Warren Mayor Jim Fouts, supposedly a Democrat but a backer of John McCain for president in 2008, apparently missed his chance to enter the 2012 race and win the Ames, Iowa, straw poll.
Michele Bachmann was the Republican straw poll winner with 4,823 votes. That’s all it takes in our Iowa-centric political arena to instantly earn yourself the title of “top tier” candidate.
The Minnesota congresswoman beat fellow House member Ron Paul by 152 votes – the same Ron Paul who is making his third run for president and has never emerged as anything more than a fringe candidate in past primaries.
Yet, Bachmann is suddenly viewed as a powerhouse in presidential politics. All based on a small-state test-vote with a minuscule turnout and a $30 fee to cast a ballot.
“What’s going on here?” Mayor Fouts may want to ask.
Competing in an arena of just 34 square miles, Fouts was elected mayor in November 2007 with 16,730 votes. That’s slightly more than the 16,674 votes received on Saturday by the 10 GOP candidates combined.
That’s one way of putting the Ames straw poll into perspective. Another is to reflect on the fact that past Ames straw poll winners for the GOP have included George H.W. Bush (1979), the Rev. Pat Robertson (1987), former senator Phil Gramm (in a 1995 tie with Bob Dole), and former governor Mitt Romney in 2007.
Of course, none of them lasted long over the next six months of the campaign trail.
So, I think Fouts may have missed his chance. After all, if Livonia Republican Thad McCotter can run for the White House, anybody can. The obscure congressman spent $18,000 on his reception tent – a standard feature in the peculiar Ames atmosphere — and received just 35 votes. That’s $514 spent per ballot cast.
(By the way, Bachmann became the first woman ever to win a GOP straw poll, caucus or primary.)
