Breaking News: Grasping At Straws

I received an email from Politico yesterday about how Barack Obama won the Politico Straw Poll. I don't know that I would have classified it as a Breaking News Alert, with all the capital letters, but I see why they are excited: they sponsored the poll of activists attending Take Back America. In perspective, though, the last Politico.com Breaking News email I received was on June 7, about how the immigration compromise bill had more or less just died. In other words, that was real news.

The straw poll is traditionally a test vote that doesn't mean much but is a fun way for activists to make the case for their candidates. The larger straw polls that might approach carrying some weight traditionally happen far out from the election and gauge a little bit of caucus opinion. The term "straw poll" refers to straws as they bend in the wind, indicating which way it blows.

Iowa Republicans have a pretty important regular one in Ames each cycle, or at least it was going to be important before everyone decided against participating in it this time. Everyone being Giuliani and McCain. Giuliani even owned up to the idea that maybe his decision to not go to Ames could hurt him in Iowa. There's some speculation over what that event will be worth with two of the heavies opting out of it, but they maintain hope for Fred Thompson, who apparently could be Jesus to Ames' Lazarus by deciding to show up.

The Texas GOP has been pushing its own straw poll, set for September in Fort Worth. I'm not sure if they were happy or ecstatic that Giuliani decided not to come to that one too, although that's a decision by Giuliani I have little trouble understanding. Romney won't be there either, and McCain will likewise be a no-show. The AP article points out that, while the Ames straw poll is open season, only recent convention delegates can come to the Texas event, so you might already know that these are the archest of dedicated social conservatives, ready with high-fives for your Brownbacks and your Tancredos.

So the Politico straw poll is kind of big deal if for no other reason than most of the top-tier Democratic candidates were actually there, but the results were not surprising, considering the sample. The predictive quality in the wider Democratic world is also dubious, as this, at best, gauges popularity among a subset of a subset of likely primary voters. I think the willingness of the Democratic field to participate says something comparative about how risk averse the Republican contenders are being almost as a matter of course. Hillary Clinton was booed yesterday for her stance on Iraq, and booed heartily, and she knew she would be. I heard someone say on the news that maybe she showed up to a very liberal event and got booed for use as a reference point during the general, and it didn't seem like a totally alien idea to me.

I suspect that straw polls will always be around, but that very soon they will be supplanted to some degree by high technology versions of the old practice. Maybe it will be Facebook, or even MySpace. It is not unusual to see articles in which the Democratic candidates' online social networking successes and failures are described with as much attention to detail as fundraising reports or debate performances.

For instance, did you know that Obama has yet to recover all of his friends from when he had a hugely popular but unofficial Obama MySpace profile shut down a few months ago? I didn't, and I wasn't aware it mattered even a little bit, but Business Week took the trouble to report on it. Maybe a website's straw poll results merit a Breaking News Alert after all.