Despite Ross’ best efforts, I am not anxious about the rise of that magnificent fraud, Mitt Romney.  It is ephemeral, like everything related to Mitt Romney, and his apparent momentum is superficial, like everything else about him.  His position in the polls, like his convictions, will change with time, and not for the better. 

Here’s my suitably counterintuitive and anti-Romney thought.  McCain and Giuliani will still be on the straw poll ballot, even though they will not be present and actively campaigning in the poll, while Romney will be pouring enormous amounts of money into organising a big shindig for the potential caucus members to attend.  Yet it remains quite possible that the various factors working against him (his blatant dishonesty, his Mormonism, his shiny hair) will give him a relatively weak result that will seem all the more disappointing given the absence of the two other leading candidates.  If that happens, Ames could be the moment that reveals Romney to truly be the unelectable, well-funded, establishment-backed Gramm of the cycle.  Far from kick-starting his campaign and making him the frontrunner, Ames could be the moment when the elaborate confidence trick that is the Romney ’08 campaign is exposed for what it is. 

I think we all make a mistake if we assume that Romney is now certain to win at the Ames straw poll.  I am happy to encourage such expectations, because I think they will not be met and then Romney’s bubble will have burst for good, but we count out the lesser candidates at our peril as political observers.  Tommy Thompson (yes, I’m talking about Tommy Thompson in a positive way) does not have the elaborate organisation or tremendous funding that Romney has, but he has been building up a small, steady base of support in Iowa.  Hunter has performed well in smaller straw polls and may surprise us here.  Brownback is the natural non-Romney social conservative candidate.  Any one of them, or all of them together, may give Romney an unpleasant shock.  At the very least they may make him spend a good deal more than he anticipated spending.