Michele Bachmann won a test vote of Iowans on Saturday, a show of popularity and organizational strength for the Minnesota congresswoman five months before the state's caucuses kick off the GOP presidential nominating season.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul finished a close second to Bachmann, while former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty placed a distant third.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, businessman Herman Cain and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia also were on the ballot. So were GOP front-runner Mitt Romney and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, though they weren't competing in the contest.
Nearly 17,000 Iowans cast ballots during a daylong political festival, a late-summer ritual held every four years. The result is the first indication of what Iowans think of the field of Republicans competing for the chance to challenge President Barack Obama next fall. But it's hardly predictive of who will win the winter Iowa contest, much less the party nod or the White House.
The poll isn't conducted in a scientific method and amounts to a popularity contest. Romney won the poll in 2008, but the big news that year was the surprising second-place showing of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who later won the Iowa caucuses. But Romney and Huckabee both eventually dropped from the national GOP race.
Saturday's outcome, however, suggests that Bachmann has a certain level of support and, perhaps even more important, the strongest get-out-the-vote operation and widest volunteer base in a state whose caucuses require those elements.
Bachmann, riding high since entering the race earlier this summer, had hoped that a strong finish would give her even more momentum just as Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who announced his candidacy on Saturday, looks to infringe on her base of Tea Party and evangelical support. Bachmann invoked God and faith as she stressed what she called her conservative values, saying: "In Iowa, we are social conservatives and we will never be ashamed of being social conservatives."
As voters strolled through the campus, they passed booths from every corner of the conservative world. The National Rifle Association handed out bright orange hats and pointed out which candidates were "gun grabbers." A barker offered the chance to win a 32-inch flat-panel TV for visiting the Values Bus, sponsored by groups that oppose same-sex marriage and abortion rights.
Starting at noon, each candidate spoke inside the university's basketball arena, but many voters had already cast ballots; they could vote at any time before 4 p.m. After voting, they had to rub a finger in blue dye, as a deterrent to multiple voting.
Some came undecided.
"This is a heart vote," said Andrea Archer, a Santorum supporter and nursing professor who lives three hours away. "Even driving here, I didn't know which way I'd go."
Ron Marchant raved about the barbecue Pawlenty offered, but the conveyor-belt roller plant worker voted for Paul. But Mike Baker, a machine operator who lives 25 miles outside of Des Moines, voted for Bachmann "because she understands we're on the edge of a constitutional cliff. But really, I'm here because it's a good place to meet like-minded people."
Bachmann welcomed all. Afterward, she told them, "It was a wonderful down payment on taking the country back, and it started in Iowa. Now it's on to all 50 states."
That isn't a given. President George W. Bush won Ames in 1999, but so did the Rev. Pat Robertson in 1987.
Or how the campaigns bused Iowans in from every corner of the state, entertained them with A-list bands, fed them delicacies such as "hot beef sundaes," pressed a ticket in their hand if they didn't have one and, in the case of Bachmann's well-oiled campaign, drove them from the bus to the voting booth in a golf cart.
It was a first-inning snapshot of how the United States elects a president in 2011. But the results of Saturday's conservative-a-palooza carnival on the Iowa State University campus was of limited use to Californian Republicans.
The results were intended to show which campaigns have the organizational strength to compete in the top tier of candidates, and Bachmann is expected to get a short-term fundraising boost.
The Iowa native, who campaigned relentlessly in Iowa for weeks, won 28.5 percent of the vote, narrowly beating Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who pulled 27.6 percent. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty finished third, with 13.5 percent.
Early poll front-runner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman were on the ballot but barely campaigned. Romney received 567 votes, while Gingrich and Huntsman received only 385 and 69 votes, respectively.
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