 You can "ExJon" all you want, Hillary, it's not going to change our opinion of you. Brace Yourselves. The Iowa Straw Poll Is Coming. Over on the home page, a look at what the August 8 Iowa straw poll could mean for Ted Cruz. The Iowa GOP wants the August 8 straw poll, moved from Ames to Boone, to be a useful measuring stick for the GOP presidential candidates competing hardest in Iowa caucuses in January -- candidates like neighboring governor Scott Walker, conservative Ted Cruz, past Iowa caucus winners Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, and perhaps Rick Perry, Ben Carson, and Marco Rubio. I'm already seeing in the comments that the poll doesn't matter. Yes, past straw poll winners include 2011's Michele Bachmann, who went on to spend $15 million and finish with 5 percent in the Iowa caucuses; 2007 winner Mitt Romney; 1995 co-winner Phil Gramm; 1987 winner Pat Robertson, and 1979 winner George H. W. Bush. None of those figures went on to win the nomination, nor even the Iowa caucus the following year. But if you figure Rand Paul gets something around the 27 percent his father did in 2011, that leaves 73 -- let's say, 70 to 80 percentage points to spread around Walker (the current polling frontrunner in Iowa), Cruz, Huckabee, Santorum, Perry, Carson and Rubio. Unless that 70 to 80 percent splits evenly among those seven, somebody's coming out of the straw poll with a single-digit finish. Yes, the straw poll is only a snapshot, and the folks who show up are the diehard activists. But if you're a Republican running for president, getting a bunch of diehard activists in Iowa excited is supposed to be an easy lay-up. Jeb Bush already decided he won't participate in the straw poll, and none of the other GOP contenders are willing to say quite yet they're definitely going to participate. The Republican party of Iowa, recognizing that some campaigns came to regard the straw poll as a waste of limited resources, enacted changes for this cycle to make participating less expensive. The party now provides free tent space and utilities for the campaigns at the Boone venue, assigned at random. In past cycles, candidates bid between $10,000 and $35,000 for the best spots at the event, close to the balloting locations. Some campaigns have already quietly told the Iowa GOP they're interested in participating, according to Charlie Szold, communications director for the Republican party of Iowa. "We are pretty much where we expect to be on our schedule, maybe even a little ahead of schedule," says Szold. "The usual marker of the kickoff of the straw poll was the auction for space, and that was usually held in mid to late June. This year we're holding the lottery for space, and we'll be holding it in early June. You'll know, if not with 100 percent certainty, then with 90 percent certainty, who's participating in the straw poll then." Szold said there was no concern about the candidates' public refusal to commit to the straw poll so far. "Everybody's eyeing each other across the dance floor. Pretty soon, somebody's going to jump in." Allegedly, skipping the straw poll will harm a candidate; local GOP activists urged Bush to reconsider his decision as he attended the Iowa Republican party's Lincoln Day Dinner Saturday night. But Bush told reporters in Iowa that he just didn't see it as worthwhile: "I just don't do straw polls. It has nothing to do with the caucuses that will ultimately determine how people are going to be successful." Even with the free tent space, Iowa Republicans expect campaigns to spend small fortunes on the event. Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty dropped nearly $27,000 on Famous Dave's barbecue to feed the straw-poll crowd. Bachmann spent more than $40,000 renting buses to transport supporters to the poll -- and another $7,000 on golf carts to shuttle folks around the grounds. Pawlenty is the cautionary tale. Entering the straw poll in 2011, he had spent more time in the state than anyone except Santorum. He ran television ads in Iowa until he could no longer afford the expense. Everyone recognized the straw poll was make-or-break for his sputtering campaign. Only 16,892 Iowans participated in the straw poll, and Pawlenty was the choice of 2,293 attendees, or 13.6 percent, a disappointing, distant third place behind Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul. The following morning, Pawlenty appeared on ABC's This Week. "It's been a great honor for Mary and me and our team to convey the message of trying to get this country back on track . . . Obviously, that message didn't get the kind of traction or lift that we needed and hoped for coming into