Ames to ... please?

Out of 16,892 straws drawn, Michele Bachmann won 4,823 (28.6%) to Ron Paul's 4,671 (27.7%). Tim Pawlenty, who had focused on a strong showing in the straw poll to rescue his struggling campaign, finished a distant third with 2,293 (13.6%) in a bruising setback. Bumping along behind the horses in the money, garnering in the high single digits percentage-wise, were Rick Santorum and Herman Cain.

Mitt Romney, who won this beauty contest four years ago, declined to defend his title and came in seventh with 3.3%. He trailed even a non-attending write-in candidate.

Yes. The front-runner for the national campaign lost to ...

Governor Prophet earned 718 write-ins and 4%, yet chose to make his long-anticipated entry to the GOP presidential primary from over a thousand miles away from Iowa -- in the cradle of American secession -- but at virtually the same moment the candidates in Ames began speaking.

Romney's brand of Republican moderation will play a little better in New Hampshire, but this is essentially a three-man, one-woman contest already.

Despite what The Grifter from Wasilla may interpret from the concurrent 'corn kernel' poll.

Separately, attendees voted in a corn kernel poll, which measures the support of each Republican by the number of kernels in their respective Mason jar. By late morning, the kernel level in Sarah Palin’s jar rose just above the best-known GOP candidates — even though the former Alaska governor has not declared her intentions yet for 2012.

"There is still plenty of room in that field for common-sense conservatives who have executive experience," Palin said during a fair visit. "Watching the debate not just last night but watching this whole process over the last year it certainly shows me that yeah, there is plenty of room for more people."

Yeah. Yeah!

Update: Ted with more. Oh, and Pawlenty gives up his seat in the clown car.

So long, T-Paw. We hardly knew ye.

Update II: Is Rick Perry man enough to gobble a corn dog, thereby rescuing Michele Bachmann from the vicious sexism leveled at her by the global online community?

Update III: Praise God.

Do the King Street Patriots intend to turn away veterans at the polls?

Open Source Dem recently made a presentation to Harris County Democrats about the challenges facing them with regard to the new election law requirements surrounding voter registration, voter ID, and the like. Here's a synopsis.

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There is one piece of news and three main messages to bring back from the Secretary of State’s 29th Annual Election Law Seminar in Austin.

The SoS reiterated for voter registrars and election officials that the voter ID requirement, which can be met with a vaguely-defined “military identity card”, does not include the photo ID issued to military veterans by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The VA card is not issued by the US Department of Defense. The Veterans Administration -- now the Department of Veterans’ Affairs -- headed by General Shinseki is now a cabinet-level office, second in number of employees only to the DoD itself.

The VA card is a high-value and high-quality photo ID document linked to medical and military records. It is not a voting credential in its own right, since like any other military identification document, it may be issued to a non-citizen. Still, as a practical matter it is probably a better authentication document than a DPS-issued card. Of course buried in all of this voter ID business is nothing more or less than a constant demand that people who do not look like Republican voters produce arcane documents to prove again and again that they are not just eligible and registered to vote but that they are “qualified” to vote in in the eyes of hostile clerks who suspect, but cannot prove, they are not convicts or wards.

The VA card is reasonably “a United States military identification card that contains the person’s photograph that has not expired or that expired no earlier than 60 days before the date of presentation”, to quote the statute. As with other military identification cards, it does not expire except at death, but can be revoked. That is how much real understanding of authentication matters the legislature or the Governor’s office truly have: none. Revocation, expiration, what’s the difference? A lot!

But what the GOP, the Tea Party, and the King Street Patriots do understand is voter suppression.

Indeed, the VA card is the second most common form of photo ID after the Texas driver’s license (which does expire). The GOP is limiting access to the polls any and every way they can with no pushback from the Democratic echelons or branches of government. Is there a suffrage lobby or movement today? Evidently not.

So what do Texas Democrats really care about? A VA hospital in the Rio Grande valley? Or a statewide voter registration program for homeless veterans? Perhaps a full measure of dignity and recognition for all veterans presenting themselves to vote? Here’s a clue: Democrats will never benefit from the first two unless they can provide the third of these.

