Iowa GOP helping Romney’s expectation game?

August 10, 2007 – 2:24 pm

Earlier today, I said:

Jonathan Martin is reporting that Sam Brownback, among others, has buses:

An Iowa Republican said that Romney was bringing about 125 onto the campus of Iowa State University and Brownback just over 100.  Tommy Thompson is bringing the third most, about 75.

What I don’t understand is why Brownback has the money but Huckabee doesn’t. They had almost the same end of Q2 CoH. Either Huckabee just doesn’t have the bodies, or Brownback is blowing smoke. But I can’t see how Huckabee can’t afford buses when Brownback can afford 100.

I missed a third option. Perhaps the IA GOP is just lying.  After all, they are known to be in bed with Mitt Romney, and all the campaigns know that everything that they tell IA GOP staff goes directly to Romney (same for Michigan, by the way). And clearly the Romneybots are out working the expectations game today. So here’s what I think happened.

First, a Romney-tool feeds the 100 bus number to Jonathan Martin. Basically, my hypothesis is that this number is made up.

Second, Romneybot Jason Bonham provides the (correct) analysis that these numbers make no sense and that Brownback would be bankrupt if he was actually doing this. Basically, it is just too expensive.

And third, Romneybot-in-chief Hugh Hewitt channels Romney talking points faxed in from planet La La Land:

If Senator Brownback or Governor Huckabee don’t topple Governor Romney at Ames, the pressure on them to bow out of the race will be huge, and the financial realities even larger.

Anyone even vaguely in touch with reality — obviously this does not include Hugh — knows that Romney is winning this thing tomorrow with real margins. The Romney campaign is trying desperately to tap down the expectations game, especially after all these stories about Romney buying (yet another) straw poll. And it looks like the IA GOP is complicit.

I wonder if the Brownback campaign would confirm this 100 bus number. Jonathan?

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Romney, Paul, and the road to Ames

August 2, 2007 – 9:41 am

So Mitt Romney has won a number of straw polls by packing them. Reporters get the joke and have stopped covering them, but the Romney campaign knows that it can put these victories on mail pieces and ads. Normally, the question is whether the damage that occurs over the bad press is worth the result. For example, I only saw bad press, not Romney’s actual victory at the Young Republican straw poll.

Now Ames presents a difference. It will be covered by the press. Simply put it matters. But there’s something else different about Ames. Normally, you rig a straw poll by packing it with known supporters. But Ames is big enough that you probably can’t ID enough supporters, so the Romney campaign has been reduced to sending out mailers offering a free ride and a free registration to Ames. There are several problems with this.

First, the mailer gets posted on the internet. In other words, you get caught.

Second, the Ron Paul supporters may sign up for a ride on the Romney bus. Other campaigns will almost certainly place plants on the bus just to see what happens. Here’s what one Ron Paul supporter says:

Some say that then, after carefully weighing their options…..they may decide to vote Ron Paul at the Ames Straw Poll!

If interested, you could call Mitt for the free package at 866.505.2008 (details on flier below).

Now, it is not honest. But it is politics, which is rarely honest, and it wouldn’t be surprising.

And if Paul supporters had a conversion on the road to Ames, can Romney, who had a conversion on the road to Des Moines, really object?

Such are the dangers of the internet. This could be an interesting test of Ron Paul’s online army.

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Cash on hand and Ames

July 17, 2007 – 9:15 am

In Q1, the refrain from the 2nd tier was that the only fundraising number that really matters is Q2 Cash on Hand. The reasoning for that was Ames. The amount of money that a campaign has right now limits the amount of money it can spend at Ames, and there’s a linear relationship between the amount of money that you invest in Ames and your vote. And 2nd tier campaigns are looking for a boost from Ames. So let’s try to reason around what is going on with the CoH numbers, taken from WaPo.

