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 Will There Be Free Cholesterol Testing?
* The work to prepare the Hilton Coliseum, on the Iowa State University campus in Ames, is proceeding apace. Each campaign has tented space outside the facility to hold its picnic and party during the day. Barbecue seems to be high on everyone's menu projections.
* Some 600 reporters are expected to come in to cover this thing, in addition to the campaign staffs and volunteers. Including buses, tents, food, hotels, air fares, car rentals, advertising, gasoline, beer, and all of the other things that keep a modern travelling political army happy, by Monday morning this event may have brought over $9 million in new money into Iowa.
* While we decry the amount of money spent in politics, watching the people preparing the grounds for Saturday's Straw Poll reminded me that a large number of people - tent rental places, banner makers, food purveyors, bus drivers, restaurant owners and workers - will all have a better summer than they thought they would have.
* Why has this straw poll, which in spite of George W's lead in polls and checking accounts, caught everyone's political attention? First, there's nothing else going on. Second, and more importantly, no one knows how it will turn out. By the time we get to the National Conventions this time next year the nominating process in both parties will be long since concluded. Until the Iowa Caucuses - early next year - this will be the only non-financial, non-polling way to measure what's going on.
* Everyone - including the Forbes people - expect Bush to come in first. The consensus among reporters I spoke to yesterday was that if Bush gets about a third of the votes that will be good enough.
* Almost everyone - including the Forbes people - expect Forbes to come in second. If he gets over 20 percent of the votes that will be in the correct range.
* The real buzz is: What happens after second? Is it Dole, who has been attracting large numbers of women to her Dole-Stroll events? Is it Bauer, who is attempting to tap into the fairly large Evangelical population in Iowa? Is it Buchanan, who has developed his hand-to-hand campaigning to a high degree of sophistication? Can Alexander or Quayle produce enough votes to cause the press corps to be "surprised?" How many votes will that have to be?
* If a campaign does unexpectedly poorly on Saturday, does the campaign fold on Sunday? Does the candidate throw his or her support to one of the survivors? Does the staff all pile into one, last, broken-down bus with all their stuff piled on top and leave like the Joad family?
* Steve Forbes spoke to a meeting of supporters in Ames last evening. About 175 people ate campaign buffet (five colds, no hots) food and listened to the stump speech. Forbes has gotten much better at understanding his audience. At one point he was asked about the Microsoft anti-trust suit brought by the government, which Forbes turned into a discussion of illegally vertically-integrated hog production and grain distribution companies. Pretty good, I thought.
* I am personally hoping Warren Beatty shows up on Saturday and runs as a write-in candidate.
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