AMES, Iowa -- As I approached the Hilton Coliseum at Iowa State University where the Republican straw vote took place Saturday, I noticed a sign saying the Shakespeare play Macbeth would be here soon. It seemed a fitting harbinger: a play about ambition and the twists and turns of fate. The three witches refrain of "Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire burn, and cauldron bubble" bounced around in my head as I made my way into the cauldron of activists rallying for their candidates.
The Ames straw vote of 2011 is now in the books, followed by the departure of Tim Pawlenty from the race on Sunday morning, and it gives us some indication of where this presidential race may now be heading. There are some interesting takeaways, some of which feel a little Shakespearean.
- Michele Bachmann's slim victory in the straw vote was historic. Here is a candidate who just got in the race, with little campaign experience and organization, and she beats every other person in the field. In the history of the Republican presidential nominating process, no woman has won one of the elimination rounds -- primary, caucus, to straw vote. Bachmann benefited from feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, who paved the way by fighting for women's equal rights, but she is on the opposite side on nearly every social issue. Bachmann is now more of a force in conservative politics than Sarah Palin. Palin waited too long and now she has been eclipsed.
Many pundits have questioned whether this straw vote will matter, or will it really give us the direction for the race. I am one who believes it gives us a good indication of what is to come, though politics -- like life -- has a great tendency to be unpredictable, and to quote Macbeth, maybe "it is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
We will know which is which in due course, my friends.
This post originally appeared in National Journal.
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