I am proud to be an American when I see the way the straw poll seemed to cut through some of the hype created by the media. Back about 1915 or so we had a politician named Woodrow Wilson that accepted a bribe to create the Federal Reserve. They were a group of very powerful bankers and businessmen from around the world at the time. Through the monopoly of being the source of our money and by being outside of our government, or paying any taxes, they have built up a fortune that, I believe, includes owning most of the politicians of the world. It is going to take a determined, We the People, to restore law and order in our government before we can restore law and order in our once great nation. "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men." -Woodrow Wilson

by Carson Dugal (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 20 comments) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 8:39:06 AM

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For half a century I've been pondering how our monetary system works.  Several books I've read don't really explain it.  When the government wants more money, allegedly to reflect business activity and transactions, they merely crank up the printing presses.  I've read that a certain Solomon family controls the presses and makes a hefty percent for simply running them.  This money, I think it's fair to say, really does "grow on trees."  Near as I can tell, the whole system is a house of cards built on a house of cards.  This paragraph from Woodrow would explain much about how the Wizard of DC runs the show.

by Daniel Geery (26 articles, 95 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 912 comments [27 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 9:43:06 AM

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Rob,  nice article  on the straw poll.

I take issue though with your contention that GOP pain is Dem gain.

Dems still need to put forward a positive and progressive platform that brings new people to the party.

Without such an effort by both parties, the system will lose its vitality.

Perhaps you are right and the low numbers at the straw poll are indicative of something more than merely August doldrums.

I disagree and find the comparison to the 1999 Iowa straw poll misleading.

In 1999, the most powerful political organization in the United States, the Bush machine, was ginning up the vote.

Their ability to draw a record number of participants was a foreshadowing of GW Bush's continuing- though diminished- ability to move the poll numbers.

Clearly, none of the current GOP aspirants have the star power that GW Bush exuded as Governor of Texas.

Comparisons, to 1999 aside, if the 2007 straw poll eliminated Gov. Thompson and maybe Tancredo, it has served a useful purpose.

It remains unclear whether the low participation in the poll is more indicative of discontent among the GOP rank and file with current policy-

 or of the lack of star power in this current crop of contenders.

If Iowans are staying away from the straw poll due to lack of excitement,  there is no gain for the Dems.

The RNC pr machine will be able to transform the nominee into a star by next July at the latest.

Even if the GOP rank and file are staying away because of dissatisfaction with the war or other aspects of  Bush's record, they are still conservatives and will probably return to the fold by next fall.

IT REMAINS IMPORTANT FOR THE DEMS NOT TO BECOME COMPLACENT.

Party building, organizing and most importantly the articulation of a coherent. positive center-left governing agenda remain the order of the day for the Dems. 

by Robert Chapman (28 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 556 comments) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 9:19:00 AM

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Listening to meet the press, I learned that this year, voters were required to show Iowa proof of residence. In  1999, it is reasonably speculated tha Bush brought in buses of non-residents to vote. What a surprise. He rigged another vote.

by Rob Kall (952 articles, 4177 quicklinks, 374 diaries, 2087 comments [45 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 1:24:56 PM

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Yes, Rob, that is precisely the difference between the 20+ thousand people there and the totals of the votes.

David

by David N-V (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 34 comments) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 11:59:15 PM

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I lived in Iowa for two years while a reporter. I found that the state had some very nice traits--for a conservative state (and a very conservative press corps, with exceptions in Ames, Iowa City, and Des Moines) It has the highest literacy rate in the nation. (The lowest, I believe, may be in Crawford, Texas) . . . Also, it has elected and re-elected many times Sen. Tom Harkin (and well before him, truck-driving liberal Harold Hughes). I doubt more than 4,000 Iowans are enamoured with Romney. The hard-core Romneyites did come out to vote and pay $35 (or be paid $35) to vote. And, as Rob so eloquently said, money did the talking in Iowa--at least for the straw vote. I would hope that the literate Iowans realize what has happened, and will see that even a conservative state hasn't benefitted from the Bushies.

/walt brasch\

by Brasch (87 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 70 comments) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 9:42:32 AM

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Ecclesiastes 9

15 Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom. But nobody remembered that poor man. 16 So I said, "Wisdom is better than strength." But the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are no longer heeded.

