As a news and politics junky, I could not take my eyes off the goings on in Iowa Tuesday night. As I predicted, Senator Rick Santorum surprised all the pundits by coming in just eight votes behind the winner, Mitt Romney. It appears, in Iowa at least, that conservatives have embraced Santorum instead of Michelle Bachman or Rick Perry, neither of whom did well enough to stay in the race. As I stated in my previous post, those two need to step out and allow the conservatives to coalesce behind one candidate. At this writing Bachman has stepped down and Perry has tweeted he will stay on at least through South Carolina.
The big thing is that it all really probably makes little difference. What happens in Iowa rarely ever portends anything for the national election, which makes me wonder what it is that excites so many about Iowa. Except for the fact that Iowa makes it possible for the first votes to be cast in a long campaign, little else of importance comes out, other than winnowing down the field. I guess that is what makes Iowa important.
As the campaign for becoming the Republican nominee continues, there appears to be a real war shaping up between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. This is about to get really nasty. The latest salvo has Gingrich calling Romney a liar, overtly, something that one never does in a political campaign. Gingrich is falling and Romney is rising. . There is a slight chance that if Gingrich does well enough in New Hampshire to make it to South Carolina, he can still salvage his campaign. He expects to win South Carolina. If he doesn't, he is done and out.
Conservatives all over the country need to look long and hard at Santorum. Although a bit long, his speech Tuesday night was one of the best I have heard. He truly is the common man all candidates want to be. He won Iowa by driving around the state in a pickup, visiting all 99 counties over and over again. That kind of retail politics is difficult to do on a national scale, but that is what Santorum will need to do if he wants to be the candidate. He just doesn't have the organization or the funding to do anything else.
Even though it doesn't predict accurately for the presidency, what happened in Iowa was fascinating. One thing we learned is that even if you are a social conservative, talking about the economy is what will get you attention. That is what Santorum did. This father of seven seems to be a spiritual man. His offering of thanks to God was seemingly sincere, as he spoke Tuesday evening.
Interesting days are ahead for Republican voters. Many who are lukewarm about Romney, but saw no alternative, now will take a look at Santorum and try to decide if he is electable. That is the only important thing that has come out of Iowa.
2 comments:
If you look at the side effects of what happens as a result of all the attention Iowa gets, the candidate of the party not in power generally loses the state in the general election because of all of the negative campaigning. In 2004, with no Republican caucuses necessary because Bush was running for re-election, John Kerry won the Iowa Caucuses and went on to be the Democratic nominee. Iowa, with a slight majority of Democrats, tipped the other way, and Bush carried the state with a margin of a fraction of a percent. In 2000, with Republicans just beginning a battle for the nomination, W won the Iowa caucus, and went on to win the presidency, though he lost the popular vote. Gore carried Iowa because of all the mud slinging the Republicans did during the caucuses.
Eight votes is close, even for a turnout like this one. But with all of the negative campaigning that took place, especially the blistering attacks on Newt Gingrich, I predict that Iowa goes to Obama in the general election.
The GOP is making a strategic error in the focus of their campaigning. The President has claimed that the Republicans aren't focused on fixing the economy, they are focused on denying him a second term. They're almost falling all over themselves to fit themselves into that claim. Regardless of who the nominee is, if that's the direction they pursue, then Obama gets a second term.
I suspewct you are right on target.
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