The question I get, even more than “How were your holidays?” is “What the heck happened in Iowa in the Republican caucuses?” And folks have good reason to ask, as the results were fairly confusing.
This morning I watched Fox News, where the head of some group called “The Republican Derby” was crowing about Mitt Romney’s “big win.” I guess he missed the memo that it was by eight votes. Furthermore, despite having run before, and having spent the most money, Romney received exactly the same percentage of Iowa Caucus votes he received in 2008.
Furthermore, he didn’t earn a lot of conservative votes (only 13 percent, 10 percentage points worse than four years ago). Worse for Mitt, that same ABC News poll (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/more-from-the-entrance-polls-conservatives-troubled-by-romney-and-santorums-push-pays-off/) indicated that barely one percent of Iowan Republican voters see Romney as a conservative.
Despite what Fox News said, the biggest winners were Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. Normally, senators who lose their reelection bid by 18 percentage points don’t do well in presidential nominations. Nor do candidates with very little money and organization prevail. But Santorum’s ability to appeal to evangelical voters clearly mattered. True believers tend to brave 25-degree weather to argue for their candidate, and vote.
Texas Congressman Ron Paul was also a big winner, despite being ignored by the media. Unlike Romney, Paul more than doubled his performance from four years ago. He even received more evangelical voters than Romney. Like Santorum, Paul has his own “true believers,” something Romney seems to lack despite his campaign war chest.
Fox’s pundits claimed that Romney didn’t spend much money and time in Iowa. If you ignore the SuperPAC Romney used to rip Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich, you could possibly be right.
For now, we can expect Romney to prevail in New Hampshire, since he’s spent so much time and money there, as well as its proximity to where he was governor for a term. He’s still the favorite.
But is he the GOP front-runner because party members think he will do well against Obama, or because he shares their beliefs?
Romney is the safe bet, unless he really does something to mess it up. But what will happen in November? Will people turn out with the same intensity for Romney as they did for long-shots like Rick Santorum and Ron Paul? Republican dislike of Obama is one thing, but passion for their candidate is likely to be about the same as Democratic Party enthusiasm for Massachusetts Senator John Kerry in 2004.
Democrats won’t have the same problem. Obama never faced the one factor that undermines a presidential incumbent more than the economy: an intra-party primary challenger. A leftist candidate is unlikely to emerge in the fall contest to peel votes away. But Republicans are faced with a nominee they are unenthusiastic about, coupled with several disgruntled Republican challengers considering independent bids. It would be Obama’s race to lose.
John A. Tures, associate professor of political science, LaGrange College; jtures@lagrange.edu.
