The Presidential Straw Poll
August 13, 2007 by Sandy Renshaw
Filed under Community, Events, General, Guest Writer: Field, M.R., Iowa, Photography, Politics
On August 11, 2007, I attended the presidential straw poll conducted by the Republican Party of Iowa. I went for the experience and to talk with people. Since I wasn’t covering the event as a journalist, I voted and my vote was for sale. I went looking for the candidate whose campaign made the best impression of hospitality upon me.
I took advantage of Mitt Romney’s campaign to catch a ride from Des Moines to Ames and to obtain a $35 ticket with which to vote. Since those two items made it possible for me to participate in the straw poll, I placed a comparable value on them. However, I subtracted some points because Romney is drawing upon his deep personal financial resources to drive his campaign. In terms of earning my vote, the politeness and competency of the Romney staff and volunteers went even farther than the monetary outlay. In addition, I was favorably impressed that the campaign’s straw poll location had a barrel for soda pop cans to be recycled. Whether it was done to reduce landfill space or just to recoup the Iowa bottle deposit, it was a good thing to have.
The majority of campaigns offered pulled pork buns with potato chips, a side dish, cookies, and beverage. The campaigns each chose a different restaurant as the supplier, including some in the Des Moines area. Vegetarians had options, too, with watermelon brought in from Arkansas by Mike Huckabee’s campaign, local corn grilled up by Duncan Hunter’s campaign, and Blue Bunny Bomb Pops offered up by the One Vote special-issue campaign. There also was plenty of ice cream. Again, Duncan Hunter’s campaign went local with a John Deere motor powering ice cream makers. The cream was local and very delicious.
Sam Brownback’s campaign had the spot right off of the parking area and it was the first place I headed to see what literature, activities, and food were offered. I was stopped at the gate, though, and told to vote before I ate. Since I saw only one entrance to the campaign’s space, I walked away with the impression that the campaign didn’t care to talk with anybody who wasn’t already a Brownback supporter. No other campaign treated straw poll attendees, many of whom were Democrats accompanying Republican relatives, in this manner. Later in the day I came across another entrance to the Brownback tent where people were not turned away. Alas, I also witnessed campaign workers still automatically turning away straw poll attendees at the first gate. The range of friendliness varied at the other campaigns’ tents, with some more ready with smiles than others but none refusing to welcome guests.
I had hoped to see some buttons urging Condoleezza Rice to run for president even though the group Think Condi could not be at the straw poll, but I was disappointed. Voting itself went quickly and relatively easily.
More comments on the straw poll can be found in the picture captions (set of 6 photos on Flickr). In addition, the August 22 issue of Leading Voices: Iowa will have comments from women at the straw poll and other items related to the event.
Guest Writer: M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa.
Sandy Renshaw is Sandy Renshaw is a self-employed communications consultant. You will also find her blogging at Purple Wren.
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The bus that was chartered to take Des Moines-area residents to Ames for the straw poll returned us to the Windsor Heights Hy-Vee at a perfect time to catch the local bus home. Normally, I would have taken the local bus half-way home and walked the rest of the way. However, due to a high heat index and lungs that were not fully recovered from a recent cold, I opted to ride the bus to a transfer point and catch the bus on another route that would let me off half a block from my apartment. My choices were to go to Valley West Mall or to downtown. All of my options, including walking, would get me home within about 15 minutes of each other. The downtown transfer option was the best by a slight margin. During the trip I started calculating how many extra blocks I traveled because of the route map of the local bus system. The total was 74 blocks. That includes going all the way downtown, going a few north-south blocks beyond my street, and then going back to the western side of the city. Now here’s the real kicker: if an observer had been on the bus tracking passenger flow as part of a bus study, my trips would have been counted as downtown-related. The fact that I went 74 blocks out of my way because I could transfer only in downtown would not have mattered. Consequently, my 74-block detour would be one of the datum points proving that more buses going to and from downtown Des Moines are needed. This type of logic is present in several other areas of life and politics. As you listen to candidates for president, the state legislature, city council, and school board, ask yourself if their solutions to problems are perpetuating current problems or are addressing needs not captured by existing formal measurements.