I know what you're thinking: who cares? Well, according to Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post:
The Register poll, conducted by the esteemed J. Ann Selzer, is widely regarded as the benchmark for where things stand in the Hawkeye State. A strong showing can help a candidate raise money and build momentum, a poor one can have the opposite effect. In short: the Register poll matters.
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This is the poll that will be used to judge momentum (or lack thereof) in the Iowa campaign to come. Every time the Iowa caucus race gets written about, the first Register poll will be cited and used as a way to judge whether progress is being made. It’s the expectation setter. For someone like former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty — for whom a win in the Iowa caucuses is close to a necessity — the ideal would be a competitive second or third place in this first survey. That would keep expectations reasonable and allow him room to grow and claim genuine momentum going forward.
All right, so where did T-Paw finish, anyway? Sixth place, with 6 percent. That's behind Mitt Romney, with 23 percent, Michele Bachmann (22), Herman Cain (10), and Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul (7). Ouch!
According to Politico:
Pawlenty has spent 26 days in Iowa during this election cycle, has hired an A-list team of Iowa campaign operatives and was the first major candidate to air television ads in Iowa. "If I were the Pawlenty camp, I would be enormously concerned about this poll," said Jennifer Duffy of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
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