Ron Paul was not mentioned in news stories, but did better than the last three. I guess Iowa votes, and other states, are for sale, big time. Selling your birthright for a mess of pottage, just like the Bancrofts of Dow Jones selling out to Rupert's News Corp. Sure hurts to watch.

by Edward Ulysses Cate (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 232 comments [9 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 11:55:23 AM

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I wish someone would/could take on the task of explaining why there are continual rumblings on the internet that Ron Paul is kicking GOP ass BUT the MSM is supressing his popularity numbers by under reporting or not reporting about his impact...

by mrk * (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 311 comments [12 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 12:28:43 PM

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Ron Paul had a shot at the second, third or even fourth place slot here in Iowa. But he came in fifth place, only ahead of Tommy THompson, among those who actually showed up to run in the straw poll race. But then, note how the mainstream media ignored him and included the guy he beat, Thompson.

by Rob Kall (952 articles, 4177 quicklinks, 374 diaries, 2087 comments [45 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 1:28:37 PM

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is a decent place to start, but to understand framing, don't stop there. There seems to be, or have been (I haven't check it out recently) a crew around him tending to be fadish or cultish, and doing some gate keeping (staunch Democrat sort of thing, it seemed to me). Jeff Feldman, found at framishpisopen.org, also has some decent material. Both Lakoff and Feldman have their own limits in political thinking, however (to be expected, of course), and there is much more to framing and linguistic cognition than they deal with.

I recommend anyone interested read some Korzybski (1879-1950) about 'General Semantics', especially his work on abstraction -- but much work has been in linguistics and cognitive psychology since then, of course.

A main point to beware of with Lakoff is his talking about the nation as family metaphor, with two poles as strict father and nurturant parent. Tha's ok as far as it goes, but the nation is not really a family, and citizens are not really children, not politicians parents (and the idea that they are is something people need to get past if we are to be a real democracy again.) People also need to get past the idea religion based on 'God the father' and 'children of God' -- which is a rather primitive notion. Both of these (framing government and religion as parent-child) feed the idea that all we need is the proper 'great leader' to solve the problems -- a very anti-democratic notion indeed.

We see the dark side of this in Bush's "I'm the decider' meme, and saying his most important job is the protect the people -- it's not: his main job is to defend the constitution. The 'unitary (urinary?) executive is trying to be a big daddy or god -- not a president, which should have very limiited authority. In this sense, Lakoff make the problem worse by reinforcing the idea of government as parent -- *any* sort of parent. Tied in with this concept is divine rule -- the king as ordained by god to run a country, and delegating authority to local officials, and ultimately to parents who rule over children, in a chain of hierachical authority (with perhaps an alternative line of authority through the clerics -- perhaps a even father and mother structure, government and religion, in a rough analogy).

Korzybski's abstraction is a key concept in breaking through this: understanding how the mind deviates from reality by using language to represent actuality in distorted ways -- which parallels the 'deep frames' of seeing reality with any sort of psychological or cognitive structures. Parents are not leaders, but parents, and citizens are not the 'children' of a nation, even it's called the motherland, fatherland, or homeland -- a home is where a family lives, not the basis of a national political system. That sort of abstract metaphor is deadly, as we see all around us.

by Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 1:54:44 PM

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Hardly. On Fox News - that's right, Fox News - they kept cutting back to that camera shot that very prominently showed Paul supporters proudly waving their placards. Gee, I distinctly remember seeing some threads here hoping that Ron Paul would shock everybody with a surprise victory or something close to it. Oops. Truth be told, this is much ado about nothing. A straw poll? Several months before any primary? This means nothing.

by Scott (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 744 comments [30 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 2:55:47 PM

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...and as fox news showed that image they said something along the lines of... there seems to be a  lot of brownback huckabee and romney supporters in Iowa today...with no mention of Ron Paul. 

by Amy de Miceli (30 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 6 comments) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 3:40:12 PM

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There were no Romney supporters in the hall at the time of the aforementioned Fox news shots.  The newsreader did indeed mention the support for Ron Paul.

David

by David N-V (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 34 comments) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 11:31:36 PM

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on this: http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=6381

by Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 5:29:33 PM

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In a word...YES!

by Sandy Sand (198 articles, 0 quicklinks, 227 diaries, 1548 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 10:55:52 PM

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Nice article, Rob.

