Straw Poll: Second Thoughts-Winners and Losers.

Now that the dust is starting to settle, its time to give voice to the second impression of the Straw Poll.

As I said over at my Des Moines Register blog, the crowd enthusiasm was the most significant development coming out of the Straw Poll. I talked to hundreds of people today and everyone, except the tiny number of typical cranks and conspiracy theorists, was very enthusiastic and very optimistic about 2008. While nobody thinks victory is in the bag, it was good to hear such widespread agreement that Democrat victory isn’t inevitable either. The hangover is over.

Tom Tancredo is becoming progressively more admirable. His honesty is breathtaking for a politician. Politically correct thought and speech are killing our culture become it has become chic` to disregard factual reality in the interest of self-esteem (the speaker’s or others, it rarely matters). Tancredo’s description of immigration policy is the shared experience of most of the American population, not xenophobic racial animosity. His speech will play well over the next week and may lead to a little surge in the polls.

Mitt did a great job today. His organization did everything that people expected of the Collins-Kotchel crowd. They turned out the vote and had great stage management. I heard a replay of Mitt’s Hilton speech and it sounded much more policy oriented the second time around, which is a good thing from a rhetorical perspective. Mitt does seem almost perfect, also a good thing, regardless of what the more imperfect may think. While Mitt’s recent public affection for our state is surely at least somewhat contrived (‘cause we’re not that cool) it bespeaks good manners that he at least respects Iowa enough to be nice and good sense that he wants to campaign for every Republican vote. The on-ground impact is Mitt’s appearance as a national caliber party leader today and not the “mere” meeting of statistical expectations.

Tommy Thompson, one of the greatest governors in America’s history, suffered a bad loss today. His campaign never seemed to catch on, which is odd because he is a gregarious and charming guy. The poor early national TV appearances caused the Running Dogs to stereotype Tommy and he could not break out. Too bad, if there is anyone who is capable of creative thought its Tommy Thompson.

By his absence, Rudy Giuliani was the biggest loser. As I have said in the press, McCain’s absence was an operational assumption because of his history of disregard for Iowa’s brand of retail politics, but Rudy had much to gain by participation. Rudy wants to lead the whole party, and must do so if he is the nominee. For better or worse, the national media has treated Rudy’s non-appearance in the Straw Poll as unwillingness to even compete for the mainstream social conservatives, much less promote any part of their ideology. Human nature dictates that those disregarded find the development of future enthusiasm for those who have disregarded rather difficult.

Almost everyone present today, and every voter is also probably a leadership figure in their caucus, found Rudy’s absence to be quite offensive, in an unusually personal way. The level of hostility toward Rudy was very surprising; he was clearly no one’s second choice today. Rudy needs to campaign somewhere other than high dollar special invite events in Iowa and the need is becoming more acute if he is seriously competing here. We should probably know the answer to that question in the next couple of weeks.

The biggest winner was Mike Huckabee-because he gained the most. Gov. Huckabee seemed to be surging in the last couple of weeks. Huck and his family (met his daughter and daughter in law today and both are as charming as the Gov and obviously big assets) are tremendously likeable; his debate performances have been consistently top flight; and, his campaign themes are an appealing blend of Republican “base” issues (abortion/homosexual marriage) with creative economic and energy policy so his previous failure to catch fire with the Republican primary voters was puzzling. Money typically follows a winner so perhaps some deep pockets shared the larger skepticism.

Things seemed to be changing over the last couple of weeks, more anecdotally than statistically. Conventional wisdom still thought Sam Brownback had second locked up today but most of the undecideds that I know seemed to be drifting to Huckabee in the last several days. Huck seemed a little more aggressive on the trail. There seemed to be a little more media around the Razorback.

Well, there was more than a scented zephyr floating Huckabee’s name in the wind happening. Huck outperformed anyone’s expectations today. This will generate a ton of media in the next couple of weeks. If Huckabee really has legs, he can exploit the next week’s publicity by create a pivotal moment. All made possible for him by today’s showing at the Ames Straw Poll, which is, indeed, a lot to gain.