Posted by Working Tommy C
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04 January 2012
Well, it was an exciting night for the top tier candidates in the Iowa caucuses. I've always liked the idea of caucuses vs. primaries due to the fact that too many voters do not pay proper attention and consider it their duty to pull a lever, no matter how little they have educated themselves about the candidates. This does not make for good governance. Primaries, which are held like regular elections, are also much more expensive and tend to favor establishment candidates who have raised more money that God to plaster their names on the airwaves like a Coca-Cola ad campaign. Such tactics make it harder to pick the real thing when there's that much froth floating at the top of the process.
Ron Paul was the very narrow favorite going in and led slightly according to the entrance polls. In the poll results, though, Romney wound up very narrowly taking the caucus just above the recently surging Santorum who finished second which, in this case, was a virtual tie. At 22% Paul finished 3rd just three percentage points behind Romney and Santorum's 25% each share of the vote.
Paul's third place finish may have disappointed some of his supporters, no doubt, but the difference between now and four years ago in Iowa is like night and day. Instead of being firmly planted in the next-to-nothing crowd, Paul made the establishment media say his name over and over again last night. They had no choice this time. They could not blank him out as they attempted back in the Iowa straw poll when he finished within 1% of first with the now faded Michele Bachmann.
Ron Paul has bucked the traditional Whig faction of the GOP establishment. Due especially to demographics of older, statist voters, many supporters of the big government GOP are caught up in the delusion that we can nip and tuck to disguise our country's massive economic deformities when major surgery is what is needed and what Ron Paul can deliver. Indeed, the only way to insure that social programs such as their social security and medicare can be protected for those already dependent on it is to save a trillion dollars a year by bringing our troops home protecting other (wealthy) countries and put them on our border. We need to slowly shrink the size of our military which, with a common sense redeployment and build up of infrastructure on our borders, would actually increase the soundness of our national defense strategy and help our own economy tremendously.
After being viciously ignored and dismissed, lately even more than Ron Paul has been, Santorum had the stars in his favor last night. There was definitely some potential for his receiving some love from some GOP voters last night. Santorum has a straight establishment platform that is very heavy on the social issues. As this writer has commented on several times, social issues such as abortion have been used for decades now to distinguish big spending Republicans from big spending Democrats. If the GOP ever follows through on resolving the abortion issue (returning it to the states is the only current legal remedy unless a Constitutional amendment is successfully passed) it is going to make it a lot harder for big spending GOP candidates to explain exactly how they are different from big spending Democrats.
Santorum, however, I think would make an honest effort to do something on abortion and perhaps pursue some other social issues. My main disagreement with him is having to listen to his version of John McCain's non-hit remake of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann:" "Bomb, bomb, bomb--bomb, bomb Iran!" Like other failing empires of the past, we can't afford to continue to be the policemen of the world even if every moral argument in the world were to support the concept--and they don't. (If we'd quit micromanaging Israel, they could take care of the problem as they did with Syria in the 1980s.) But then, Santorum's belligerence does not make him that much different from the other candidates except for Ron Paul. The GOP establishment has a lot to love in his support of the taxpayer funded corporate warfare machine. Whether they follow through or not is another matter entirely.
Santorum's biggest advantage last night is that, timing wise, he fell into the sweet zone of benefiting from Gingrich's massive fallout of voters and before any real rise in the polls gave other candidates and the press the initiative to really examine him and his record. It was mostly dumb luck that, I'm sure, his campaign people will make much hay from but that they don't deserve much credit for. If the bloviating Gingrich had peaked one or two weeks later than he did, Santorum would have still done much better than expected but would have battled it out with Gingrich for third place. Santorum should now be preparing for a very large probe. It won't be pretty and, before it's all done, he may be wishing it were aliens instead of the press supervising the procedure.
Santorum, though, is no Gingrich. He's not even a Herman Cain. I predict Santorum will stand up to scrutiny of his exemplary personal life and, despite disagreements with many on political matters, will, like Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, prove to be of outstanding character. Good character, after all, should be the first (but not only) requirement for being president.
Where Santorum may suffer greatly--or not, depending on the perception of the voters--is his voting record which is heavy on big government and light on fiscal reform. If Santorum proves to be too much like Romney in this regard, he may soon be just another falling star in the GOP meteor showers of 2011-2012. Santorum probably won't be able to break Romney's solid lock on the big government liberal establishment of the GOP. If the tea party folks and fiscal conservatives in other parts of the country aren't impressed with his voting record, he'll lose their support or never gain it to begin with. But, for now, Rick Santorum is definitely in the game.
Santorum's newfound attention will gain him more money in the short term but he's now scrambling to get boots on the ground. His longshot candidacy might pay off due to his "turn at bat" for the GOP alternative to Romney or Paul, but only if he very quickly overcomes the lack of good organization.
That leads to another point that might not be realized by many of us who are not all that familiar with the Iowa caucus system. It turns out that what we saw last night was, in essence, just another straw poll of sorts. The Iowa caucus results are not binding and that's where extra work by the Ron Paul campaign might pay off later depending on how well he does in accumulating the delegates from other states. According to an article in the Business Insider, Ron Paul may have won the Iowa caucuses without anyone realizing it.
True or not, helpful or not in the end to the Ron Paul campaign, this is an interesting tactic and may show how a serious organization that thinks on its feet may be able to beat other candidates' massive amounts of money in the strategies used to become the nominee for the GOP:
Business Insider: Ron Paul May Have Secretly Won The Iowa Caucuses
Grace Wyler
Jan. 4, 2012
DES MOINES — Ron Paul may have officially come in third tonight, but if the campaign's caucus strategy went off as planned, then Paul may actually be the real winner of the first Republican voting contest.
That's because Paul's massive organizational push in Iowa focused on both winning votes, and also on making sure that Paul supporters stuck around after the vote to make sure they were selected as county delegates — the first step towards being elected as a delegate to the Republican National Convention.
That's because Iowa's Republican caucuses are non-binding — they are technically just a straw poll, so once selected, delegates are free to vote for whichever presidential candidate they choose. . . .
Please read the rest of the article by clicking here: http://www.businessinsider.com
Two articles from the Washington Post that seem to fairly summarize much of what is going on with Paul and Santorum camps:
Ron Paul looks to capitalize on top-tier Iowa finish
Santorum hopes strong Iowa finish will spark campaign’s next phase
UPDATES: It looks as though Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum will each be awarded 7 delegates from Iowa according to CNN estimates based on the votes, at least making the delegate race a theoretical three-way tie for first. Again, the delegates are not committed so that it is possible that Ron Paul will indeed benefit from having more potential delegates due to the tenacity of his supporters. Also, Bachmann has officially suspended her campaign and it looks as though Perry will do so as well. This will shake up the numbers and percentages as readjustments occur. More than likely, those supporters will gravitate to Paul and Santorum if the momentum of both continue. The wild card is Newt who may be stronger in South Carolina than estimates show. How that affects the results remains to be seen.
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