McCain, Giuliani Wisely Opt Out of Ames, Iowa Straw Poll
The Tower would like to analyze the decision by Senator McCain to skip the Ames, Iowa straw poll. It believes that the catalyst for McCain’s decision was the fact that Giuliani - the front-runner in terms of national polling - announced on Wednesday, June 6, that he would be skipping the straw poll. Only shortly thereafter, McCain campaign manager Terry Nelson announced that Senator McCain would be skipping it as well.
The decision to skip Iowa by the top two Republicans, effectively concedes the Ames straw poll (although it is not much of a concession in terms of value) to Romney, who has a comfortable lead in polling of Iowa caucus-goers. Granted, being popular with Iowa caucus-goers is not synonymous with doing well in the Ames straw poll, given that it is nothing more than a fund-raiser for the Iowa GOP, where campaigns have to purchase tickets for their supporters and bus them to Ames to vote.
Credit must be given to both McCain and Giuliani - since by their absence Ames will now be of little importance, which helps both of them strategically. There are only two possibilities:
If Romney wins big, as would be expected, it would not be news given the decision of his rivals to abandon the field to him.
If Romney wins, but by a narrow margin over one of the second-tier candidates - that second-tier candidate would garner a lot of free-media and Romney would have underperformed. Either result benefits McCain and Giuliani. They don’t need to win - or even do exceptionally well in Ames - to propel their campaign’s momentum.
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