I hate to be nasty, but anybody who takes the Ames Straw Poll results seriously is an idiot.
Hugh Hewitt:
Mitt Romney laid out a plan for winning the GOP nomination months ago, and it included, raising the most money, winning some or all of the debates, and winning the Ames straw poll as the key steps to setting up strong showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, which would at a minimum keep him in the race through the big February 2 showdown, and which might allow him to land a knock-out blow in South Carolina or Florida.
The plan is rolling out, just like previous Romney plans to turn-around scores of companies, stage a successful Olympics, win the Massachusetts governorship, or reform the health insurance system of the Bay State. Over and over again in Romney's professional life you see the goal identified, then the analysis followed by the plan followed by implementation in a disciplined and ultimately successful fashion. When I wrote the book and focused on his career for a year, this pattern is ghard to miss: Get a good plan. Stick with it. One day at a time, one milestone after another.
Yesterday's Ames vote falls exactly into this pattern as a crucial milestone reached, as the Washington Post's Dan Baltz and Michael Shear note at the start of their story...
[snip]
The Ames win is another big bit of data in the massive collective analysis underway. Hats off to Governor Huckabee, but he isn't going to be the GOP nominee. Thus of the three who might be (four if you count Newt), the one who took away some big pluses from yesterday is Romney. That's what registers. That's what matters to the GOP base that is watching it all and asking itself: Who can beat Hillary. You can't beat Hillary by losing contests.
And that was part of the plan.
No comments:
Post a Comment