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Well, Mitt actually placed first, and that was to be expected.
But what wasn’t expected is that Ron Paul would lose to Huckabee, Brownback and Tom “Bomb Mecca” Trancedo.
From the Des Moines Register…
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee had said his campaign’s future depended on a strong showing in Ames. He finished in second place, with 2,587 votes or 18.1 percent. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas placed third with 2,192 votes, 15.3 percent after campaigning aggressively to be the choice of the Iowa GOP’s influential social conservatives.“Obviously this was an incredible day and victory for us,” Huckabee said. “What happened for us today was stunning.”
Huckabee said he and his campaign staff had been saying they had momentum and it proved true.
“We overperformed,” he said. “The bigger story is we did it with not a dime of paid advertising.”
Kudos to Huckabee and his team. He could be the dark horse in this campaign, as he’s been getting high marks from voters for his earnestness and likability. Seems like a guy they think they can trust.
Getting back to Ron Paul, I really do think this is a big blow for his campaign. A strong showing here would have rocketed him into the mediasphere, but losing to Tancredo? It means he remains an internet oddity, somebody that the media and the other candidates can dismiss as just a guy who figured out how to create some buzz on the internet.
-----A few days before the vote, people were saying RP would take 2nd or 3rd. That sounded about right to me.
I am not sure who planted this idea in the RP supporters that 5th place is good. It's not good. We lost guys! The media is telling us we did good, but I ensure you we did not. If we cannot win a straw poll how exactly are we going to win a Primary or Caucus?
Also those machines really troubled me too and it just so happens that a company who tracks billions and billions of dollars a day in their ATMs can't seem to count 14,000 ballots. Ahem...sure they can't. They can't when they don't want to.
Now what happens with these results is that the field is NOT going to be any smaller. Tancredo, Huckabee, Brownback will all be on the stage till the Primaries. The debates will still be crowded giving the candidates a small amount of speaking time. Perhaps Ron Paul won't be invited to them now with his "victory" of 5th place. It almost makes me laugh saying that.
I agree completely with Justin's take on this. Ron Paul is finished. The supporters may still go "rah rah" and hold signs on intersections, but this was the first and last test of Ron Paul. This may be harsh, but 5th place is pathetic especially in a race where 2 of the frontrunners were not even present. We lost to "2nd tier" candidates, so where does that put Ron Paul?
6 comments:
I disagree that 5th place washes up RP. I was pretty darn impressed. I'm not officially on the RP bandwagon yet and I have to say that no matter how you cut it if you tell me that RP got nearly 1500 real-live Iowa state fair goers vote in a gimmicky pay-to-play straw poll . . . well this flies in the face of all the conventional wisdom that's been used against Ron Paul.
Again and again people try to claim that there is this core group of maybe 3 libertarian computer hackers that comprise his entire base and yet in the heartland where people supposedly cheered loudest for a debauched warhawk quote from Tancredo the fact that Ron Paul got 30% as many votes as the guy that spent literally millions of dollars buying the 4500 total vote win is just astoundingly impressive to someone like me.
Who are these people who put such high expectations on the Paul campaign that they expected a 2nd place finish from 2 weeks of work and very little money spent? For very little effort, Paul received about 10% of the vote. Mind you, just days before, the so-called scientific polls had Paul dead LAST. The resident Iowa GOP were calling him a 1% candidate, and again predicted he'd have a horrible showing at the poll.
You can try to justify his poor showing all you want, but the media looks at first and second place. That's it. Ron Paul has gotten nothing out of this straw poll and he spent what like $300,000? Even if Romney spent 10 million he got first place and the media coverage to pay for it. We got nothing a minor footnote.
Raising 300,000 is a lot harder for Ron Paul to do than Romney. Remember this as well.
I find the comments here detestable. You people have been watching too much TV News and not paying attention to Real News.
The only Candidate talking about defending the Constitution is Ron Paul. All Govt. Officials(including the President) and Military personnel "Swear an Oath to defend the CONSTITUTION against ALL ENEMIES, both Foreign and DOMESTIC."
www.restoretherepublic.com
That Oath doesn't say defend the President, or the Democrats, or the Republicans, etc...It says the Constitution.
Do you people have no idea why this Country was created by Us(the People), or why this Country was so special in the world?
www.restoretherepublic.com
Why hasn't the Media Elite allowed the People to see the coverage of the Reporter who was thrown in jail for simply asking Rudy Guiliani's Press Secretary a hard question. What happened to the 1st Amendment? Doesn't matter anymore?
He was charged with "Criminal Trespass" despite protests from CNN Personnel and the fact that he had Official CNN Event credentials and press passes.
www.restoretherepublic.com
Why hasn't Anderson Cooper reported on this to you?
Jim Palmisano
417-496-1973
I don't even own a TV and can see their spin before it happens! Ron Paul did not get much news coverage from his 5th place spot (I check YouTube). Regardless what the RP campaign is saying, 5th place is poor. The 6th place spot candidate dropped out. That makes us look bad!
All this means is that we must worker harder and smarter than ever before. Now is not the time to lose hope and question the entire concept of a Ron Paul victory.
There is still a long way to go and we have a lot of ground to cover before giving up!
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