Iowa: Romney spends millions, beats a bunch of daffodils

Wow! The non-binding Iowa straw poll is over. National news! And what a pressure cooker that was, ladies and gentlemen! Mitt Romney, spending like hell to beat a bunch of competitors who had absolutely no chance of defeating him. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather the media covered a real “nail biter” like *that*, than some boring old story about America’s decaying infrastructure.

Romney Wins Iowa's GOP Poll

Victory Highlights Strategy Difference With Giuliani

By Dan Balz and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 12, 2007; Page A01

AMES, Iowa, Aug. 11 -- With a convincing victory in the Republican straw poll here Saturday, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney vaulted himself into the next phase of a presidential nomination battle pitting his traditional early-state strategy against a more unorthodox approach by national front-runner Rudolph W. Giuliani...

... Romney's victory came against a relatively weak field that did not include Giuliani, Sen. John McCain of Arizona or former senator Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee, and after he heavily outspent those who did compete. Still, the result, with Romney easily outpacing his rivals with 32 percent of the vote, helps elevate him from relative obscurity six months ago to the top tier of the GOP field -- despite his relatively low standing in national polls.

Gee: it’s the Iowa straw primary and Romney’s the *only* major GOP candidate to show up, he spends a jillion everywhere in the state, and all to beat a bunch of daisies and daffodil competitors with elfin-sounding names like “Brownback” and “Huckabee.”

And he does beat them! Corking good story, there, press corps! I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. That’s the stuff to give the troops; “Romney spends millions to cut down a field of daisy opponents who never stood a chance of winning the GOP nomination; McCain, Giuliani and Thompson don’t bother to show up.”

Are there any pictures of Romney beating the hell out of a daffodil? Boy, I’d like to see that. When I think of all the money the press spent to send correspondents out to Iowa to watch this contest between Romney and this dandelion opposition...Well, it’s not a complete waste of money; there’s always the “glam” factor that a visit to Iowa represents to these young reporters and news crews...it is, after all, Iowa; they’ll always be able to say they “were there, when it happened...when no serious contender except Romney showed up, and Romney armed only with tens of millions of dollars, took on a field of daffodils, dandelions and daisies with elfin names like Brownback and Huckabee and Bilbo and Samwise—and did Romney chop those little muthafuckahs down! You should have seen him, spending that money to beat that dandelion! He was merciless! He strapped that daisy to the roof of his car and took off, top speed!”

They’ll always have their memories. So it’s not a complete waste of the public attention span.