Ames: The Waiting

Those people who bitched and moaned about the Diebold machines used for Ames Straw Poll voting were on to something. It's been fifty minutes since we were supposed to get vote results and we have heard two updates: That the vote was delayedand that the vote was delayed again. Reporters are bored and pissed, once-excited partisans are just sort of sitting around holding signs and making dinner plans.

The room is hilariously Romney-less: After basically buying the straw poll Romney bussed all his aged voters back home and now the room is a snapshot of an alternate (and awesome) universe where Sam Brownback, Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee are the only Republican candidates for president (alongside a write-in candidate named "Will DePort.).

Before it's too late, I predict Romney in first (by a lot), Brownback next, then Huckabee, then Paul, then Tancredo, then the rest of them.

UPDATE: Wrong! Romney won, Huckabee came in second (the big news of the day and an essential booster shot for his campaign), Brownback third, Tancredo fourth, Paul fifth.

UPDATE II: Back in my hotel working on my story, I catch the Fox News hourly update which lists the candidates in this order, by vote total: Romney, Huckabee, Brownback, Thompson, Giuliani, McCain. The votes were tabulated by the Living Eraser.