Overrated: The Iowa Straw Poll

Doesn't anyone else think its goofy that the 4,400 votes Mitt Romney received to win this weekend's Iowa straw poll gets so much play throughout the media?

Yeah, that's it ... 4,400 votes. My State Rep needs more votes than that to get elected and I'll guaran-damn-tee you he isn't getting front page coverage on the New York Times and headlining every Network and Cable News broadcast.

I'm sure the Daily Kos' presidential polls have far more participants than this poll. Do you think a straw poll held in Harlem or El Paso would get thismuch coverage even if greater numbers participated? I doubt it.

I think some of the same considerations here are at play as with many in the media's - think David Broder - insistence that it is best for Iowa and New Hampshire to go first in the Presidential primaries.

Iowa straw poll voters are made up of Broder's Main Street or Real Americans. Of course, I suspect those voters are largely white and a bit older than the typical American voter ... uhm ... like Broder himself.

But my biggest bitch about the coverage is that it isn't really democratic to give so few voters such a big voice.