the and out of the Ames straw poll. We needed to get some lift to continue on and to have a pathway forward. That didn't happen." Finally, a Todd Akin Comparison That Doesn't Seem Like a Stretch The vastly underrated Josh Kraushaar of National Journal writes a column called "Against the Grain," and he earns the title by regularly telling the inside-the-Beltway media -- what Mark Halperin used to call "the Gang of 500" -- things that its center-left-to-hard-left mentality doesn't want to hear. Today's key point: Rep. Alan Grayson is the Todd Akin of the Democrats -- except that he's louder, more outrageous, and has millions of his own fortune to spend however he sees fit. And Democrats are nervously expecting the former trial lawyer to enter the pivotal Senate race, challenge the candidate party leaders view as more electable, and raise holy hell in the process. For Democrats, what makes his candidacy more threatening than amusing is the sheer number of ways his candidacy could directly cost them control of the Senate. Winning Florida is crucial to Democrats' hopes of taking back the majority; without it, the path to winning at least the four seats necessary becomes much more difficult. (Democrats need to net at least four seats to win back control of the Senate, and Hotline ranks Florida the fourth-most likely GOP-held seat to flip.) He's consistently shown that he's willing to attack both Democratic and Republican opponents in the most confrontational ways possible, a dynamic that could wound Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy even if he comfortably wins the nomination. As worrisome, his presence would percolate beyond Florida's borders, giving Republicans soundbite material to use against other Senate candidates—along the lines of what the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee brilliantly did against Akin in 2012. How Dare What's-Her-Name Accuse Me of Becoming Forgetful! "Battle of the generations" is always an easy way to generate some controversy. But a recent segment on Neil Cavuto on the perennial topic took an odd, ugly, and strangely personal turn: Charlie Gasparino went on a bizarre rant against our own Kat Timpf the other day, calling her names and musing about how she can't wear his "jock strap" as a reporter. The segment was part of what was supposed to be a good-natured exchange, hosted by Neil Cavuto, between and about different generations. This much was made clear: If Gasparino is any indication, the Boomers obviously don't have any idea what it means to be a gentleman. Ready for something awkward? Watch the segment and see how long it takes before anyone mentions Kat Timpf's name while discussing her. I'd bet a doughnut that no one on set could remember her name, thus she's referred to as "attractive," "the one in the middle," "the one with glasses," and so on. ADDENDA: Speaking of generations, one of my favorite colleagues, Kathryn Lopez, interviewed me on what I learned in eleven years of blogging. As I read it, I realize I mentioned a bunch of column ideas I've been meaning to develop: You might say the presidency of Barack Obama is a natural end result of a cultural shift that really picked up steam when you and I were teenagers. The 1992 election was the first presidential election to feature MTV's "Rock the Vote," which featured Madonna and other celebrities urging young people to vote. It was a turning point in trying to make politicians and presidential candidates "cool." It was cool celebrities telling young people that voting was cool. And we knew which candidate that year was going to be the cool one: Bill Clinton on The Arsenio Hall Show, wearing shades and playing the saxophone, and so on. But politics, governing, lawmaking — these things were never supposed to be cool. By 2008, you saw discussion of Obama as a "brand." I'd be happier with a world where the "cool" people went off and did their "cool" stuff, and left politics and governing to the rest of us who actually know about it and care about it. And: A lot of [economic uncertainty] is the consequence of globalization. Somewhere along the line, the American economy became this grand opportunity for the smart, the driven, the talented, and the exceptional — and a lot tougher for anyone who didn't have those traits, but who are good, decent, hard-working people who deserve to make a good living. We never had a national referendum on that, and we never had a national debate on that; this wrenching economic change just happened. I also think that a lot of schools do a terrible job of preparing young people for this economic reality. | 
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