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The Dems placed a newspaper ad and opened a website to announce the winner of the Iowa Straw Poll as ‘none of the above.’ Are they just having a little fun at the GOP’s expense? Or are they showing just how concerned they are about their chances for the White House in 2008?

Their conclusion that poll numbers indicating 23% of Republicans were dissatisfied with the current field of candidates is the first clue. If the percentage breakdown among current candidates and undecided voters is evenly distributed between the top candidate or two and undecided voters, it can reflect a situation other than the lame assessment offered by the Democratic party. If you have a relatively large selection of qualified candidates it is no surprise to have many candidates sharing percentages above some minimum threshold. It is also not surprising to have a quarter of the pool of voters undecided this early in the campaign. It is hard to keep people’s interest this early in an unusually long campaign season.

By contrast, the Democratic field of candidates has only two choices. Clinton or Obama are the only candidates with competitive numbers while Edwards is well behind the two front runners and the remainder of the field has displayed no indication of moving higher. The nine day campaign gauntlet recently completed by the Democratic candidates featured criticism for Clinton’s love for lobbyists, Obama’s propensity for war and the insignificance of the other candidates. One exception would be Richardson declaring homosexuality as a choice. Reports later revealed that was not the position to take if courting homosexual voters.

While the Democratic candidates alienate their base, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich have predicted a Clinton and Obama ticket. At the very least it is an entertaining view. Whether it holds any campaign significance is yet to be determined. The GOP has ample choices in candidate selection and has only experienced typical competitive challenges during the campaign thus far. Lower tier candidates are spoiling for a party fight while the top tier stays on message. Nothing out of the ordinary has transpired so far this campaign season in the GOP ranks. The same might not be said of Democratic party hopefuls.

Thus the ad mentioned at the top of this post may simply be a reflection of the Democratic party’s inability to gain traction. A front running candidate with lots of baggage of her own as well as that of her husband’s two terms as President. A rookie second place contender showing signs of the inexperience he described as change. A lower tier group of candidates spearheaded by a candidate who lost in 2004 with his wife the more effective campaigner in his bid this time around. And the finale is a Democratic majority in Congress that is the least effective since records on the topic have been kept.

As an independent with conservative values, this blog has leaned to the right for some time now. While the Democratic party continues to display its inability or unwillingness to move away from dangerous policies and practices, the GOP while slow to correct their own set of faults show more promise in this regard. Detailing those contrasts here is unnecessary and outside the scope of this post. Comments, inquiries or objections would encourage a follow up post on that topic. Readers should be able to collect that information and draw their own conclusions.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Poll finds Romney leading crowd in much-watched Iowa Straw Poll

Stewart M. Powell, Hearst Newspapers
Saturday, August 11, 2007

Democrats urged Iowa Republicans on Friday to vote “none of the above” in today’s Iowa Straw Poll that gauges the early organizational strength of Republican candidates seeking the presidential nomination in 2008.

On the eve of the voting, the Democratic Party launched a newspaper advertisement and a Web site declaring, “Republicans have made up their mind and the winner is clear: none of the above.”

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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 11th, 2007 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Public Affairs, wordpress, Politics, campaign, election, Democrats, Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.