Candidate Cash
Giuliani $14.6
Romney  $12.1
McCain  $1.9
Paul  $2.4
Brownback $0.6
Huckabee $0.5
T. Thompson $0.1

The first conclusions are about the people who are not contesting Ames. Clearly Rudy Giuliani could contest Ames and expect to do well, if he had identified the voters. The fact that he is not contesting, with the polls and CoH, suggests either that he has not developed the ground game necessary, or they don’t think that winning would be that helpful. Or that a loss hurts quite a lot.

In contrast, John McCain clearly could not afford to contest Ames with the amount of cash he has. Lucky break from Rudy.

Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee have very similar CoH numbers, despite Brownback’s much superior fundraising. This suggests that their relative results are probably going to be a measure of who has better organization and popularity in the state.

The real question, as Patrick Ruffini has pointed out, is what will happen if Ron Paul comes in second? He clearly has the money to perform well. He appears to have a reasonable in-state organization and almost all of the energy in the race. It seems that most people are assuming that only the top two or three, of those contesting Ames, will will advance after Ames. What if Ron Paul is one of those guys? What impact does that have on the race?

And what about those 527s that Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich have? Are they going to be cranking out straw poll votes? We might not know until mid-January when those disclosures become public.

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Mitt’s 70 years Young Republicans

July 8, 2007 – 11:36 pm

Update: Virginians for Fred Thompson has some pictures of geriatric Young Republicans, including a nice explanation of what actually happened at the straw poll.

The Mitt Romney campaign has usually been quick to announce straw poll results. I haven’t seen an announcement yet for the one at the Young Republican National Convention 2007. There have been two major blog posts about allegations of voting irregularities. Here’s a little sample of the voters from my brief experience voting in the straw poll.

A touch of irony that one of the reporters noticed:

An interesting note: Guess who was in charge of supervising, qualifying voters and counting ballots? The Broward County Supervisor of Elections office.

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Young Republican straw poll

July 8, 2007 – 1:57 am

First, I should say that there have been two major blog posts written about the problems with this. They allege that Mitt Romney bought another straw poll. With details. That said:

Romney 163
Thompson 103
Giuliani 37
Huckabee 14
Hunter 14
Paul 11
McCain 5

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Off to Young Republican National Convention

July 5, 2007 – 2:49 pm

I am off to the Young Republican National Convention in Miami. I will be blogging some of it on-site. Mitt Romney will be speaking, as will Duncan Hunter. There will be a bunch of other exciting events, including a straw poll. The last big Young Republican straw poll last year was 1 vote win by George Allen over John McCain.

Update: Fred Thompson will be speaking. Cool. And I missed Duncan Hunter. Who cares?

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Romney campaign whines at meaningless straw poll

June 6, 2007 – 9:03 pm

This morning, after Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the straw poll, a Romney staffer told Marc Ambinder:

"We shouldn’t be disqualified or criticized for their campaign strategy and tactics," a Romney adviser insisted to me this morning.

But after John McCain drops out because it will be meaningless, Romney declares victory:

"Our plan all along has been to play in the Iowa straw poll, and that hasn’t changed. Campaigns that have decided to abandon Ames are likely doing so out of a recognition that their organizations are outmatched and their message falls flat with Republican voters in Iowa.

If that’s his attitude, he can be king of the dwarves. But in all seriousness, this probably helps Romney a little when we have the actual caucuses. But there are no bragging rights for a meaningless straw poll. And that’s why the campaign produced the whiny response in the morning.

As I said earlier, there will still be some importance among "the dwarves." The candidate who performs best will have bragging rights. Just none for Governor Romney. But, as David Yepsen points out:

The Ames straw poll has become a shake-down of candidates that, for some, has replaced the caucuses themselves as a test of viability.

Thus the conventional wisdom is set.

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Will Ames matter?

June 6, 2007 – 1:11 pm

Well, Rudy Giuliani will not be at Ames. Neither will Fred Thompson. One has to wonder whether other campaigns will reconsider their commitments. Let’s look at what this all might mean. Here are some possibilities.

