The Games at Ames

The results are in, and though the Ames Straw Poll yielded few surprises, I do think it is worth noting that Tim Pawlenty didn't just come in third but did so with less than half as many votes (which sounds worse because it is) as the predictable winner and total joke Michelle Bachmann and also that Mitt Romney didn't just come in sixth but did so with less than half as many votes as fifth-place winner and total joke Herman Cain AND ALSO with fewer votes than the number of write-in votes Rick Perry got without even participating in this nonsense (which sounds worse because it is).

I don't think enough Republicans are going to vote for an Obamacare-inspiring Taxachusetts Mormom to make him a better choice for the Establishment GOP than Pawlenty is, though this Ames debacle for Pawlenty (which Romney managed to circumvent through the usual GOP expedient of radical expectation lowballing) makes that choice all the more inevitable. And since I also don't think enough Republicans or anybody else for that matter are finally going to fall for the W-redux tux and lizard-skin boots swagger of secessionist-traitor Rick Perry to make him more than the GOP savior flavor of the week, it looks to me even more like a Romney lock. And all that, in turn, is not a bad set-up for the kind of Obama sweep with coattails to win back the House and limit the damage in the Senate -- which really is the best we can hope for given the circumstances at hand.