Press lauds Romney's victory in meaningless Iowa contest, yet barely acknowledges Texas Congressman's sweep of Alabama and New Hampshire
The establishment media has sought to bury and scoff at Ron Paul's dominating success in the Alabama and New Hampshire straw polls, while exalting the meaningless Iowa contest as a bellwether benchmark of national sentiment simply because their stooge Mitt Romney was the winner.
The Texas Congressman completely demolished the opposition in the Alabama straw poll, achieving 216 votes (81%) compared to Romney's 14 and Giuliani's 7.
He also trounced the contest's only southerner, Mike Huckabee, by a clear 210 votes.
The Alabama state primary will play a very prominent role in next year's presidential election because it is expected to be moved forward and become one of the first.
Ron Paul was also victorious in New Hampshire this weekend after garnering 73% of the vote at the Strafford County GOP straw poll.
All the candidates had representatives in New Hampshire and Paul easily beat off Tancredo and Huckabee, who were there in person. A PR attempt on behalf of the Romney campaign to place signs all around the venue got a return of just 26 votes.
The significance of straw polls can be debated back and forth, but what can't be argued is the fact that Mitt Romney received lavish coverage from the media after his success in Iowa - despite the fact that the Iowa straw poll has historically proven to be meaningless - yet Paul's victory in Alamaba and New Hampshire was met with muted dismissal.
"Now, granted, Alan Keyes won the last contested GOP straw poll in 1999, followed by Orrin Hatch, with eventual nominee George W. Bush coming in third," writes Outside the Beltway's James Joyner, "But Pat Robertson won the Iowa straw poll in 1987 and the press still pretends that contest is meaningful. Indeed, the winner in Ames has only gone on to win the nomination once. George H.W. Bush won the poll in 1979 and went on to lose the nomination to Ronald Reagan. Then, Bush lost the poll in 1987 (to Robertson) only to win the nomination. The other George Bush won in Ames in 1999, though, and also won the whole thing. So they're 1 for 4!"
If the race was on a level playing field and the establishment media afforded as much attention to Ron Paul's success as they gave Mitt Romney after the Iowa straw poll, the Texas Congressman's campaign would be given unstoppable momentum, which is why at every turn the press have sought to dismiss, ridicule and ignore the only Constitutional candidate on the roster - Congressman Ron Paul.
