Buying straws in the winds of 2008 campaign

Howard Kurtz:

My heart is beating just a little bit faster knowing that the Iowa straw poll, one of the grand rituals on American politics, is now upon us.

Where else can a political campaign essentially buy votes and be greeted by praise instead of prosecution?

Now I had thought the media would just ignore the straw poll after Rudy and McCain blew it off. After all, how much of a story is Romney and a bunch of second-tier types?

Apparently, I forgot it's August.

I'm not working Monday, but the Philly Inquirer's Dick Polman has saved me hours of research by writing the lead of the straw-poll story in advance:

"By busing in the most loyalists, and paying for their tickets, Mitt Romney defeated similar vote-buying strategies employed by his more modestly-financed rivals, including Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback. But it's doubtful that this Saturday night event was an accurate barometer of anything, given the fact that, as in the past, it attracted only two percent of Republican voters statewide . . . "

Nailed it.

...

I still hear the supposed truism that no Republican has won the nomination who avoided the Iowa straw poll. I think it is time to put that one to rest and return some sense of sanity to the nomination process. If candidates want to mix with voters at a state fair, that is fine, but it is ridiculous to suggest that a few voters in Iowa are going to be selecting the next nominee for president of a major party over a year and a half before an election.

Why should a few hundred people from a state with demographics that are unrepresentative of the country be deemed so important? In my mind they are not and they will not influence my choice for the nomination.