The VA is recognized in Texas election law as one of the two federal authorities for exempting a person from the photo ID requirement altogether, although it is inconceivable that an exempt veteran would not have a VA card. Catch 22. How much more military than that can you get?

What is not news is that the voter ID requirement has nothing to do with authenticating voters and all the world to do with levying costly economic and often impassable physical barriers to suffrage: a poll tax, in so much legal verbosity.

It is not clear what if any response the Democratic Party or the Obama administration will have to any of this. So far they have contributed to the legal verbosity and, of course, capitulated to the Secretary of State.

Update:

State Senator Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio) and Charlie Jones of Texas Democratic Veterans will host a press conference to discuss the Texas Secretary of State’s interpretation of the GOP-backed voter ID bill (SB 14) to bar the VA benefit card as an acceptable form of military ID. The press conference will take place Friday, August 12, 2011, at VFW Post #76, 10 Tenth Street, San Antonio TX.

Republicans square off in Iowa debate tonight

Here's the advance from Chris Cillizza. Jon Huntsman will be the new face in the first GOP face-off since June. No Rick Perry in Ames -- despite his attempt to upstage the event -- and no Palin.

The star of the show is likely to be Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who's been riding a wave of momentum since her strong performance in the June debate in New Hampshire. Polling shows Bachmann running strong in Iowa and she is the favorite to win Saturday's Ames Straw Poll.

Bachmann's rise over the past two months ensures she will be on the receiving end of barbs from her rivals as they seek to slow her progress. How she handles the slings and arrows will be a major storyline to watch.

The other person to keep an eye on is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Romney enters the debate as the frontrunner for the nomination. But he won't be competing in the straw poll over the weekend and is de-emphasizing the Iowa caucuses in his plans to win the nomination. Expect the other people on stage to mock Romney's on-again, off-again plans in the state.

The Iowa caucuses are still months away, but debates are rare moments when voters pay attention long enough to compare and contrast. Any winner in this one gets media and money.

Romney's "Corporations are people, too" gaffe is liable to hurt him. If not among the other oligarchs on the stage, then with conservatives and independents who aren't so inclined to feel empathy for the INCs and the LLCs and the PCs and so on. Surely there are some of those somewhere ...

The debate will be showing everywhere you care (or don't) to watch on your teevee -- or online -- this evening.

Update: More from The Ticket ...

Tomorrow, Sarah Palin, who is flirting with her own White House bid, will revive her bus tour in Iowa, visiting the state fair in Des Moines, and threatening to upstage other GOP hopefuls in the state. On Saturday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry will officially declare his intentions to run for president in South Carolina--a speech that happens to be scheduled on the same day as the Ames straw poll.


A week from now, we will likely know more about the make-up of the so-far volatile GOP field. Can Rommey hold on to his position as frontrunner? Is Perry the savior many GOP voters are looking for? Can Pawlenty gain enough momentum to save his lackluster campaign? Will Ron Paul be taken seriously? And can Huntsman and Newt Gingrich—two candidates whose campaigns have fallen short of expectations—survive? Is Palin even running?

Here's a quick look at what's at stake for some of the leading GOP contenders ...

One of the reasons I objected to The Response

Because I also know first-hand how filled with love many Christians are.

The Fox News Facebook page got over 8,000 death threats posted on its wall after the communications director for the group American Atheists, Blair Scott, appeared on the network’s “America Live” discussing the group’s lawsuit hoping to stop the erection of a crucifix at the World Trade Center Memorial.

The admins of Fox’s Facebook page worked furiously to delete the hateful posts, but not before the atheist blogger behind One Man’s Blog managed to capture screenshots, some of which we’ve reproduced below.

Organizers of the 9/11 museum feel that the cross, which is a symbol of hope for many, should have a place at the memorial. And then there are those other folks who passionately disagree with Scott’s group and who are behaving in a manner that is contrary to their religion fundamentals.

Christians are up in arms about Blair’s television appearance and have waged an all-out war against his possibly blocking the memorial’s plans. Reportedly, by the time Blair returned to his office, his voicemail was full to capacity with threat messages from Christians who were seething with hatred.