The results of Saturday's Republican Straw Poll in Ames, Iowa, will be scrutinized to see how all the candidates perform, but Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann have the most to gain, and the most to lose, says Molly Ball in Politico.

Notes the story:

The stakes are highest for Pawlenty and Bachmann, as the former Minnesota governor pits two years of organizational build-up against the enthusiasm that has made the congresswoman the Iowa frontrunner as both try to prove their viability.

Former state GOP chairman Richard Schwarm said that though Pawlenty started early and did all the traditional things, “he’s got a curse that he may be the second choice of too many and not the first choice of enough.”

Bachmann, meanwhile, “is expected to win the straw poll,” Schwarm said flatly. “She’s almost at a dangerous level where she could win, but still not win big enough” to meet expectations.

Bachmann would rather not be seen as the front-runner. She told Radio Iowa recently she’s the “underdog” because she didn’t launch her campaign until late June.

Her campaign manager, Ed Rollins, told POLITICO, “Since we were the last ones to start and have been badly outspent, we will be happy to finish near or at the top.”

And the story says that Ames can be important for a campaign, despite the many reports that it's not:

For all its detractors who claim the straw poll has little predictive value, it has shaped every Republican presidential race for years. Even those who skipped competing — Romney, Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman — won’t be able to ignore the results. And those votes won’t be cast until after the debate — Huntsman’s first — two days before Ames.

It’s a week that will prove or disprove the conventional wisdom: Ron Paul’s struggling to be taken seriously, Rick Santorum’s hoping for attention, Herman Cain’s fading fast, Gingrich is sliding toward irrelevance and Michigan Rep. Thaddeus McCotter’s run remains mostly confusing.