The Man Behind The Straw Poll

Political Players is a weekly conversation with the leaders, consultants, and activists who are shaping American politics. This week, CBS News' David Miller talks with Chuck Laudner, executive director of the Iowa Republican Party, the chief organizer of Saturday's crucial Ames Straw Poll.

CBSNews.com: One of the most talked-about aspects of this year's straw poll is the absence of John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. After this poll, can they compete seriously without being in it, especially given the correlation between winning the straw poll and winning the caucus?

Chuck Laudner: I would say, in two instances, Giuliani and McCain, I would say no. It's going to be extremely difficult for them to work out of the deficit they put themselves in. Fred Thompson is kind of an anomaly since he's not really in and hasn't organized yet, but he still runs the same risk. The thing is that you get tens of thousands of votes at the straw poll. The thing they have to remember is on caucus night, you're looking at somewhere around 100,000 votes. So the winner of this straw poll will end up with more total votes than someone who finishes third, fourth, fifth in the caucus in January. It's that much a part of it. It's so big and if you don't organize this event, then who do you go to organize for caucus, because these are the core, these are the people that are going to in turn, turn out five, 10, 20 of their people. So, they're trying to live to fight another day because Giuliani and McCain, who are going to do well in it, live to fight another day but they just created themselves another problem.

CBSNews.com: By skipping the straw poll, is the problem that they haven't invested in organization or is it possibly a factor that a lot of Iowa Republicans might be personally offended?

Chuck Laudner: The organization is there. McCain had an extraordinary ground game, extraordinary. It was all-star team. But he was strong in Iowa on June 5th. On June 6th, when he said, "I'm not playing at the straw poll," that was the sign of weakness that toppled the whole operation and now there's nothing left in Iowa of the McCain campaign and he's had nothing but bad news ever since. But he could have weathered it had he stayed in the straw poll. He had potential.

Giuliani had not much of a ground game in Iowa. But potential, certainly. That was the disappointment for the Republican Party of Iowa, was that he was not going to bring in to our party folks that maybe we wouldn't be able to lasso otherwise. If we want to build the party, Giuliani was going to be a pretty big part of that because he was going to appeal to so many just because his fame and his leadership and his persona — a national figure coming in who's going to attract people that aren't going to show up at a Republican Party event, no matter how many times you send them an invitation. So that was the disappointment for us. But again, those people aren't caucus goers, so we lose the opportunity to get those folks in. It is what it is. And then the Fred Thompson thing, jumping in late; you know, [Steve] Forbes tried to fill a perceived void in 1995 and made a pretty strong run but he turned around four years later, realizing that you had to put a ground game on to match your message. He had great effort and great success in Iowa.

CBSNews.com: How exactly does the campaign for this poll specifically work? Is it like campaigning for any other election or does it have its own style to it?

Chuck Laudner: It has its own style. You know, a lot of people make out of it that the campaigns buy a $35 ticket and paid you and put some entertainment on the stage. Well, you can throw me a free ticket to a lot of concerts that I ain't gonna go to. So, you're dealing with the specific type of Iowan — the political junkie, the Republican activist. These are the people that organize our party and build it.

I mentioned Steve Forbes before, he's a great example. If he got 30,000 votes on caucus night or thirty percent, he probably met every one of them, and he met a lot more who didn't vote for him because they liked someone else's message better. That's the key. I guarantee you that you could not find a single Iowa caucusgoer that voted for Steve Forbes that hadn't met him at some point. That's the difference. If you run nothing but TV, bomb them with mail, telephones — that's an insult to the Iowa caucusgoer. It's like, "No, I want to look you in the eye and I want to ask you the questions." That's what we do. You can't go over the field if you don't get a sense for the man who's running for office. There's a big difference between running a primary and a caucus. Running a primary [here] will just get you beat. A lot of people try to come in and reinvent the wheel and they find out the secret to success in Iowa is just making the wheel a little bigger. [President] Bush knew that in 1999 and 2000.

CBSNews.com: This year, when Giuliani and McCain bowed out, pundits said it was big blow to the straw poll. At this point, could you gauge interest in the straw poll and compare it to how it was in before the 1999 straw poll?

Chuck Laudner: Yeah, '99 surpassed expectations. Nobody knew that problem was coming and they weren't prepared for it. We planned for it, and the joke is they planned for an Iowa-Iowa State basketball game and got an Iowa-Iowa State football game. So we planned for the football game to the point that we've got their parking attendance handled, and security, and we added credentialing locations, and we handled the crowds. [Giuliani and McCain dropping out] hurt our crowd. They thought they could kill the straw poll but I think it in turn killed their campaigns in Iowa. It's not a stand-alone event. It's now a 1-2 punch — straw poll and caucus are on equal footing. It's chapter one and chapter two.

CBSNews.com: So would you say the interest this year is comparable to what you saw in 1999?

Chuck Laudner: It's actually a little greater. In one respect it's lower because you've got so many undecideds because the field's so wide open and, in some respects, isn't set yet. But the interest is there because this is the opportunity to build our party back up. Republicans have had this date circled on their calendar a long time ago. They were planning on going to this event whether they have a candidate or not. So, the excitement's been there and now you've got all the outside groups coming in that were never a part of it before, from Fair Tax to the NRA. Newt Gingrich is going to be there. Newt Gingrich and his America Solutions are having events scheduled all day long, and he's going to be there. He understands it. It's the largest gathering of Republicans not just in Iowa but anywhere.

CBSNews.com: He's not on the ballot, though, right?

