Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Yes, that headline is right. Mitt Romney lost the Ames Straw Poll Saturday in Iowa. True, he came in first with 31 percent of the vote, but he spent lavishly, and couldn't crack 50 percent in a race in which every other member of the top-tier of candidates declined to participate.

That's right - in a field devoid of any other well-funded competition, in a race whose winner tends to be the guy with the most money to buy tickets and bus in supporters from all corners of the Hawkeye state, Romney couldn't get a third of the vote - much less crack 50 percent. In a low-turnout straw poll.

The winner? Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Big time. With 18 percent of the vote. Despite spending pennies to Romney's dollars.

Mitt Romney is learning that you can buy a lot of things with barrels full of campaign cash - staff, airtime, etc. - but you can't buy love. Huckabee, meanwhile, is showing that you don't have to be well-funded to be well-liked.

The big loser of the Ames Straw Poll: Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, who came in third. He was supposed to be the second-tier's social conservative alternative to Romney, right? Oops. Pack it in, Sen. Brownback. It's over. Huckabee won that race.

The other winners of the day: Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Fred Thompson, whose lack of participation in the Ames Straw Poll devalued it as a springboard for  those who did. They all expected Romney would win the Ames Straw Poll - he was spending gazillions to buy victory, after all, so they figured by skipping it they would devalue his win.

And it worked even better than they planned. Romney's win would have meant little even if he'd won with 60 or 70 percent of the vote, but in "winning" with less than a third of the vote, Romney exposed just how brittle, paper-thin and weak his support really is.

His campaign rationale - that he's the conservative alternative to Giuliani and McCain who could win in November - is undercut by his failing to crack 50 percent against a field of underfunded, little-known rivals.

There's another big loser of the Ames straw poll. No, not Tommy Thompson, though he is ending his campaign after his dismal showing. No, not Tom Tancredo - though he also did poorly. Those were entirely expected results.

The biggest loser among the losers: Ron Paul, who reportedly has benefited from strong fund-raising thanks to his debate performances and online buzz. It's clear, though, that werever that buzz may be, it isn't among the mainstream Republicans of the heartland Midwest.

As for Huckabee, he's a player now. He's not in the top tier yet, but he's now the Bill Richardson of the Republican field, the guy everyone likes and respects and who everyone admits is quite qualified for the job but who, nonetheless, is floating somewhere between the also-rans and the top-tier.

Can Huckabee cross the gap? I dunno. The field ahead is crowded - and the impending official entry of Fred Thompson into the race, likely right after Labor Day - is likely to suck the air out of the attention and buzz Huckabee is going to enjoy post-Ames. Huckabee may simply not have enough time to maximize his Ames win.

But McCain is falling, Giuliana can't shake Fred, and Ames just may have exposed Romney as a paper tiger.

It's not inconceivable that, three months from now, when commentators talk about the top three GOP candidates, they'll be talking about Giuliani, Thompson and Huckabee.

I'm guessing that would suit Huckabee just fine. Of course, it also would suit Giuliani, who would see the social conservative vote split two ways. Still, the social conservatives outnumber the social liberals in the GOP, and I can't see Giuliani winning the nomination as long as Fred Thompson is in the race. Fred brings everything to the table that Rudy does, plus an ace in the hole - Fred's not for gay marriage and abortion, Rudy is.

In a three-way field with Giuliani, Thompson and either McCain, Romney or Huckabee, Thompson's your odds-on-favorite to win.

Who might he then pick as his vice presidential running mate? 

Conventional wisdom says you balance the ticket geographically or politically - and both if you can plausibly do it. 

But a certain recent President didn't. Remember who Bill Clinton picked? Al Gore. That's right - the ticket that won the 1992 and 1996 elections contained a governor and a senator from the neighboring states of Arkansas and Tennessee.

Could history repeat itself, with a role-reversal twist?

The winning ticket in 1992 was a governor from Arkansas and a senator from Tennessee. Might the winning ticket in 2008 be a senator from Tennessee and a governor from from Arkansas?

Thompson/Huckabee would have some serious political advantages, not the least of which is that both are immensely likable men.

Huckabee's 10-plus years in the Arkansas governor's mansion - by most accounts successful years - would give the Thompson ticket the executive experience that Thompson, a senator, lawyer and actor, lacks. And while Thompson's conservative, he's never been seen as an especially active conservative on social issues. Huckabee has. A Thompson/Huckabee ticket, then, would simultaneously encourage social conservatives while also not scaring away moderate voters attracted more by Fred's conservative stands on fiscal policy and national security.

Huckabee on the ticket would also add serious "outsider" credibility, while Fred's experience in Washington would provide the assurance that a Thompson/Huckabee administration would know how to get things done in D.C.

That's one of the things that Gore brought to the Clinton/Gore ticket - DC experience.