fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Iowa caucus results

Y’all watching? It’s just past 9pm central here at the Mothership, about half the votes have been counted, and it’s fairly safe to say that after tomorrow, there won’t be any more Michelle Bachmann candidacy. Rick Perry may ride his fat campaign bank account through South Carolina, but given how hard he’s run in Iowa, […]

Y’all watching? It’s just past 9pm central here at the Mothership, about half the votes have been counted, and it’s fairly safe to say that after tomorrow, there won’t be any more Michelle Bachmann candidacy. Rick Perry may ride his fat campaign bank account through South Carolina, but given how hard he’s run in Iowa, this pitiful showing of his means this ain’t his year. The Gingrich boom has gone definitively bust (wasn’t it hilarious that Newt Gingrich — Newt Gingrich, of all people! — whined yesterday about Romney’s negative ads?). Huntsman will stay in through New Hampshire, but after that will withdraw.

So unless things change much, after tonight, it will be a Romney-Paul-Santorum race. Big disappointment for Romney, who blew a fortune in Iowa. Santorum has no money now, but he’s peaked at just the right moment, and may well rocket out of Iowa as the go-to guy for the anti-Romney Republicans. Romney will win in New Hampshire, but that won’t mean a lot. The real race in NH will be for second place. Hard for me to imagine that the GOP will ever nominate Paul, but this is an unbelievably volatile year, so who knows? If Santorum or Paul pulls close to Romney in NH next week, the South Carolina primary on Jan. 21 will be one hell of a night.

UPDATE: Jonathan Tobin:

The greatest danger to Romney’s hopes of winning the nomination was for one of his conservative rivals to break out from the pack. So long as the various not-Romneys are fighting each other, the actual Romney wins. So no matter who comes out ahead in this three-way tangle, the fact that there is no single rival for him in the top tier constitutes a strategic victory for him.

Ross Douthat:

[T]his is a remarkably weak field, and at this point I’m not sure that Santorum’s various flaws are any more glaring than Perry’s or Gingrich’s. He won’t take the nomination, but if I were the Romney campaign I wouldn’t be too quick to assume that he’s their ideal foil.

UPDATE.2: Ari Fleischer, just now on CNN, on Santorum’s big showing: “This is going to break his back.” Fleischer means that Santorum has no money, no campaign infrastructure, no nothing. The money could start rushing at him tomorrow, but he’s got no way to capitalize on this, says Fleischer. And of course the attacks begin tomorrow.

UPDATE.3: Just saw this interesting bit on Ron Paul by the excellent Bob Wright, now blogging at The Atlantic. Excerpt:

 I’ve long thought that the biggest single problem in the world is the failure of “moral imagination”–the inability or unwillingness of people to see things from the perspective of people in circumstances different from their own. Especially incendiary is the failure to extend moral imagination across national, religious, or ethnic borders.

If a lack of moral imagination is indeed the core problem with America’s foreign policy, and Ron Paul is unique among presidential candidates in trying to fight it, I think you have to say he’s doing something great, notwithstanding the many non-great and opposite-of-great things about him (and notwithstanding the fact that he has in the past failed to extend moral imagination across all possible borders).

UPDATE.4: I’m sorry, I can’t believe that Ron Paul is using this moment on live TV to talk about why America needs to get the gold standard back.

UPDATE.5: Newt Gingrich is such a crybaby, whining on TV now about negative ads. Are there any politicians who actually look good complaining about how their opponents said mean things about them? Romney sure did kill Gingrich’s campaign with those ads. No wonder Gingrich is p.o.’d. — but still, whining about it is unseemly, especially if you’re Newt Gingrich, who was a master negative campaigner back in his day.

I wish Gingrich would be quiet about “changing the culture.” Politics isn’t going to change the culture. Ever. It’s folly to speak as if it will. Anybody who believes that is going to be disappointed.

UPDATE.6: Well, I was wrong about Bachmann — she’s staying in. That’s stupid. You have to wonder what in the world she’s thinking. Why carry on now? She’s hardly a factor anymore. She gave a mindless, robotic speech, denouncing Obama’s “socialism.” Is she even running for a Fox News show at this point?

I think Noah makes a very good observation in the combox:

It looks like the number of participants tonight will be almost exactly equal to four years ago (about 120,000). Four years ago, the Republicans were demoralized with a highly unpopular president. This year, they have a highly fluid, competitive race, and a vulnerable Obama in a weak economy, and yet we don’t see more enthusiasm. If we subtract Paul’s voters — many of whom either did not participate four years ago, and/or are not registered Republicans — we probably have fewer GOP partisans coming out today than in 2008.

Which goes to show you what a s***ty bunch the R’s got this year (except Paul).

UPDATE.7: Along those lines, Scott Galupo makes a strong point:

I imagine the White House tonight would be shot through with concern if Iowans had turned out in droves for the GOP. They didn’t.

If anyone attracted new and younger voters to the caucuses, it was Ron Paul—who I can say with certainty will not be the nominee.

Romney, for his part, does well among wealthy, older voters. Tonight’s results are mildly troubling for Romney—but more than mildly troubling for the GOP long-term.

The party appeals mostly to a segment of the country that’s literally dying.

UPDATE.8: Rick Perry drops out! He didn’t say so explicitly, but that’s what he said, in effect when he said he was “going back to Texas” to think about whether or not there’s a way forward. Smart. There’s not, not for him. Boy, did he blow it in those debates.

Advertisement

Comments

Want to join the conversation?

Subscribe for as little as $5/mo to start commenting on Rod’s blog.

Join Now