Doug Wead
Get ready. The national news media is going to have an apoplectic, emotional fit when Ron Paul does better than expected in the January 3, 2012 Iowa Caucus. The first event of the GOP contest is now only 15 days and counting. In today’s Public Policy Poll, Ron Paul has taken the lead.
Public Policy Polling
Iowa Voters
Ron Paul 23%
Mitt Romney 20%
Newt Gingrich 14%
Rick Santorum 10%
Michelle Bachman 10%
Rick Perry 10%
Jon Huntsman 4%
Gary Johnson 2%
For the moment, the media is still in full blown denial. While some lesser influential pundits are hedging their bets, saying that “Ron Paul could win this thing,” most of the big shots, taking their orders from television executives, are still pretending that he doesn’t exist.
A headline on CNN’s coverage this morning declared “Gingrich and Romney make final push.” Not only does the media ignore Ron Paul when he is in third or second, they ignore him when he is in first! Presumably, they will ignore him when he wins.
Today’s CNN segment focused on the liberal-leaning Des Moines Register’s endorsement of Mitt Romney. The Register, which seems to suffer from an Iowa inferiority complex, was impressed with the fact that Romney had graduated from an Ivy League school, finishing “in the top 5 percent in his MBA class at Harvard.” The paper was impressed that Romney had “helped create healthcare reform in Massachusetts that is strikingly similar to the much-derided ‘Obamacare’”
Romney, who boycotted the Ames, Iowa Straw Poll, a critical fundraising device for the local GOP, has made only a handful of visits to the State. His media surrogates and friends have already circulated stories that if Iowa votes for Ron Paul their whole Caucus will be discredited. While other candidates have worked the State for the last year, Romney opened his State office last week. This morning the office was practically empty.
Wolf Blitzer asked his guest from the Des Moines Register whether it helps or hurts a candidate to get their endorsement. The guest wouldn’t answer the question, dodging it several times in a style worthy of Romney himself. When Wolf persisted, wanting an answer, she still wouldn’t say but finally concluded that it couldn’t hurt and could add to a candidate’s momentum because it would get people talking. The Public Policy Poll showing Ron Paul in first place was ignored in the discussion.
Meanwhile, Tim Hagle, a University of Iowa professor of political science thinks that the Register’s endorsement could give Romney a boost. Hagle is quoted as saying, “You want to know what these editorial folks and reporters on the ground think about who is the best leader or the strongest person or who is the most consistent. There’s a certain weight to it.” Calling Mitt Romney “consistent” demands some mighty dexterous intellectual contortions.
Since CNN couldn’t get to the bottom of what an endorsement from the Des Moines Register really means, I will offer you the history in this post.
Des Moines Register Endorsements and the Iowa Caucus
1988 D Senator Paul Simon (lost)
1988 R Senator Robert Dole (won)
1996 R Senator Robert Dole (won)
2000 D Senator Bill Bradley (lost)
2000 R Governor George W. Bush (won)
2004 D Senator John Edwards (lost)
2008 D Senator Hillary Clinton (lost)
2008 R Senator John McCain (lost)
But the big news for Ron Paul was not today’s Public Policy Poll, it was his December 16, 2011 Moneybomb. It has now officially topped $4 million. That’s chicken feed compared to the $16 trillion in newly created money that the Federal Reserve can roll out in one year to its banks and insider corporations but then this money is from real people, who have lost their jobs, the value of their homes and the value of their IRA’s.
What they have not lost and what the elitists still can’t get their hands on is their vote and it will take more than the Des Moines Register to wrest it away from them.
Doug Wead is a presidential historian and NYT bestselling author. He has been an adviser to two Presidents and served in the White House as special assistant to the president under G.H.W. Bush. He is now a senior adviser for the Ron Paul presidential campaign. Follow @DougWead1234.
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