Posted by
Steve on Wednesday, January 04, 2012 8:38:45 AM
Yesterday was the Iowa Caucus. The results are a little surprising, but things did go pretty much as expected. Mitt Romney won the Iowa Caucus by only 8 votes. That is the closest election in any primary or caucus, ever. Rick Santorum came in second. Ron Paul came in third with a lot of Democrat support. The final percentages are: Romney 25%, Santorum 25% and Paul 21%.
I thought Romney made a big political mistake by hinting that he would win Iowa. He had never been expected to do well in Iowa until recently. In fact, early on there was talk of Mitt writing off Iowa to campaign elsewhere. It is good that he did not take that advice and stuck it out. A win is a win, no matter how close. It would have been better to win by 10 points or more, but still Romney can claim a victory.
Santorum has to be the big winner of the day. He had been polling dismally until the last week. The latest polls had Santorum at about 21% and rising. He did everything right in Iowa and it showed. His problem now is how does he capitalize on this surge? Santorum is still underfunded. This Iowa showing will help him raise funds. But that will not help for at least another week. The New Hampshire primary is in a week. Even if he gets the increased funds, he will have a difficult time in recruiting top level talent. Santorum gets a big boost from Iowa, but it remains to be seen if he can capitalize on it.
Rick Perry is going back to Texas and reassessing the situation. In other words, Rick Perry is not running for President any longer. The Iowa Caucus caused another candidate to drop out due to lack of support. Perry had the funds and name recognition. He made too many mistakes to be taken seriously for the Presidency of the United States.
Newt Gingrich came in 4th with 13%. He is seriously taking on water. He should probably do what Rick Perry is doing and drop out of the race. He had his day in the sun and could not hold onto it. Newt will probably stick around and try to take out Mitt Romney. Romney ran a smart campaign against Newt in Iowa. He ran ads contrasting the old Newt with the new Newt. As a result, Newt went from the presumptive winner of Iowa to a seriously damaged candidate in just a couple of weeks.
As great as Michele Bachmann is, I think this poor showing in Iowa should cause her to drop out as well. She was born and raised in Iowa. She lives in neighboring Minnesota. If she cannot do better than this in Iowa, she should drop out and try again next time. Michele is a great candidate. I think her ideas are great. She is the most conservative of all the candidates running for office. The problem she has is that with Barack Obama in the White House this is not the time to try and elect the first woman President. At least, that is the message that is being sent by the Iowa Caucuses.
John Huntsman skipped Iowa to concentrate on New Hampshire. He is trying the John McCain strategy. He does not really stand a chance, even in New Hampshire, but at least he had a strategy and is following it.
Mitt Romney wins Iowa. That gives him one notch on his belt and the ability to say he won the Iowa Caucus. That makes Mitt Romney a most formidable candidate in the states to come. New Hampshire is almost home to Mitt. That means he wins there next week. South Carolina comes one week later. With two wins in a row, he will be difficult to stop at that point. He may have the nomination wrapped up by the end of February at the rate he is going.
Rick Santorum could cause some problems to that scenario. It remains to be seen if he can capitalize on the near upset showing in Iowa. If he does, then this could be a shootout between Santorum and Romney to the convention. A big part of this is how fast the donations start coming into his campaign and whether that translates to organization in the future states. That is where Mitt is strongest. Mitt has an organization set up in every state right now. Nobody else in the Republican field has that kind of organization.