I was there in Ames to support the FairTax and survived being completely surrounded by Republicans for two days.   I'm working on an article I should have for you by noon on Monday if that isn't too late.

You are dead on that Huckabee (like Ron Paul) has a mind.  I started "From Hope to Higher Ground" on the the trip up and stuck my bookmark in the middle of the last chapter as the plane pushed its way through thunderstorms to land in Tampa.  I am reminded of what John Stewart said to Mike Huckabee after reading it, "It's pretty liberal!"  "Can we believe you?"

Well after meeting the former governor Saturday and occasionally getting teary-eyed reading his book this weekend, I'm pretty convinced it is worth fighting to help him get the GOP nomination.  If for no other reason than to make sure Fred Dalton Thompson doesn't get it.

DavidN@TampaBayFairTax.org

by David N-V (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 34 comments) on Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 at 11:54:04 PM

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• Third-place finisher Sam Brownback says he spent about $325,000 to win his 2,192 votes. That's $148.27 for each vote.
• Second-place finisher Mike Huckabee spent about $150,000 and received 2,587 votes. That's $57.98 per vote.
• Winner Mitt Romney has not said how much he spent. The reporting in this Washington Post article suggests at least $2 million and possibly more than twice that much. Assuming $2 million for 4,516 votes, that's $442.87 per vote. But it could top $1,000.

by David N-V (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 34 comments) on Monday, Aug 13, 2007 at 4:38:41 PM

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When I look at the Iowa Straw Poll, I think of what Freud said about a neurotic's perception of himself.  Freud said that a neurotic had a view of himself that was diametrically opposed to the truth:  Because the neurotic was too frightened to glimpse the truth, he shrouded it with lies.  So when a neurotic claims that she has a lack of self esteem (Lewinsky:  I had a lack of self esteem because I was fat) we know that she has, if anything, an inflated view of herself (Lewinsky came onto the Prez by flashing her underwear at him). And how are the Republicans like this?  They claim they are advocates of freedom when in fact freedom is just a campaign slogan for them.  

Republicans like to say they stand for freedom and democracy.  But the Iowa Straw poll has nothing to do with freedom or democracy.  To paraphrase Harry Truman, the Republicans know as much about freedom as a pig knows about Sunday.

How does one vote in the Iowa Straw poll?  One buys a ticket.  That is the only requirement.  Who buys the tickets?  The candidates.  Who wins?  The candidate who buys the most tickets for prospective voters and who gets the most buses to ship people to the convention where the dumb dullards, instead of talking about issues, eat lots and lots of bar b q.  No wonder Republicans are such ugly people.

So one wins the straw poll not by debating the issues but by spending money, buying tickets to enable people to vote for you, buying bar b Q to keep the fat fools happy, and by buying buses to ship people to Ames, Iowa (Ain't Aimes where they have a deadly strain of Anthrax, the release of which in 2001 G Bush forgot about, along with Osama). 

And so we start the campaign season with an event in which a candidate wins by buying the contest, pure and simple. 

And that's of course what jump-started Boy George Bush in 2000; he won the straw poll that year because he spent the bucks like a drunken sailor.  And what did we get in Georgey Boy Bush?  A man who claims to be a real tough guy but who went out for cheerleading in  Yale (And the liars in the press made Kerry and Gore the "girlie men"); a man who disregarded an August 2001 memo warning that Osama intended to strike targets in the US; a man who never did anything independent of his Daddy; a man who spent most of his time in the White House, prior to 9/11, on vacation; a man who is, to this day, spending two hours a day in the gym instead of attending to the nation's issues (He bench presses over two hundred pounds and is over fifty; he couldn't give a rat's ass about 20 year old boys who lost limbs in Iraq); a man who is the epitome of narcissism, ill gotten gains, unbridled egotism and is the personification of what may destroy America.

Oh, how I hate, hate, hate that selfish, worthless, empty man. 

Let me close with a segment of a short poem I wrote: 

"Their money is all stolen

Their work is all bogus

My hate is quite molten

My gun is in focus"

I am not planning to kill anyone.   I promise. I detest, decry and denounce all illegal activity.  That is just poetic hyperbole.  

by David Gottfried (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments) on Tuesday, Aug 14, 2007 at 12:31:09 AM

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