Ames will select the most important 2nd tier candidate

It is clear that the straw poll will not mean much at the top level. But it will still have a culling and separating effect. The 2nd tier candidate(s) that perform well will get a kick up into the top tier for purposes of Iowa. Hopefully those who do not succeed will drop out. This will still frame the field. Again, Ames would bump the most important 2nd tier candidate into a 1st-tier like position.

Easier for Gingrich?

Could this make it easier for Gingrich? This lowers the bar for some sort of success for him. Now, this cuts both ways. If less of an organization is necessary to succeed at Ames, then a success could be meaningless for him too. While this could make it easier for Newt to jump in, it could make it harder for him to interpret his chances from Ames.

In the end, I think that Ames will matter. It will establish 2nd tier bragging rights rather than top tier. But the quickly draining meaning of the top tier must really make the IRP angry.

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Romney buying more straw polls?

April 23, 2007 – 11:06 am

Now, I’m no fan of straw polls. It is one thing if the voting universe is small. But it is not at many, and straw polls are usually arbitrary fundraising adventures for the hosts. And for the winners, they are a way of buying headlines. The Romney campaign has been touting their successes with the recent South Carolina straw polls. Just like they touted their successes after buying the Southern Republican Leadership Conference and CPAC(two articles).

Salon has the run-down on this:

At some point on Friday night, Esther Wagner, the county GOP treasurer, spotted a Romney aide across the hall, and accused him of paying delegate fees to pump up Romney’s poll numbers. Wagner’s suspicions had been aroused earlier in the month, when she received a stack of last-minute registrations from about 15 to 20 people. Most of the fees had been paid in cash. "That is unusual," said Wagner, who has done work on the side for another candidate, John Cox, a minor rival to Romney. "Most people pay [by] check." Then she got a call from a Romney supporter named Jeff Lynch, who mentioned in passing that someone had paid his fee.

…

"Chris Slick, who is Romney’s grass-roots field coordinator, was emphatically denying it," says Betty Poe, the president of the Greenville County Republican Women’s Club. According to three separate accounts of the incident, Slick maintained that neither the Romney campaign, nor any campaign staff, had paid delegate fees. "But he said an individual paid for someone," Poe remembers.

"We were delegates of Mitt Romney, so we didn’t have to pay," Lynch said. Like thousands of South Carolinians, Lynch and his wife, Melissa, have been bombarded with direct mail from the presidential candidates. He sent back a card from Romney, saying he would like to help. Sometime later, he said, Slick, the Romney aide, showed up at his door, and told him not to worry about the money. "He came over and we signed papers to be delegates, so we wouldn’t have to pay the $15 fee," Lynch said. "Is there a problem?"

Perhaps the problem is that the Romney campaign is struggling to find a way to be honest. Again…
Buying straw polls is fine. Touting winning straw polls that you bought is fine. (although a little weird)  Lying about buying straw polls is not. Touting victories in straw polls that you are lying about buying is dumb. Especially when you get caught.

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Thoughts on CPAC

March 4, 2007 – 1:10 pm

Well, the CPAC results are in.

"The Big Winner" is Rudy Giuliani. First, of all, Rudy still has an "electability" issue. Can he win a primary? A lot of people are convinced that someone with his positions on social issues cannot win. The Giuliani campaign will tout this result to say, "we can win. Conservatives will support us." This should help him with donors and people in the activist community. When combined with Giuliani’s showing in Spartanburg, the Giuliani campaign has got to be happy.

Mitt Romney is clearly a winner. This was a must win for Romney after he got blown away in Spartanburg, and there were two articles about Romney trying to buy the straw poll. If he didn’t pull this off, it was over for him.

Sam Brownback is also a big winner. Brownback can and should use this to try to clear the field of people like Mike Huckabee (who only got 21 votes in Baptist Spartanburg), Jim Gilmore (who spent money at CPAC), Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, etc. This sets up a big showdown between Brownback and Romney for the social conservative vote.

I cannot help but be struck that the big loser is the conservative movement. Without a candidate. With only Newt really talking about ideas.

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