Iowa Straw Poll

The clear victor of Saturday's Iowa Republican Straw Poll is Governor Mike Huckabee.

Mitt "RINO" Romney may have actually won the poll, but Huckabee made the strongest showing and elevated himself to the top tier of candidates.

I'm in the process of tracking down some Colorado guys who went to the straw poll to get there first hand reactions. I'll post their reactions, once I get them.

In the mean time, read National Reviews analysis of Huckabee here.

Full Straw Poll results:

Iowa state auditor David Vaudt has unofficially certified the Iowa Straw Poll results. With 14,203 ballots having been reportedly cast, here are the results as per (http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/) …

1. ROMNEY: Gov Mitt Romney won the 2007 Ames straw poll, receiving 4516 votes, or 31%.
2. HUCKABEE: In a surprise, Gov. Mike Huckabee finished second with 2587 votes at 18.1%
3. BROWNBACK: Sen. Sam Brownback with 2192 votes and 15.3%
4. TANCREDO: Tom Tancredo with 1961 votes, 13.7%.
5. PAUL: Ron Paul with 1305 votes, and 9.1%
6. THOMPSON: Tommy Thompson, 1,039 votes, 7.3%
7. THOMPSON: Fred Thomson with 203 votes.
8. GIULIANI: Rudy Giuliani with 183 votes.
9. HUNTER: Duncan Hunter with 174 votes.
10. MCCAIN: John McCain with 101 votes.
11. COX: John Cox with 41 votes.

Ron Paul is up... on TV

Today, Congressman Ron Paul went up on the airwaves with his first set of 30 second TV ads in Iowa.

The ads are running in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines markets.

Iowa Straw Poll Predictions

In the spirit of the moment, I am going to add to the white-noise, by releasing my own predictions for this Saturday's Iowa Straw Poll.

1. Mitt Romney
2. Fred Thompson
3. Rudy Giuliani (tie)
3 Tom Tancredo (tie)
4. Ron Paul
5. John McCain
6. Mike Huckabee
7. Sam Brownback
8. Duncan Hunter
10. Tommy Thompson
11. John Cox