What the Iowa straw poll tells me

The AP roundup is here.

Brownback and Huckabee are going fight it out for the social conservative vote. The hardcore has not coalesced around one guy yet, and neither Brownback nor Huckabee have a chance without them. I am betting that their Battle for the Wingnuts will become a Death Match.

If Romney can only muster 4500 votes after spending months and millions of dollars on the poll, in a field without McCain or Giuliani, Mitt’s support is not very deep. That he had to come out in defense of his victory and say that it was not hollow means that it was indeed hollow.

The average Iowa Republican who participates in these events is way, way more conservative than you average Republican. The Nutters (Tancredo, Brownback, and Huckabee) outpolled the totals for the now departed, moderate Tommy Thompson, and Romney, who seems to have stood on each side of every issue. The crazies are still the most reliable votes in the state.

There are a third fewer motivated crazies now than in 2000. Nearly 24,000 voted in that year, compared to 14,300 this time around. Many pundits had speculated that Republicans politicians in 2008 would face lower turnout and an unenthusiastic base. This is the first hard evidence that those predictions are correct.