Monitor: The US press comments on the funding of the Iowa straw poll

All the News of the World The US press comments on the funding of the Iowa straw poll

UNDER THE straw poll rules, residents had to personally show up at the state university campus to vote, so the candidates went crazy looking for ways to entice them. Participants could get T-shirts in nine different colors, each with a different politician's name. One elderly woman claimed that she attended the straw poll every four years solely to replenish her supply of dust cloths. And it was all free!

New York Times

NO SURPRISE that Saturday's losers are awaking to the undemocratic nature of today's campaign-financing system. Some states are set to try public financing reforms in an effort to drive special-interest money out of elections. Congress should take their cue and pass meaningful campaign- reform laws that allow presidential candidates to speak - even if they can't tap rivers of special-interest money. Then Iowa's straw poll might actually be something to celebrate.

USA Today

IT GETS harder and harder to make the case that the qualities measured by the presidential nominating process have a lot to do with the responsibilities of being president. The prodigious amounts of money and effort spent on - and attention paid to - the Republican "straw poll" Saturday in Iowa is the latest case in point. This was a test of how many people a candidate could persuade to take an all-expenses-paid day off to be bused to a kind of carnival in Ames at which, somewhat incidentally after being handsomely fed and entertained, they would cast a vote for the nominee of their choice, who had even bought their ballot.

The Washington Post

CANDIDATES WHO have less cash than the few front-runners and that is most of them - will see even that money dry up after the poll. They will be forced out of the race before it is fairly begun, indeed, before the first primaries and contests are even held. They won't last until the February Iowa caucuses themselves, which used to give the state its prestige as the first-in-the-nation presidential test. (Sharon Moloney)

The Cincinnati Post