Symbolic Iowa Straw Poll Still Carries Some Weight

If you happen to be near Iowa this weekend, consider this offer: Swing by Ames and you can eat your fill of barbecue, catch a performance by Crystal Gayle, maybe hang with Karl Malone or have your picture taken with Vic Damone.

The cost? Heck, someone will pay you the $25 you need to show up. The catch? You must be an Iowa resident eligible to vote in the November 2000 presidential election. What does any of this have to do with picking the next leader of the Free World? More than you may think.

A largely symbolic straw poll set for Saturday has emerged, improbably, as the single most important political event of the young campaign, a do-or-die test for roughly half of the 10-candidate GOP field and a reality check for the heavily fortified campaign of Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

The speeches and mock election will be the season’s first real measure of candidate strength as well as the first chance for voters anywhere to compare Bush with the Republican field.

It has also become a spectacle worthy of P. T. Barnum.

Candidates, as thick as the shoulder-high corn, have been camping out in Iowa for weeks, spending hundreds of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars stumping for an event that, for more than 20-plus years, has never predicted the GOP nominee.

Only once, in 1979, has the straw poll even forecast the winner of the Iowa caucuses, which will launch the presidential nominating process next February. Millionaire publisher Steve Forbes is handing out silver pins to all who pledge their votes Saturday, gold for those who promise to bring a friend or two. Bush paid $43,500 for a picnic area outside Ames’ Hilton Coliseum, site of the straw poll, making the grassy swath possibly the priciest rental property in Iowa history.

Still, even if the event, with all its enticements, seems more auction than election, the outcome Saturday could have serious consequences in the GOP race for president. A convincing Bush victory would make the long odds for the rest of the field even longer; conversely, a stumble by the front-runner might provide an opening for an alternative to emerge.

Struggling Hopefuls Might Be Snuffed Out

A weak showing could snuff out several struggling candidates, most likely Lamar Alexander, former governor of Tennessee, or former Vice President Dan Quayle. Former American Red Cross President Elizabeth Hanford Dole might also have to think twice about staying in the race if she fails to crack the top tier of finishers.

“The grim reaper is going to be waiting outside the gates of the Ames field house,” said GOP contender Patrick J. Buchanan, a television commentator. “Five or six of those fellows may never survive that . . . women too.”

In truth, the event is nothing more than a $25-a-head pep rally sponsored by the Iowa Republican Party, which has spun hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from straw. The extraordinary--many would say excessive--attention paid to the vote reflects the quickened pace of the 2000 primary process, the desire for some gauge of Bush’s political potency, along with a news vacuum just waiting to be filled. About 500 reporters have requested credentials for the event, with some cable networks planning live coverage.

“It’s the dog days of summer. Almost nothing else is going to create news in the political world,” said Q. Whitfield Ayres, a Republican pollster, Ames native and bemused bystander. “We’ve had this major phenomenon of a governor coming out of Texas and just dominating the polls, and there’s a great curiosity to see whether or not this is going to be a competitive contest. Some folks believe this is an indication.”

Bush upped the stakes in June on his first visit to Iowa by boldly declaring his intention to win the straw poll. His state campaign manager, Luke Roth, further raised expectations by setting a goal of 5,000 votes--double the straw poll total of any previous candidate.

“He should be judged by what he said and what his campaign said,” argued Ari Fleischer, a Dole spokesman, suggesting--in the strange way math is often applied to politics--that winning with anything less than 50% would actually constitute a Bush defeat.

By contrast, most other candidates are low-balling their expected performances, the more to exult when they exceed those meager benchmarks. Buchanan: “I believe we’re going to have a very strong performance.” Dole: “I hope to do well.” Social activist Gary Bauer: “I’d like to be in the top five.” Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah: “If we get any votes at all, it will surprise people.”

Alone among the GOP field, Sen. John McCain of Arizona has refused to participate in the straw poll, basing his strategy almost entirely on his performance in the early primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina and California. “It’s a great fund-raiser for the Iowa Republican Party,” he scoffed. “I congratulate them for the scam.”

