^Bachmann 11,

I thought I forgot someone.

in before Bachmann calls her one percent pickup a ZOMG GINORMOUS SURGE THE PEOPLE ARE COMING BACK.

"You know Anderson, a PPP survey just out puts me in first place in Iowa in the conservative primary. I'm ahead of the other conservatives, Perry and Santorum, so their supporters should probably get behind me and ride me into the White House where we are going to make Barack Obama a one term President! #winwinwin"

I thought Buddy stole her support buttnah. So much for straw polls.

Gingrich's notes to self.

Reince Priebus - THE FIX IS IN



Reince Priebus Eliminates 4 of Top 6..
Republican Candidates From Republican Primary

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011...lican-primary/

Do you ever have any idea what you're talking about? Ever?

Stylistic change for RMP?

If you're going to vote in the Florida Primary, please vote in this online poll for Sarasota GOP.

LOL "We MUST defeat Obama! Once the Presidential Primary is over, I am willing to volunteer for whomever our Republican Nominee is."

But nahhhhhhhhhhh.

Wow, CNN's poll for Iowa is completely different from PPP's. If Paul or Romney fall to third in Iowa to a 2nd place Santorum, they'll be in serious trouble.

Santorum?! Wtf is going on

They only polled registered Republicans in Iowa. Romney led Paul by 2 points in the latest PPP poll as well, so not much of a difference. Santorum got 9% of Independents in that poll, more than I was expecting honestly, but it's still hard to see anyone knocking Romney or Paul off at this point.

The final CNN polls in 2008 showed Romney +3 and Clinton +2 so there's room for a little skepticism. The final Des Moines Register poll is now in the field and will be out Saturday night.

There weren't enough Homophobics in the lead in Iowa. They had to go for one more.

@ppppolls: If we only polled registered Republicans in Iowa like CNN we'd have Romney ahead of Paul too...not how the rules work though

lol is that a tweet?

i love that the polling orgs are taking it so personal. ppp just called CNN noobs.

I don't doubt these guys have significant personal pride at stake, but it's probably more professional than personal though. It's a business and polling is their product. PPP is selling a methodology and professional expertise in public opinion research to clients, they have competitors offering a similar product, they need to differentiate from Opinion Research Corporation (who does CNN's polling) in the same way Miller Lite is More Taste and Less Filling than a Bud or whatever.

CNN's Iowa poll is honestly garbage, though. Only asking registered Republicans is, in fact, really dumb, given the way Iowa let's people register day of.

uh... what?

Since there are two people confused and/or irritated at ikes and ikes won't respond with more than a sentence that will likely just confuse or irritate further, allow me to explain.

Let me preface by saying that I don't know if ikes is correct an "anti Paul sentiment could easily pop out" and I don't think we know nearly enough about caucusing (from a social science perspective) to say definitively either way, but I think what he's getting at is this:

In Iowa, the caucus is held at a school, or a church, or at someone's house, whatever. The process allows for a certain amount of time of electioneering (people get together, chat, give speeches, give each other hand jobs, etc. etc.), then the participants vote. I think the GOP side has less chit chat, more organized speeches, is less 'participatory', and they get straight to voting sooner than the Democrats do -- so it's less likely what I'm about to write would happen at an Iowa GOP caucus gathering than a Democratic one.

But the point remains. Imagine you had 10 people in a room together for a caucus. 3 are diehard RP supporters, 1 is for Bachmann, 2 are for Romney, 2 are for Gingrich, 1 is for Santorum, and 1 is for Perry.

If we assume the Bachmann/Romney/Gingrich/Santorum/Perry supporters' last choice in their hierarchy is Paul, their 2nd choice is "anyone other than their horse but not Ron Paul," and they realize Paul has the plurality of votes in the room but not the majority, one or more of them can jump up and give a speech and exhort the rest of the cabal to coalesce their support around one of the non-Paul candidates to ensure their delegates don't go to Paul.

How likely that is, who knows. It's a very common occurrence at Democratic caucuses in Iowa, but the structure is slightly different as there's less direct interaction between the participants and more importantly, I don't think we know nearly enough about the 2nd and 3rd order preferences of Iowa GOPers to say how likely it is Paul would be either the victim or beneficiary of these effects. That's what ikes is getting at though.

I candidly don't even know how the delegates get awarded coming out of the GOP caucuses so again, how much this is even an issue depends on that too, and that's probably not a trivial variable.

I read somewhere that the Republican Caucus is more like a straw poll where as in the Democratic caucus you have to make speeches, declare your preferences, etc, etc,

Have no idea how this will affect the vote.

Apparently the Iowa precincts just report a vote tally, so it's probably pretty unlikely any of that stuff above would happen. I'm sure there's a RP volunteer posting here who is well-versed in the Iowa rules on the GOP side that can explain how vote tallies at precincts translate to delegates awarded and then from there you can work backwards as to how much electioneering at caucuses would matter.

Seems very unlikely to me...it's not like winning Iowa is winning the nomination. And Gingrich/Perry supporters would probably much rather have Paul win Iowa than Romney for strategic reasons.

13th/other nerds/phill after he looks it up to look smart,

anymore polls coming up soon?

max are you excited about our bet?

i like how the $500 is basically meaningless to max but it's a week's salary to me so he doesn't care at all about the bet.