Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

The odds that Mitt Romney will win the big straw poll in Ames, Iowa, next month just greatly increased - but the value of that probable win just decreased big time, thanks to John McCain's announcement, on the heels of Rudy Giuliani's similar announcement, that he will skip the Ames Straw Poll.

The danger for Romney just increased, too, as he is now the only "major" candidate still participating in the Ames event, a fund-raiser for the Iowa Republican Party attended by tens of thousands of Iowans. It takes money and organization to compete in the Ames Straw Poll, and as the only major GOP candidate still planning to compete in Ames, Romney has to win it. And not just win, but win big. Large. HUGE.

He can't win weakly over the underfunded seven "second tier" candidates in the GOP field. That would be a disaster for the Romney campaign. Conversely, the seven other candidates - Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, Jim Gilmore, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo and Tommy Thompson - just got a little more incentive to work harder to win the Ames poll.

And then there's the Fred Thompson factor. He's indicated he's skipping Ames as well, could the growing grassroots support for Fred translate into a surprisingly strong showing in the Ames straw poll even if he and his campaign aren't actively competing?

But A.C. Kleinheider comments on the significance of the Ames straw poll, a political event like no other in America. 

What does a candidate’s placing in the poll really prove? Well, it proves you can organize and motivate activists. If you cannot motivate voters to show up at straw polls, how are you going to get voters to the polls later on. Now, surely the poll can be gamed and it has. But the effort taken to game it proves something in and of itself.

Ames is a political competition like any other. You have to meet, exceed or manage expectations. You have to show the power of your organization. If you place well and exceed expectations, money people and activists will take note. It is about perception amongst insiders, nothing more. This exercise isn’t about voters it is about capturing an atuned elite.

And yet, most of the major candidates are skipping it. Why? Fred Thompson is skipping it because he's entering the race too late to build the organization to win it. Giuliani is skipping it in order to render it less important, because his liberal social views makes it unlikely he can win it. John McCain is skipping it because he expects Romney is going to win it and wants to devalue Romney's win.

They have put Romney in an awful spot - their exit from Ames only sets the expectations bar for Romney even higher. Ames is no longer Phil Mickelson versus Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh, now it's Phil Mickelson versus seven golfers struggling to get their PGA tour card.

Ironically, by declining to participate in the Ames straw poll, Thompson, McCain and Giuliani have helped make the poll less a test of money and organizational strength and more a pure popularity poll as all of the GOP candidates' names are going to be on the Ames straw poll ballot anyway. 

Romney would do himself - and the political process - a world of good by announcing that he, too, won't be spending time or resources to win the Ames straw poll.