The Biggest Loser in the Ames Straw Poll
The Ames Straw Poll used to be something that was taken seriously in presidential politics, but it’s hard to see why a rational candidate would spend a lot of campaign resources trying to win it anymore.
The two frontrunners in the republican race, Romney and Perry, didn’t compete, and there is no penalty for not competing. In fact, if you don’t compete but still manage to score a few hundred votes anyway, like Rick Perry, you can get a media bounce just for that.
If you compete in and win the Ames Straw Poll, you don’t get much of a bounce for that. In the betting over at Intrade, Michelle Bachmann’s odds have barely budged. She’s up a mere 0.5%, whereas punters now think that Rick Perry’s odds are up about 3% since Friday before the poll.
And finally, if you compete in and lose the Ames Straw Poll, there is a significant penalty for that, as Tim Pawlenty has found out. On Friday his odds were 5.5%, and now they are down to 3.1%.
So this is the logic:
1) No penalty for not competing, but a possible reward even if you come in sixth behind laughingstocks like Hermann Cain and Rick Santorum.
2) Miniscule reward for competing and winning.
3) Big penalty for competing and losing.
Come to Daddy!