, who were lining up behind Tim Pawlenty. His showing today casts doubts on his viability, especially since he lost to Michelle Bachmann,someone he said had no political accomplishments.

Commentators mentioned that the Straw poll today demonstrated enthusiasm behind the GOP because the turnout was greater than last time. Actually, the turnout was far below the 1999 Straw Poll, which did indicate real enthusiam in the 2000 elections.