The Iowa straw poll is the biggest waste of time in American history. You too, MSNBC.

[Faygo Kid]

The Iowa straw poll has to be the biggest joke and waste of time in American history. A few right-wing nutcases who think the Earth is 6,000 years old cast a ballot, and it dominates the media.

Michelle Bachmann "won" with almost 5,000 votes. NOT EVEN FIVE THOUSAND VOTES and that's supposed to matter.

It's Saturday night. Go have fun and forget about this meaningless result. Thank God it's over.

[RandySF]

1. Well, it took down Elizabeth Dole in 1999.

She quit after she did poorly there.

[WCGreen]

2. Come on, she never really had a chance...

We all know if she had kept her maiden name she would have been in charge of the local cotillion.

[Tx4obama]

3. I'm glad they had the poll. Not enough folks wrote-in Palin, she didn't make the list!

Enough wrote-in Perry for him to get on the list - but they have forgotten all about Palin :)

This has made my day :)

[lob1]

4. Hopefully people are beginning to see Palin for the grifter she is.

[sfpcjock]

5. Well Rick Prayer-y skipped it, so you must be right! n/t

[grantcart]

6. Credit to CNN for giving it limited coverage

[David in Canada]

7. Not Quite...

The Ames Straw Poll is a good barometer for measuring a candidate's strength with fundraising and on-the-ground organisation. Furthermore, it occurs after most candidates have entered the race, have raised significant amounts of money, established a nexus of volunteers and have spent time campaigning in Iowa.

Also, Iowa cauci are rather low turnout affairs, so the turnout today is over 10% of those who will turn out in the cold winter January/February night of their caucus. If a candidate cannot afford to charter buses and purchase hundreds of tickets to bring people or if their don't have the organisational strength to do so, they aren't going to win in Iowa (or New Hampshire for that matter). If a candidate cannot entice people to get on a comfortable charter bus for an hour and have a free day at a fair with all the free food and cold drinks they can pour down their gullet, they aren't going to pick up any support either!

Even then, some candidates do perform well that will go nowhere when actual voting takes place (Mssrs. Pawlenty and Santorum) and some perform poorly and do well in actual contests (John McCain in 2008). However, the results will keep Pawlenty trudging through the race until Iowa and the results probably spell an end to the nascent Thaddeus McCotter campaign due to him actually taking part and getting all of 35 votes.

The results are likely embarrassing for Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Although neither took part, both were beat out by Rick Perry despite people actually having to write his name in instead of being prompted with a name on the ballot paper and placing an X. Worse for Romney, he has near 100% name recognition, is a supposed top-tier candidate yet loses to a Johnny-come-lately in the race for all of 10 minutes with people having to consciously write-in his name! The relative poor performance could serve as a loss of confidence by the people in the GOP with money and lead to a stampede among to moneyed establishment en masse towards Governor Perry. If so, Romney might not make it to the actual cauci and the race will rapidly become a Perry vs. Bachmann battle royale.

[SoCalDem]

8. 14-16K people show up to eat fried butter & listen to boring speeches

and national media covers it like the 2nd coming-----for days on end...and yet back in 2003 when MILLIONS marched in the streets, they could barely be bothered to mention it..:(