Race race

A top staffer for Barack Obama says he needs to perform well in Iowa in order to show Democrats that white voters will support a black candidate. Iowa --- a state that is 94% white according to the 2000 census -- is "the big one," in the words of Obama national field director, Temo Figueroa.

Closer look

In a glowing editorial today, New Hampshire's influential conservative newspaper, The Manchester Union-Leader, says Mike Huckabee "deserves a closer look from Republican and independent voters" after his second-place finish at Ames Strawpoll.

Of all the lesser-known GOP candidates, Huckabee has impressed us the most. He is articulate, sharp, and well-versed on more topics than one would expect a small-state governor to be knowledgeable about.

Voter ID

Some observers have pointed out that only 14,000 voters turned out for this weekend's Ames Strawpoll -- a steep drop-off from participation in its last competitive races. Most have attributed the decline to Giuliani, Thompson and McCain not taking part, or to a lack of enthusiasm in the GOP. But MSNBC's First Read credits a stricter policy of ID enforcement.

Also, don't get carried away on turnout -- the Iowa GOP did a much better job of checking for Iowa IDs than in years past.

Someone else

Noam Schieber of The New Republic on the Ames Strawpoll.

Huckabee spent exactly zero resources busing in supporters and still managed 18 percent of the vote. The other two campaigns bought hundreds, if not thousands, more straw-poll tickets than the number of votes they received. (Straw poll attendees must obtain a $35-ticket in order to vote. Campaigns typically buy them up and distribute them to supporters.) Huckabee bought around 1800 tickets and received almost 2600 votes. Clearly, Romney and Brownback dropped a lot of cash on people who ended up voting for someone else, and that someone else was probably Huckabee.

"A hollow victory"

Iowa political journalist David Yepsen called Mitt Romney's Ames Strawpoll win, "a hollow victory."

Mitt Romney may have won the Iowa GOP straw poll Saturday in Ames but it was a bit of a hollow victory. That’s a sign he may not be the prohibitive front runner in Iowa after all.

Yepsen also quotes one "Republican Strategist" telling him, "[I]n 1999, Democrats were suffering from Clinton fatigue. Now, we're suffering from Bush fatigue."

Unofficial Ames results

Marc Ambinder has the unofficial results.

Romney wins with 31% and a paltry 4,516 votes -- far under his campaign's predictions. Huckabee placed second with 18.1% with 2587, but not too far ahead of Brownback (15.3%) and Tancredo (13.7%). Don't expect any of them to drop out yet.

Ron Paul (9.1%) will continue to raise eyebrows and Tommy Thompson (7.3%) will almost certainly drop his bid now.

Romney's bad day

A voting machine malfunction is delaying the official results of the Ames Republican Strawpoll, but if reports of turnout is accurate, only 14,000 Iowans took part. This would mean Mitt Romney's campaign delivered far fewer than the 20 to 25,000 Romney votes they expected. After all the money and hype, Ames could wind up a big defeat for Mitt Romney -- even if he wins comfortably.

It brings to mind LBJ's campaign predictions in the 1968 New Hampshire primary, though less consequential.

Skipping Iowa

What's more interesting than Fred Thompson only raising $3 million in June is that he recently said, "August is kind of a down month, not much going on, so it wouldn't make sense to [announce my campaign] in August." Ed Kilgore observes,

That may be true in Washington, but not so much in, say, Iowa, where August features the State Republican Party's big Straw Poll (which Thompson apparently won't contest), not to mention the Iowa State Fair, where presidential candidates will be so thick on the ground that you won't be able to stir them with a stick. Indeed, Thompson's "not much going on" dismissal of the opportunity to eat corn dogs and deep-fried twinkies and admire the Butter Cow sculpture is a good sign that he has decided to skip Iowa altogether.

There have been years when a candidate doesn't have to compete in Iowa to win the nomination.; however this is not one of them.