Clinton Now Holds Almost Insurmountable Lead in the Isabella County Fair Straw Poll

With only three hours on Saturday left to vote the presidential race may be all over at the Isabella County Fair. Sen. Hilary Clinton on Friday added to her lead over Sen. Barack Obama in the Isabella County Democratic Party's Straw Poll at the Isabella County Fair.

Clinton now leads with 103 votes to Obama's 90 votes. John Edwards now has 61 votes, but is not likely to make up that gap when the Merchants Building at the county fair reopens at 1 p.m. tomorrow. The final tally will be made at 4 p.m. or so and recorded for history.

We are not saying that as goes the Isabella County Fair, so goes the nation. But if it does, you heard it here first.

The next closest candidate to the top tier candidates at the straw poll fair vote only got 15 votes, and those were all write-ins for Al Gore. Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich each now have 11 votes.

Mike Gravel, who is a lot like the embarrassing uncle who comes to your family Thanksgiving dinner to speak the truth, but nobody wants to hear it from him, got another vote on Friday to bring his total to 3. Poor Joe Biden got no votes on Friday at all to leave his county fair total at 2.

The esteemed Friday night vote counters had a few spoiled ballots to rule on. We clearly asked folks to vote for just one of the folks on the ballot or write comments if they wished, but one voter circled both Clinton and Obama. "Can't we just tear it in half and give one vote to each?" one of the vote counters suggested. But the majority ruled that ballot shouldn't be counted.

"Now what do we do with this one?" It was a write in for Joe Thompson. That vote wasn't counted either. The vote counters know who Fred Thompson is, but Joe Thompson, wherever you are, you got a vote at the Isabella County Fair. But it didn't count. A total of 305 folks have voted thus far and unless Saturday is an unusual day no more than 20 or 30 more votes are likely to be cast. Unless one of the candidates brings a bus load or two of supporters to the Isabella County Fair tomorrow, the results are not likely to change.

The Isabella County Fair wraps up tomorrow and the final vote tally will be at 4 p.m. Hordes of people are expected to be on hand for the historic moment. Well, some people will be there anyway. We'll keep you posted.