Chuck Laudner: No, he's not on the ballot, not exactly. I don't think he's running, which is what it's all boiling down to. But with Fred [Thompson], when we sent the ballots out, it was like, "I think he's running for president." That's a wild card on Saturday, how well Fred Thompson does without having spent a day in Iowa and, you know, Ron Paul is a wild card. The big thing to watch is who emerges out of that perceived second-tier: Brownback, Huckabee, Tancredo, and Tommy Thompson. It's the end of the trail, unfortunately, for one or two of those folks and then some of those who finish down beyond. But that's what they straw poll does, you know.

CBSNews.com: So, at this point are you still expecting a Mitt Romney win here?

Chuck Laudner: I expect it. It's just not going to be as big of a win as many have put on. The expectations are so high; I don't know how anyone can meet them. Bush didn't meet his expectations in '99 either and that was an absolutely stunning turnout. The amount of effort, energy and manpower that all of these campaigns are investing in Iowa, to pull out a win in Iowa itself, is a victory. If I was Romney, I'd be satisfied with winning by one vote because it's been that tough because it's so wide open.

CBSNews.com: If you look at the candidates that are in the race, in terms of money and organization, Mitt Romney has a lot of money, a lot of organization. All of the other candidates are much further down in the money list. If one of them were to cause an upset, given the small resources they have right now, would it really alter the race that much?

Chuck Laudner: I think so, I do. And that's the one thing — they may not have the money but they have the time, and they've invested in Iowa with their time. They've been to every one of the 99 counties, they've given all the speeches, they've met all the people, and they're on par with each other on that end. Now, if they can turn that interest into turnout. Yes, if someone struck a stunning upset or even came in close second, then there's your candidate that's no longer second tier. They're right in there with the first tier.

CBSNews.com: And then the money would follow them, basically?

Chuck Laudner: I believe it, yeah. You know Elizabeth Dole finished a distant third [in 1999], proving that she couldn't keep up with Forbes and Bush and she was out by the end of the month. It galvanized the two man race between Forbes and Bush and the one before that galvanized was the Phil Gramm-Bob Dole race and no one else could really get in. Now, it's a different dynamic. There's no clear front-runner. It's going to be Romney and somebody. And then you have to wait and see what Fred does and then Giuliani, and then my firm belief is that there's nothing left in McCain, Inc.

CBSNews.com: I was researching the history of the straw poll earlier today and I saw that there were some reforms made before 1999 to prevent some shady practices that were going on. These days, how do candidates try to game the system in a way to get more votes?

Chuck Laudner: The easiest thing for them to try to do is to get all of their out-of-state folks in. If it was people from Massachusetts coming for Mitt Romney or Arkansas for Huckabee, Kansas for Brownback. Wherever their cores of support, we're bringing those people in and putting them in line to vote. Well, you need to have a picture ID, an Iowa driver's license or official Iowa photo ID to vote. So we put that in. We also scan the ticket and we ink the thumb of the voter so that the license can't vote again, the ticket can't vote again, and the person can't vote again. Then we swipe the card and so it goes right in the computer, and so you can't go to any of the 59 other credentialing stations and try to vote a second time. We've got 42 county auditors plus our state auditor in charge of overseeing our credentialing and in charge of all the voting machines. It's a lock down. We've been trying to beat this system for six months and thinking of every way and you just can't get through it.

CBSNews.com: So at this point it's purely an Iowa contest.

Chuck Laudner: Yep. Now you don't have to be a registered Republican. You can be any Iowan of legal age.

CBSNews.com: On the lighter side, I saw Mike Huckabee on TV earlier. He was talking about bringing in watermelons for the straw poll. Could you tell us a little bit about the spectacle for those of us who aren't going to be there?

Chuck Laudner: It's like going to a state fair. It's tent city. You can see any number of bands, all different kinds of music. They bring in star athletes, they bring in their famous surrogates, if they've got one that's Hollywood, or a political star. There's dunk tanks and Elvis impersonators. It's just like going to the fair. You will not starve. You will be entertained and you will sweat because it's supposed to be 92 degrees and humid. Oh, and the other thing is the Fair Tax people. They've got a big old air balloon and a huge tent as big as a lot of the operations of the campaigns themselves. They've got these cool zones, misting tents, they put up. If you're a Republican activist, it's nirvana. It's going to be great.

CBSNews.com: It sounds almost like an outdoor convention.

Chuck Laudner: It is, and all of these other groups have rallies going on and forums. You won't see it all, that's the unfortunate part, because we try to pack this whole thing into one day. I'm going to miss 90 percent of it, I suppose. So everyone will gather afterwards and tell all of their straw poll stories.

CBSNews.com: So, in some ways, this seems like an energizing tool for all Iowa Republicans.

Chuck Laudner: Oh, that's right, and if ever the Republican party needed it, it's right now. We need to put everything in 2006 behind us and say this is who we are and where we're going. There are many who want to say that the Republican Party's beat down, but we certainly don't feel that way. We're excited about the number of people that are going to come. I'd like to see the Democrats pull of 40,000 people in one spot at one time. We can do it.

CBSNews.com: Of the second-tier people that you've seen, has anyone particularly impressed you or surprised you so far with their organization?

Chuck Laudner: I'd have to say Tom Tancredo. He got his foot in the door on the immigration issue which is a strong issue here. So that got his foot in the door and his operation has grown from .01 percent. He's gonna have a great finish. I can't predict out of those next four who would be second and who would be fifth but he's gonna be right in there and I think that's going to surprise some people. Tommy Thompson isn't going to surprise anybody because everybody here knows how organized he is, and the same with Sam Brownback. Huckabee is a little of a wild card himself because he started organizing a little later. But everybody likes Mike Huckabee and so maybe a lot of those undecided's are going to go his way.
By David Miller