Iowa GOP Set To Decide Whether To Keep Presidential Straw Poll

Iowa GOP chair Jeff Kaufmann, right, talks Republican U.S. House candidate Rod Blum at a luncheon for state Rep. Pat Grassley, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, at a sports bar in Waterloo, Iowa. (AP Photo/Waterloo Courier, ... Iowa GOP chair Jeff Kaufmann, right, talks Republican U.S. House candidate Rod Blum at a luncheon for state Rep. Pat Grassley, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, at a sports bar in Waterloo, Iowa. (AP Photo/Waterloo Courier, Matthew Putney) MORE LESS

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Republicans in Iowa are ready to decide whether to carry on this summer with their presidential straw poll, a political tradition that critics decry as a sideshow.

Despite criticism from some prominent Republicans, the Republican Party of Iowa’s central committee appears likely to keep the event going when they meet Saturday morning in Des Moines to decide its fate.

Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said this week that he had “a hunch” the party will keep the poll.

First conducted in 1979, the Iowa straw poll has grown from a county GOP fundraiser stop to a large event on the Iowa State University campus, where candidates spend heavily to entertain supporters.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  1. It’s a meaningless side show, so of course it has to stay lol

  2. Avatar for mantan mantan says:

    Our dried voices, when
    We whisper together
    Are quiet and meaningless
    As wind in dry grass
    Or rats’ feet over broken glass
    In our dry cellar

    Shape without form, shade without color,
    Paralysed force, gesture without motion…

    –TS

  3. Avatar for Redeye Redeye says:

    All the straw poll does is keep Iowa in the news long past its expiration date. If memory serves, the press droned on and on and on about the leader/winner of the Iowa straw poll as if it was the concluding event in electoral politics. It serves only the moneyed interests and has nothing to do with the 99% of voters. If the GOP like it, then it is a given that it benefits 1%er’s only.

  4. Oh come on, we want to know who the inspiring minds are of the right that wanna play president.
    But we see you, trying to hide all the contestants from scrunity and embarrasment of who the brightest minds of the right are.
    Last time was bachman, right. bless her intelligent soul. (yuck)
    I suppose you all will try to have just 2 debates on outfoxya channel to better your chances of not showing the real geniuses among you. Another words, dumbing down the USA from the start this time.
    Give it a go but I don’t think it will work this time.

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