Ames results are as follows:
Mitt Romney 4516 votes (31.0%)
Mike Huckabee 2587 votes (18.1%)
Sam Brownback 2192 votes (15.3%)
Tom Tancredo 1961 votes (13.7%).
Ron Paul with 1305 votes (9.1%)
Tommy Thompson 1,009 votes (7.3%)
Fred Thompson 231 votes (1.6%)
Rudy Giuliani 183 votes (1.3%)
Duncan Hunter 174 votes (1.2%)
John McCain 101 votes (0.7%)
John Cox 41 votes (0.3%)
Mitt Romney wins, but by just a shade more than George W. Bush did in 1999 when facing Steve Forbes, who threw millions at the straw poll, and against a far more formidable Ames field overall.
The surprise here has to be Huckabee, who reportedly did not bus many people in, and did not have the amenities of Romney or Brownback (air conditioned tent!!). Brownback's turnout at the speeces was by all accounts very impressive, and they have to be steamed at being out-hustled by a sleeper candidate. Does Huckabee now steal the religious right mantle from Brownback?
Did Huckabee just do better retail politicking, converting solid Romney or Brownback votes, or was there something else going on?
Rumor: Sen. John McCain's Iowa field staff is quietly helping Sen. Sam Brownback recruit supporters for the Ames straw poll. The goal is to drive down Mitt Romney's margin of victory. Similarly, Rudy Giuliani's campaign is quietly helping Mike Huckabee -- for exactly the same reason.
Truth: Untrue, although free lance operators may have arrived at the same strategic insight. There's no official help flowing from either McCain's campaign or Giuliani's campaign.
I've worked in politics long enough to know that things are rarely as interesting as the rumors. But just as it's not a stretch to imagine some low-level collusion between the Brownback and McCain camps (it's been happening in Michigan for months), it's easy to see why other campaigns would want to depress Mitt Romney's margin. If "free lance operators" for Rudy Giuliani were indeed helping Mike Huckabee, helping him leapfrog the better organized Brownback, that would speak well to the former Mayor's organization in the Hawkeye State. And the same could be said for whoever else may have been covertly helping the man from Hope.
Maybe 10 or 15 percent of the crowd (about 2,000 people) at Iowa State was there organically, if you extrapolate Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain's showing with their poll numbers. About 85% wouldn't have shown up without a campaign paying their way.
Also, Ron Paul finished fifth. His camp expected to finish in the top three. Here was his communications director:
"We expect to be in the top three," Benton said. "We've got four staffers organizing and we've got a lot of web site RSVPs from volunteers." That's disappointing. No rEVOLution.
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