Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Kernels, Kernels and More Kernels

Apparently you like the idea of a woman heading the White House. We put in only 2 women in our group of 20 possible prez candidates in "Cast Your Kernel 2006" at the Iowa State Fair. And the women did quite well. (BTW, thanks to all 839 of you voted. That sure was a lot of kernels to count.)

Here are the results and what fairgoers may have told us.

The dems:

Hillary Clinton 33% (Love her or hate her, Iowans know who she is)
John Edwards 33% (Still popular. And how many ladies told me he's hot?)
Tom Vilsack 13% (At least he did better than the Des Moines Register's Poll)
John Kerry 9% (2004 is a long time ago)
Evan Bayh 3% (One guy called him Birch)
Russ Feingold 2% (Who is he, many asked us)
Joe Biden 2% (1988 is really a long time ago)
Tom Daschle 2% (Will he really run?)
Wesley Clark 1% (The General could be in for a quite a battle)
Mark Warner 1% (The new democrat is a new name to many Iowans)

The repubs:

John McCain 24% (Met many friends at the fair)
Rudy Giuliani 22% (9/11 made him strong among "r's")
Condoleeza Rice 22% (Never been a politician. Many here say she should)
Newt Gingrich 10% (Contract with America still pretty strong)
Mitt Romney 9% ("R" in a "D" state at home; middle of the pack here)
Bill Frist 6% (The doc may need some more patients)
Mike Huckabee 2% (Lost a ton, hasn't found a ton of support)
George Pataki 2% (Stands tall among peers, falls short in poll)
George Allen 1% (Is the Hall of Fame coach more known here?)
Sam Brownback 1% (So much for sharing the midwestern love)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Polls are completely worthless. Ask Howard Dean. There should have been a question about demographics on that ballot. How many of them were over the age of 35 and therefore actually vote? Plus, how many of them were Polk County citizens?

It does say one thing though: looking at McCain's popularity in this poll, people still vote for the last sign they saw or last name they heard. Were a majority of these votes cast on the day McCain was there?

Chris Woods said...

I'm curious Dave--who got the most votes overall and could you list those results as well? It'd just be interesting to see.

Anonymous said...

It's amazing that you include Rice, who has said outright that she's not interested in running, and yet did not include Gore, who has also said the same, but more recently said he could be "convinced" under certain circumstances.

Dave Price said...

I think you could make an argument that we should have included several others, not just Gore. But point well taken.
Maybe Chuck Hagel should have been involved, too. I tried to keep it 10 dems and 10 repubs to keep it reasonable. As is 20 people is reasonable!

Anonymous said...

Ok, good point Dave. I wrote the excessively long comment before yours here. There are many many very good candidates for higher office. One problem, the good ones never run. Would you? Not me. The good ones fear being ostrasized within the media and then cut down and shredded by politcal action groups and paid individuals, just because they try hard as heck (other words came to mind) to do the right thing. So, what do we have left... The lowest of the pile rise to the top and suck the very life force out of what made our country so great to begin with. Our founding fathers are literally rolling in their graves. If I didn't have a less than desirable past, I would run for one of our state seats and I firmly believe that a leader leads by example and by what is right, not what a company has purchased me for. Ah, too bad though. Some day we will get it right, just seems in won't be anytime soon. Have a good one everyone.