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.

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[erose001]

Sorry for the multiple posts, the website was freaking on me when I was posting.

Moderator, please delete the duplicates. I'd do it myself, but I don't see a delete button. Thanks.

[erose001]

A midwestern independent weighing in FWIW:

I was really annoyed that Dr. Paul was all but ignored in this article. Tom Tancredo as the dark horse? I don't think so, and the comment area may be a predictor of just who will emerge from the "second tier."

I've been an admirer of Dr. Paul's for years, and I wanted to add a couple of points. First, he identifies himself as a libertarian, but in order to run for office in Texas, he affiliated formally with the Republicans.

Second, Dr. Paul has consistently introduced legislation to rid us of the root of the Fed, which is Unconstitutional, and the root of so many of our bad economic practices. I'd sincerely love to see a Constitutional president lead the restoration of our Constitution, starting with returning central banking power to Congress or leaning on Congress to create a Constitutional Amendment to make the Fed legal, and then forcing it to become transparent.

There aren't many incorruptable people left in DC - Paul and Kucinich may be it, as far as these candidates go. Kucinich has some good ideas, but I like the hard-headed practical approach of Dr. Paul for getting us out of our current dismal situation first.

[erose001]

A midwestern independent weighing in FWIW:

I was really annoyed that Dr. Paul was all but ignored in this article. Tom Tancredo as the dark horse? I don't think so, and the comment area may be a predictor of just who will emerge from the "second tier."

I've been an admirer of Dr. Paul's for years, and I wanted to add a couple of points. First, he identifies himself as a libertarian, but in order to run for office in Texas, he affiliated formally with the Republicans.

Second, Dr. Paul has consistently introduced legislation to rid us of the root of the Fed, which is Unconstitutional, and the root of so many of our bad economic practices. I'd sincerely love to see a Constitutional president restore our Constitution, starting with returning central banking power to Congress or leaning on Congress to create a Constitutional Amendment to make the Fed legal, and then forcing it to become transparent.

There aren't many incorruptable people left in DC - Paul and Kucinich may be it, as far as these candidates go. Kucinich has some good ideas, but I like the hard-headed practical approach of Dr. Paul for getting us out of our current dismal situation first.

[erose001]

A midwestern independent weighing in FWIW:

I was really annoyed that Dr. Paul was all but ignored in this article. Tom Tancredo as the dark horse? I don't think so, and the comment area may be a predictor of just who will emerge from the "second tier."

I've been an admirer of Dr. Paul's for years, and I wanted to add a couple of points. First, he identifies himself as a libertarian, but in order to run for office in Texas, he affiliated formally with the Republicans.

Second, Dr. Paul has consistently introduced legislation to rid us of the root of the Fed, which is Unconstitutional, and the root of so many of our bad economic practices. I'd sincerely love to see a Constitutional president restore our Constitution, starting with returning central banking power to Congress or leaning on Congress to create a Constitutional Amendment to make the Fed legal, and then forcing it to become transparent.

There aren't many incorruptable people left in DC - Paul and Kucinich may be it, as far as these candidates go. Kucinich has some good ideas, but I like the hard-headed practical approach of Dr. Paul for getting us out of our current dismal situation first.

[erose001]

A midwestern independent weighing in FWIW:

I was really annoyed that Dr. Paul was all but ignored in this article. Tom Tancredo as the dark horse? I don't think so, and the comment area may be a predictor of just who will emerge from the "second tier."

I've been an admirer of Dr. Paul's for years, and I wanted to add a couple of points. First, he identifies himself as a libertarian, but in order to run for office in Texas, he affiliated formally with the Republicans.

Second, Dr. Paul has consistently introduced legislation to rid us of the root of the Fed, which is Unconstitutional, and the root of so many of our bad economic practices. I'd sincerely love to see a Constitutional president restore our Constitution, starting with returning central banking power to Congress or leaning on Congress to create a Constitutional Amendment to make the Fed legal, and then forcing it to become transparent.

There aren't many incorruptable people left in DC - Paul and Kucinich may be it, as far as these candidates go. Kucinich has some good ideas, but I like the hard-headed practical approach of Dr. Paul for getting us out of our current dismal situation first.

[erose001]

A midwestern independent weighing in FWIW:

I was really annoyed that Dr. Paul was all but ignored in this article. Tom Tancredo as the dark horse? I don't think so, and the comment area may be a predictor of just who will emerge from the "second tier."

I've been an admirer of Dr. Paul's for years, and I wanted to add a couple of points. First, he identifies himself as a libertarian, but in order to run for office in Texas, he affiliated formally with the Republicans.

Second, Dr. Paul has consistently introduced legislation to rid us of the root of the Fed, which is Unconstitutional, and the root of so many of our bad economic practices. I'd sincerely love to see a Constitutional president restore our Constitution, starting with returning central banking power to Congress or leaning on Congress to create a Constitutional Amendment to make the Fed legal, and then forcing it to become transparent.

There aren't many incorruptable people left in DC - Paul and Kucinich may be it, as far as these candidates go. Kucinich has some good ideas, but I like the hard-headed practical approach of Dr. Paul for getting us out of our current dismal situation first.

[erose001]

A midwestern independent weighing in FWIW:

I was really annoyed that Dr. Paul was all but ignored in this article. Tom Tancredo as the dark horse? I don't think so, and the comment area may be a predictor of just who will emerge from the "second tier."

I've been an admirer of Dr. Paul's for years, and I wanted to add a couple of points. First, he identifies himself as a libertarian, but in order to run for office in Texas, he affiliated formally with the Republicans.

Second, Dr. Paul has consistently introduced legislation to rid us of the root of the Fed, which is Unconstitutional, and the root of so many of our bad economic practices. I'd sincerely love to see a Constitutional president restore our Constitution, starting with returning central banking power to Congress or leaning on Congress to create a Constitutional Amendment to make the Fed legal, and then forcing it to become transparent.

There aren't many incorruptable people left in DC - Paul and Kucinich may be it, as far as these candidates go. Kucinich has some good ideas, but I like the hard-headed practical approach of Dr. Paul for getting us out of our current dismal situation first.

[prinzowhales]

Not surprisingly, 'JohnWilliams', offers us no examples of Dr. Paul's alleged "ignorance." I am, however, flabbergasted by the pronouncement of 'JohnWilliams' that, "Without a public sector there are no markets." I guess the Pueblo/Apache annual trade fairs must have depended upon the Apache 'public sector'...

[homespunlady]

Posted by j0hnwi11iams at 05:04 AM

Since when has a REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN for 10 years been labeled Libertarian?

When the FASCIST NEOCONS started to worry about LOSING their POWER to the ORIGINAL Republicans that had their party hijacked!!

Like Rudy Giuliani knows about infrastructure as buildings that NEVER were hit fell down (Remember WTC Bldg 7- the spook/Emergency Command Post that was abandoned).

Like never-BIN-in-Congress BUSH knows about WAR since he HID and SKIPPED Vietnam with DADDY'S help.

Like Mitt knows about Christian fundamentalism.

Like McCain knows about how HIS campaign funds were spent and are BY FAR LESS than CONGRESSMAN DR. Ron Paul's yet he's STILL getting NEOCON press. At least Ron Paul effectively manages a BUDGET.

Australian Rupert Murdoch and his Chinese wife must LOVE your Ignorance.

[j0hnwi11iams]

Ron Paul is a libertarian and knows next to nothing about economics. Without a public sector there are no markets. Even conservative economists lie. They don't believe is democracy. They believe in "freedom", the freedom to screw everyone else.