David McElroy

Now that the first votes have been cast in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, let’s take a quick look at where the seven candidates stand. We’ll go in order of finish on Tuesday.

Mitt Romney was the official winner on Tuesday, but he was more like a co-winner. He didn’t originally intend to make Iowa important to his campaign this year, but he did end up putting effort into the state when it became obvious that he could win with a last-minute push. The investment paid off and he’s now off to New Hampshire, where he should be a big winner. Grade: A

Rick Santorum has now become the latest conservative flavor of the month. He gained the most from Iowa, because he came within a few votes of winning the state, which brought him (at least for now) out of the pack and made him into a major contender. The question now is whether conservatives are going to line up behind this strong social conservative as the “anti-Romney.” I don’t think he’s a serious threat to Romney yet, although he has a chance to do well among religious conservatives in southern states. Grade: A+

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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.

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If you see a guy in a certain kind of blue uniform — with a tie and a badge — he’s obviously a police officer. Right? That’s what we all assume in this country, but if you see a TSA screener wearing a badge, it’s a sham. He’s not a real police power. A new bill in Congress aims to end the sham.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has proposed that the agency be forced to take away the uniforms that make people assume TSA personnel are police. They’re not. They have no powers to arrest anybody. Blackburn isn’t happy with the TSA’s performance, and she wants to help the public understand that they’re not dealing with actual police when they’re mistreated by TSA staff:

“Congress has sat idly by as the TSA strip searches 85-year-old grandmothers in New York, pats down 3-year-olds in Chattanooga, and checks colostomy bags for explosives in Orlando. Enough is enough! The least we can do is end this impersonation, which is an insult to real cops.”

The badges weren’t added until 2008, and they were a sore point with real cops at the time. I’m not terribly concerned with the feelings of police officers, but I do like making it clear to everyone that the people they’re dealing with aren’t police.

Make ’em wear McDonald’s uniforms or something. Make them feel just as ridiculous and humiliated as they frequently make the public feel. Blackburn’s bill won’t end the security theatre farce that the TSA has become, but it’s a step in the right direction.