In the Iowa straw poll for Republican presidential candidates, critics routinely point out that votes are bought. The fundraiser for the state Republican party masquerades as an election, they say. But there’s another story to be told, another shoe to drop.

This year, the campaign of Mitt Romney spent enough money – at $35 a vote – to finish first in the 11-candidate GOP field. He received 4,516 of the 14,302 votes cast. Put another way, he kicked in $158,060 of the $500,570 used to buy votes in Ames, Iowa, on Aug. 11. That was more than enough to finish well ahead of Mike Huckabee whose supporters bought 18 percent of the vote for $90,545.

But the real winner in all this might be Iowa’s Republican Party and the candidates they field at the state level in 2008. That’s because in addition to the $500,570 in votes bought, the Iowa GOP also pocketed about $409,340 in votes that were paid for but never cast.

Campaigns and people bought tickets that got them inside the Hilton Coliseum on the Iowa State University campus to hear the candidates speak and to participate in other events in the political carnival. Whether each ticket bought wound up in a voter’s hand and whether all the ticket holders wound up voting are other matters.

This year 26,000 tickets were bought and 14,302 votes were cast; in 1999 – when tickets were $25 apiece – 37,000 were sold and 23,685 turned into votes. The 1999 un-voted tickets contributed $332,875 to the Iowa GOP. Together, the unused tickets from 1999 and 2007 brought in more than $740,000 to support the party’s caucuses and, more important, local and state candidates.

Out-of-state contributors to presidential campaigns, spending money to get straw poll votes for the nation’s would-be leader, might have really been contributing to the campaign of a would-be legislator from, say, Grundy Center (pop. 2,589).

Why are some 40 percent of the straw poll tickets unused? One reason, GOP officials say, is that some people, especially out-of-staters, might be content with having a ticket to hear the speakers. Another reason is that optimistic campaigns purchase more tickets than they can rid of. And, with the upcoming January caucuses, it is nice to be on the good side of the Republican Party of Iowa.

In any event, the unused tickets generated about a third of the revenue the Iowa GOP harvested in the 1999 and 2007 straw polls, over $1 million each time. And most of that money does go to support party candidates. A check of Iowa GOP 1999 filings with the Federal Elections Commission and with the Iowa Campaign Ethics and Disclosure Board suggests the Iowa party manages the straw poll efficiently. Costs directly attributed to running the straw poll are about 10 percent of the take – so 90 percent goes to use as intended, a percentage many charities fall short of. (2007 filings with the FEC and Iowa board will not be made until January 2008.)

The profit of $1 million for each straw poll suggests why the Iowa GOP – along with state Democrats and their fund-raising – fight vigorously to maintain Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status.