HOW IOWA RUNS A HORSE RACE

Last weekend saw a milestone in the road to the presidency in the form of an Iowa straw poll organized by that state's Republicans as a fund-raising event. Though not without a measure of meaning or merit, the much-ballyhooed poll is the sort of artificial construct that seems to drive much of our nation's politics today. Any resident of any state who was prepared to travel to Des Moines last Saturday, find the convention hall, listen to a dozen speeches and plunk down $25 payable to the Iowa Republican Party could cast a "vote."

Such ground rules are an invitation to packing the hall, which, in the time-honored tradition, is precisely what transpired, as competing campaigns vied to avoid embarrassment. Rivals of Sen. Phil Gramm derided the "Texas Airlift" they said allowed him to pull of a tie with front-running Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, who won the Iowa caucuses in 1988. On the morning interview shows the next day, Sen. Dole declared the two winners to be "the Iowa Republican Party and the bus companies."

Columnist Patrick J. Buchanan scored an impressive third-place finish, and more than one commentator declared that had the ground rules limited participation to Iowans, he would likely have won. The rest of the field was far down the list.

The results are a wake-up call for the front-running, endorsement-laden and potentially complacent Dole campaign. Gramm's showing revives a campaign that had raised millions but which until then had struggled, lagging badly in the polls.

Before reading too much into the results, it might serve to recall the winner of this straw poll in the run up to the 1988 race: the Rev. Pat Robertson. That event was the high-water mark of his presidential campaign, as eventual nominee George Bush finished down in the pack.