A lot of money for a straw poll...

Heat, humidity, sweat. All that must add up to being in Iowa in August!

On Saturday, Kevin and I went to Ames, Iowa, to participate in the Republican party's "Straw Poll". Years ago this began as a fundraising event for the GOP--charge $35 and get to meet the candidates and take part in a popularity vote. It has come to be a benchmark for the presidential campaign--the first hurdle. Already since Saturday's poll, at least one candidate who didn't do as well as he'd hoped, has dropped out of the race. There were 8 candidates there, although Rudy Guiliani and John McCain skipped the contest--candidates like Ron Paul (the libertarian), Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback, Tommy Thompson, and others that I can't remember their names. All are either senators, former governors, or congressmen. What is a straw poll? Part carnival, part BBQ, part campaign speeches.
The last time I was in the Hilton Coliseum was when Deborah was in All-State Orchestra. The air-conditioning was a nice reprieve from the heat. As we listened to the promises from different candidates, I found myself being a bit skeptical-- "That's nice, but how exactly are you going to accomplish it, especially if Congress doesn't want to go along?"
Mitt Romney, in the blue shirt in the center, came in first in the poll, but he also had paid LOTS of money for buses, t-shirts, food, music, etc. A radio report this morning said that if all he spent were divided by the number of votes he received, it came to over $4000 per person!
We kept wondering, wow! How much money is being spent here today??? It's too bad that politicking takes money these days.

I have ambivalent feelings about living in Iowa during the presidential campaign, which actually began this past January. On one hand we get to personally meet the candidates and put in our two-cents' worth. On the other hand, we have been getting political phone calls since January, sometimes as many as four a day. That is VERY tiresome! We really enjoyed late November and December when all that had stopped after the last election. I was sorry it started so early for the next one.