Iowa Straw Poll

This weekend is the Iowa Republican straw poll. The event is a fundraiser for the Iowa Republican Party and will draw over 30,000 people. The straw poll is the first real test of strength and organization among the candidates and will propel those that fair well into the top tier while weeding out those candidates that fair poorly. This is why they are each spending hundreds of thousands of dollars buying tickets to events, busing in people from all over the state and giving away free food at the even. It's funny to think they our political system requires this much money to spent on a fake vote but that's how the game is played today.

So how do we measure the results today? It will be a bit tricky as they are matched the expectations going into the event. For instance Mitt Romney is expected to win today because neither Rudy, McCain or Fred Thompson are spending any time or money at the event. But Romney cannot just win, he has to win big to meet the expectations and show he is the front runner in Iowa. If he only wins by a few votes, it will be spun as a loss for him. The real key to the results will be who comes in second. Will it be a lesser known candidate like Mike Huckabee, Tommy Thompson, Sam Brownback or even Ron Paul? If any of them win, they will automatically move up to the top tier of candidates. If they get beaten by Rudy or Fred Thompson who aren't even campaigning at the event then they most likely drop out of the race in the coming days.

As a political junkie I will be following the event closely today. Here are my amateur predictions:

Romney 29%
Huckabee 18%
Giuliani 13%
Brownback 12%
F. Thompson 9%
Paul 6%
T. Thompson5%
Tancredo 3%
Hunter 3%
McCain 2%
Cox 0%

The big stories will be Romney not reaching the 30 percent plateau that Bush won in 1999, Huckabee finishing in a strong second and Giuliani finishing third even though he didn't compete. It will also be the final nail in the Brownback, T. Thompson and McCain campaigns.