The Power of Prayer vs. The Power of Money

If you believe in God and the power of prayer, Lonnie Berger wants you to do something for him.

He wants you to pray that Sam Brownback does well in the Iowa Straw Poll in Ames on Aug. 11.

I know some would consider this less important, say, than praying for world peace or a cure for cancer. But there is nothing wrong with starting small in your prayers and leaving the big-ticket stuff for down the road.

Brownback, a Republican senator from Kansas, is running for president of the United States, and doing well at Ames could be critical for the future of his campaign.

Berger, who calls himself Brownback's "Prayer Coordinator," has a Website called prayforbrownback.com and is urging everyone to "pray that God would supernaturally activate the Christians in Iowa to pray and go to the straw poll to vote for Sam."

Also: "Pray for God to break the spiritual strongholds over Iowa that would keep Sam from being brought more into the national spotlight," and, "Pray that God would use this poll to weed out those candidates that would push our country away from the Lord."

Lastly, "Pray that God would bring Sam to the top and that his campaign would get huge national coverage in the media."

Berger, who has no official connection to the Brownback campaign, is not naive. He knows that when it comes to the Ames straw poll, there is something almost as important as prayer: buses.

So he asks that you also "pray for the logistics" of getting thousands of Brownback supporters in Iowa onto buses and on their way to Ames.

And if prayer alone can't do it, there is always the free hotdogs.

The Ames straw poll is the "American Idol" of political events, with one difference: At Ames, you can pretty much buy the results.

In the past, it has cost candidates millions of dollars to compete at Ames because the candidates provide free tickets, transportation, food, beverages and live entertainment to get people to show up.

The highlight of the day is supposed to be the speeches by the candidates, but the speeches don't really mean much since the voting begins hours before they begin.

Ames is viewed as a test of "organizational strength," which is a polite way of saying it is a test of how much money you are willing to spend.

And Sam Brownback is going to need prayers, because Mitt Romney has the money.

Romney, who had $18 million cash on hand as of June 30, knows that the most critical thing you can spread around in Iowa after fertilizer is money.

As a piece in the Huffington Post recently revealed, "Romney is distributing numerous payments, primarily to religious and social conservatives, most of them in Iowa, for what he calls 'GOTV consulting.'"

GOTV stands for Get Out the Vote, and as the article notes, funds for this used to be called "walking around money." In others words, it's the cash that you hand out to people.

And the sums are pretty impressive.

Romney is paying some Iowa college students $500 a month to work for him, and "Joe Earle, former director of the Iowa Christian Alliance (the successor to the Iowa Christian Coalition), gets $4,000 a month."

But so what? So what that Romney has $18 million on hand and Brownback has only $460,000? Prayer could make up for that in a flash (or a lightning bolt).

And Brownback doesn't actually have to win at Ames to win at Ames. A nice, healthy second place might be enough for him to get more of the "national spotlight" that Lonnie Berger is praying for.

In the past, Ames has been all about who wins, but this year might be different. And that is because three major Republicans, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Fred Thompson, will not be showing up to compete at Ames.

Which means that Ames will be a battle between Romney, Brownback and ... the Butter Cow at the Iowa State Fair. A cow made of 550 pounds of butter!

OK, not really. The Butter Cow will not actually be on the ballot at Ames (we wish), but the rest of the Republican field often suffers from a lack of attention. And this year, Ames can give them some.

Besides Romney and Brownback, the speakers at Ames will include: Mike Huckabee, Tommy Thompson, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul and John Cox.

And they are trying to carefully calibrate media expectations.

Romney says, "I expect to finish in the top two or three." (Yeah, right. Romney has to win at Ames and by a decisive margin.)

Huckabee says if he doesn't finish in the top three, he might have to drop out, but by the time you get down to third place at Ames, that might not be the most impressive — or noticed — finish in the world.

But Tancredo wins the lower-the-expectations championship. He told Iowa Public Radio recently that he had to finish in "the top five."

The top five? You mean ahead of John Cox, one other guy and a write-in vote for the Butter Cow?

But here is where Tommy Thompson gets credit. This guy is really going all in at Ames. He is not lowering expectations, he is building them.

Tommy Thompson calls Ames "very much a must-win" for him, and he says, "If I don't win, I'll be shocked."

So you think maybe he has been praying, too?

To find out more about Roger Simon, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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