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What can be said with any confidence about Giuliani and McCain skipping the Iowa Straw Poll? With Fred Thompson continually postponing an official entrance to the campaign we have clue one. Recently Newt Gingrich renewed the possibility of his entering the race after stating not long ago there was a four to one chance he would not. That may be clue two. And clue three might be worries about the strength of fourth in the national polls but leading in many early states - Mitt Romney.

If one is not secure in the notion of being one of the top three candidates in national polls, competing in the Iowa Straw Poll presents a problem. Spending money with no upside and lots of potential downside. Giuliani, McCain and certainly Fred Thompson are utilizing stealth campaign tactics. Not by launching impressive displays of leadership, experience or headline generating talking points, but by doing very little. It is the conclusion on this blog is that Fred Thompson is milking expectations for all they are worth. He is also waiting for the straw poll to narrow the field and was hoping the front runners and other possible threats would self-destruct or cause problems for themselves before he enters officially. Giuliani and McCain sensed this and responded by avoiding the Iowa Straw Poll.

Reports in the last few weeks suggested Fred Thompson may hurt his chances from waning interest or setting the expectations bar too high. Over the same period, McCain has changed his unpopular stand on immigration and maintained his risky stand on Iraq. Giuliani has remained as quiet as possible on his less than conservative stands on abortion, gun control and gay marriage.

Those who show up make decisions. Many will talk down Mitt Romney’s victory in the Iowa Straw Poll. But the fact is Romney was in a similar position of exposing his campaign to unlimited downside with limited upside. An upset in the straw poll would have been extremely damaging to his campaign. But he showed up, did the work and won the contest by a larger than predicted margin.

Most political strategists as well as political junkies would probably agree that people in politics are in it to win. You have to get elected before you can do anything. So it is basically a case of do whatever it takes to win. Minus unethical or illegal activities of course, whatever works….well, works.

After Romney in the straw poll, Huckabee and Brownback may have won more time in the race. Anyone who placed lower has limited possibilities or none at all. The next post will look closer at the numbers and history of the straw poll.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Public Affairs, wordpress, Politics, campaign, election, McCain, GOP, thompson, romney, giuliani. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.