Back in late-May, the New York Times reported:
[Mitt Romney] has told friends that he felt burned by the process in Iowa four years ago. He invested $10 million and finished second in the caucuses to Mr. Huckabee, who spent a sliver of that amount. Mr. Romney also struggled to connect with religious conservatives and often spent more time trying to convince people that his rightward-shifting positions on abortion and gay rights were changes of heart rather than decisions of political expediency.
At the time, Romney was making his first appearance in Iowa of the year. At the same point in the 2007-08 cycle, Romney had been running television ads for three months and had successfully won the coveted Ames Straw Poll. It’s clear that Romney did not want to make the same mistake twice. Having invested so much in Iowa four years ago only to come away with a disappointing second place loss, his team decided to focus this time on friendlier territory in New Hampshire.
But then a funny thing happened. Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin all opted not to run for president. Tim Pawlenty went broke and dropped out. Suddenly, there was no real competition for Iowa and Romney lost his easy excuse for losing there. If he can’t beat Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry in Iowa, then what kind of frontrunner is he?
The weakness of the field sucked Romney back into Iowa. But no sooner did he rededicate himself to competing in the caucuses than he saw polls numbers like this (pdf):
With the Iowa caucuses just for weeks away, Newt Gingrich, at 31%, holds a double-digit lead over Mitt Romney (17%) and Ron Paul (16%). Romney and Paul are virtually tied for second.
Romney may be headed for a third-place finish in Iowa that will wind up costing him his lead in New Hampshire. And then Romney will have to head south to South Carolina and Florida, where Mormons are not always well-regarded by the Southern Baptist base of the GOP.
It’s still too early to make confident predictions, but we may look back at this contest and conclude that Romney was doomed by a lack of real competition. If had had just one real candidate to lose to in Iowa with a little dignity, his plan might have worked. Instead, we might reflect that he had been destroyed once again in the Hawkeye State, despite his determination not to let that happen.