Stung by such criticism, the state party has acted to prevent some of the excesses of four years ago, when candidates flew in chartered jets full of non-Iowa supporters and encouraged them to vote as much as possible. (Further undermining the credibility of that last go-round, the party ended a suspiciously long count by announcing a statistically improbable tie between Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, the favorite, and Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, with 2,582 votes apiece. For all the good it did Gramm, he eventually finished fifth in the caucuses and quit the campaign days later.)

This time, voters must provide proof of their Iowa residency. Of the state’s 1.8 million registered voters, only 12,000 to 15,000 are expected to vote Saturday. Kayne Robinson, chairman of the state GOP and a former assistant police chief in Des Moines, said a system of handstamps and indelible ink will also be used to prevent repeat balloting.

For all its obvious fallibility, some say the straw poll is still a useful test of the organizational requirements to coax supporters out on a cold evening next winter.

“It’s a warmup for the caucuses,” said Scott Reed, who managed Bob Dole’s 1996 campaign and learned much from the candidate’s near-upset in the 1995 straw poll. “We recognized we did not have the breadth and depth of support that polls said we did. Granted, it was a long ride home that night, but in retrospect it was exactly what we needed.”

At the same time, speaking as a neutral observer, Reed suggested the 1999 event “has gotten out of control.”

“It saps an incredible amount of resources out of all the campaigns,” Reed noted, stating publicly what interested parties will only grumble privately. “That takes our eye off the ball. . . . Instead of debating the Democrats and contrasting with Al Gore . . . we’re fighting each other to fill busloads of people to vote in a pay-per-vote straw poll.”

Forbes Appears Way Ahead--in Spending

Forbes, dipping into his vast personal fortune, appears to be spending the most. Over the last two months, he has spent at least $800,000 on television ads alone, according to monitoring by rival candidates and the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising. Alexander, the only other candidate to advertise on television, has spent about $135,000 in the last two weeks.

Traveling around the state in two customized buses, Forbes’ entourage includes a bevy of aides, outfitted in matching polo shirts, who pass out special digitized photographs of supporters posing alongside the candidate. “You’re going to have more food and drink than you ever wanted,” an aide promises all who venture to Ames on Saturday. (Most of the campaigns also plan to pick up the $25 tab for their supporters to vote.)

Bill Dal Col, manager of Forbes’ campaign, declined to discuss spending for the straw poll, saying only that “we’re doing what needs to be done.” However, he dismissed as “outrageous” the claims from rival camps that Forbes has budgeted well in excess of $2 million.

“The answer is simple,” Dal Col said. “If you don’t have a message, you can’t get support, and it doesn’t matter how much you have in the way of resources.”

The Bush campaign said the governor plans to spend no more than $750,000 and is concentrating on winning the straw poll “the old-fashioned way,” as spokeswoman Mindy Tucker put it--”Neighbor to neighbor, grass-roots.”

By Tucker’s estimation, a Bush victory is a Bush victory so long as he finishes with “one more [vote] than anybody else.”

The Texas governor, continuing his above-the-fray stance, has been notably absent in this week’s run-up to the straw poll, with his first appearance Thursday at a picnic in Davenport.

While the outcome Saturday seems genuinely uncertain, the greatest speculation around Iowa has focused on the celebrities the candidates may recruit to lure potential supporters to Ames.

Rumored appearances by Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and retired Gen. Colin L. Powell (for Bush) and Margaret Thatcher (for Forbes) have all failed to pan out. Those confirmed to appear include country singer Gayle (for Alexander), NBA star Malone and crooner Damone (for Hatch) and pro football Hall of Famer Roger Staubach (for Bush).

Regardless of Saturday’s results, there is already one clear winner: the Iowa Republican Party.

Four years ago, the party cleared $250,000 on straw poll revenue of $400,000. Said Dee Stewart, the party’s executive director, “We hope to do even better this time.”

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Hear Times’ political writer Mark Z. Barabak’s analysis from Iowa of the potential consequences of Saturday’s straw poll vote online at:

https://www.latimes.com/strawpoll