Do you remember me telling you in September that straw polls don’t matter? Many of you insisted in emails to me (and in some comments) that straw polls mean a lot. Let’s revisit that discussion.
In mid-August, Michele Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll with 28 percent of the vote. Here’s the lead of a Fox News story reporting her “important” win: “Rep. Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll Saturday, affirming her status as a top-tier candidate in the Republican race to challenge President Obama in 2012.”
That was always sheer fantasy. What happened Tuesday in Iowa is reality.
Bachmann finished the actual caucuses — you know, the vote that matters — with roughly 5 percent of the vote. Her 28 percent showing in a straw poll was shown to be irrelevant.
And what of the winners in Iowa on Tuesday. As I write this, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are still neck and neck for a photo finish, but they’re the clear winners. (Ron Paul was in third place, a respectable finish, but far behind his 27 percent in the straw poll — and far away from the predictions of winning coming from his supporters lately.) The two Iowa winners were also-rans in the August straw poll.