The Straw Poll Ballot
I want to share my perspective on the Straw Poll Ballot that was finalized in Des Moines this weekend by the SCC. There was a substantial media presence so, this will not be news for most of you. First the Ballot:
Herman Cain
Newt Gingrich
John Huntsman
Thaddeus McCotter
Tim Palwenty
Ron Paul
Mitt Romney
Rick Santorum
Write-in ______________________________
The six candidates who leased a space in the Land Auction were placed on the ballot automatically. That's the easy part, I would like to look at who was not placed on the ballot and give insight into some of the thought process involved.
First, all the campaigns involved were told that Saturday, July 23rd would be the deadline and the ballot would be locked after that date. Since we will be leasing real voting machines, the ballots will go to press on Monday, July 25th. So as far as the ballot goes, final is final.
SCC member, Monte Shaw started the discussion by moving that we adopt a ballot with the six candidates who were participating in the Straw Poll (Bachmann, Cain, McCotter, Palwenty, Paul and Santorum) plus, Romney, Gingrich, Huntsman, Palin and Perry. I then moved to amend his motion by removing Palin and Perry.
Palin and Perry
At the county central committee meetings I have attended recently and in private correspondence, I have gotten a lot of input from Republicans about including Rick Perry and Sarah Palin on the ballot. The input I have received has been mixed.
Some have suggested that not including them hurt the integrity of the Straw Poll and might even cost Iowa our First-in-the-Nation Caucus in the future. Further, there is precedent, Fred Thompson was on the 2007 ballot even though he had not yet declared his candidacy. Another argument was that this would discourage activists who support Palin and Perry form showing up in Ames.
My response was that, while I thank Mr Thompson for saving the Iowa Caucuses, other states will try to take away our position regardless if who is on our straw poll ballot. My thought was that the ballot should be limited to actual candidates, people who had actually declared and formed exploratory or campaign committees. Now I personally think that Governor Perry will run and Governor Palin will not. But for the SCC to place them on the ballot would be for us to take sides and worse to suggest that somehow the current field of candidates is not up to snuff and that we will try to correct the situation. Also at issue is "Americans for Perry" a 527 group that wants to see the governor run for president. They wanted to have space at the Straw Poll and intended to encourage attendees to vote for Perry. From an RPI perspective this was entering some uncharted territory with the FEC and the prudent decision was made not to allow the group space on the grounds. Without a visible presence at the event, the group stopped lobbying to have Perry on the ballot.
The vote to remove Palin and Perry from the ballot was a 5-5 tie with Chairman Strawn voting to break the tie and remove the names.
Romney, Gingrich and Huntsman
As I recall there was little debate over inclusion of Romney, Gingrich and Huntsman. All three show up in national polling and while Gingrich has been active in Iowa, none of them are participating in the Straw Poll. No one really thinks that any of the three will do well in the Straw Poll since they are not organizing an effort to get their supporters to Ames.
Johnson and Roemer
Some have asked why former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson and former Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer were not included. This question would have been easier to answer had we taken National Committeewoman Kim Lehman's sage advice and come up with criteria for inclusion instead of a list of names.
In reality we did come up with criteria, be a declared candidate and either participate in the Straw Poll or show up in national polling. It would have been better had we actually stated it this way and set a polling threshold (e.g. 3%). By the time Lehman made the suggestion we were well on the way to approving the list motion and there was no effort to change it.
So, why did Johnson and Roemer not make the cut? The real reason is that no one in the room felt passionately enough that they should be on the ballot to suggest it. My sense is had someone suggested adding them, the SCC would have done it.
Write-in
The SCC did approve having a write-in space on the ballot. Write-ins will be counted and announced as part of the vote tally. So there is an opportunity for Palin, Perry or even Jimmy McMillan (formerly of The Rent is too Damn High party) to get votes.
Fred Karger
To me, the most surprising non-event of the Straw Poll is Fred Karger. Karger was one of the first declared candidates and has the distinction of being the first openly gay Republican candidate for president. Karger's primary purpose in running seems to me to bring attention to LGBT issues. The most press he seems to have gotten is a result of his ongoing feud with National Committeeman Steve Scheffler.
Had Karger decided to participate in the Straw Poll, he would have been on the ballot. Had he been on the ballot we would have extended him the same consideration and encouraged FOX News to include him in the FOX Ames Straw Poll Debate. Both of these would have given him a national stage to discuss his issues.
Entry into the Straw Poll would likely have been the best investment his campaign could have made.
Conflicts of Interest
I have addressed conflicts of interest resulting from SCC members working for or endorsing candidates in primaries on this blog before and I want to address the issue briefly in the context of the Straw Poll Ballot.
Currently their are six SCC members who either have paid (or volunteer) leadership positions with or have endorsed a presidential candidate. I want to publicly commend all of these SCC members for voluntarily recusing themselves from voting on the Straw Poll Ballot. Given the importance of the decision to the campaigns — recusing themselves was clearly the right thing to do.
While I appreciate the integrity of these six members, I still have a concern. The key votes on the ballot were 5-5 ties (broken by our chairman). Potential conflict of interest concerns kept fully one-third of the SCC members from voting! These were important decision yet they were made without the input of these six members. Missing their input reduces the effectiveness of the committee and in my opinion hurts those whom they represent.
Interesting write-up. Linked at Bleeding Heartland.
Posted by: desmoinesdem | Jul 26, 2011 7:28:25 AM