Pop Goes the Iowa Race

Mike Huckabee has been taking a victory lap since coming in a surprising second at last Saturday's GOP Iowa presidential straw poll, and now he's got another poll to crow about: At Channel 13's popular booth at the Iowa State Fair, the former Arkansas governor has surged into second place in the all-important corn Kernel Poll, knocking former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson out of the top three. Mitt Romney leads the Republicans by a wide margin of Republican kernels cast; Rudy Giuliani is third. Democratic kernel voters favor Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is edging out John Edwards, followed by Sen. Barack Obama.

But does the thing mean anything? Well, in its maiden voyage last year, the kernel poll accurately predicted that Chet Culver would be elected governor, the station's Jarrett Schneider tells our Liz Halloran. The kernel poll works this way: Poll voters 18 or older are offered a corn kernel, which they drop into the glass Mason jar designated for their preferred candidate. One day this week, for example, Clinton had two jars filled to the top, and another well on its way, while Republican Ron Paul had about a fourth of a jar filled. Kernels are periodically "counted." So far, Democrats are outkerneling the Republicans.