By a whopping 8 votes Romney took Iowa by storm last night according to TPM over Rick Santorum (a very close second) and Ron Paul in third place. So that’s the gold, silver and bronze medals. It looks like Perry (5th place) will drop out (too bad because I really did enjoy the truly bizarre statements he made), and Michele Bachmann ought to drop out but probably won’t. Newt, despite a 4th place finish will likely stay in if only to sell more books.
Can’t wait to see the Super Pac attack ads Romney’s pals will unleash on Santorum in New Hampshire. Then again, he probably won’t have to do that once Santorum gets his up close and personal treatment in the media over the next week.
The reality check for Romney fans? Three fourths of all Iowa Caucus voters wanted “anyone but Mitt” for President. Almost one fourth of them voted for has-been Rick Santorum despite all the money Mitt and “friends” spent in Iowa. If I were Romney, I wouldn’t feel too good about my campaign right now despite my victory. He’ll probably win New Hampshire but he better win it by a big margin, otherwise the “anyone but Mitt” crowd will continue to hold out hope, and Paul, Gingrich and Santorum will stay in the race despite Romney’s large money advantage.
If Bachmann hadn’t been in the race, Mittens would have lost. She’s dropping out at 11am.
Too bad. I’ll miss her inane and insane remarks as well.
Just because she’s not running doesn’t mean she’ll shut up. Legally, her campaign is “suspended”, which means that folks can still donate to it. Consider every future statement a plea for donations. It’s the momma grizzly way.
Herman Cain may have made his mark in history for the “suspended campaign.” Expect all the future dropouts to at least flirt with the idea. You know Paul will when the time comes.
Does this mean I might still get my belated Christmas present of a brokered convention? Oh please, Santa, please please please please….
Who would come out of a brokered convention?
But more than likely, it means a brutal campaign outside the Northeast and Mormon country. Rural Iowa went for Santorum.
And it means that Mittens moves further to the right. The longer Santorum is in the further to the right Mitt goes, shedding independent support along the way. And if Mitt pivots to the middle for the general election, he loses most of the folks that voted for Santorum, who might sit on their hands anyway. Depends on how deep into the Obama hatred Mitt intends to go.
Gee, following ALL the lies of Romney, all the raw milk energy of Ron Paul, and all the frothy mix of Santorum, we have close to a tie.
Except Ron Paul SERIOUSLY underperformed.
Guess all that raw milk made people sick. Or the sick racist crap spewing from the senile mouth of Ron the Sexist Racist finally got through that this is one sick, insane clown.
But wait? One sick, insane clown? Who is it? It’s Ron, certainly. But it’s also Mitt…. They are ALL sick, insane clowns, aren’t they?
This Romney win is certainly as slim as it gets. Compare it with how he stacked up in 2008:
2008 2012
====25.2% 24.6%
29,949 30,015
After 4 years and millions of dollars of ad buys Romney, a familiar candidate to Iowans, grabbed 66 additional votes for himself.
Accoding to NBC figures, 4.3 million was spent on ad buys by Romney and his super-PAC.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/03/9926906-romney-super-pac-outpaces-romney-campaign-in
-iowa-ad-spending
I thought the most significant result was that 42 percent of voters went in undecided and ended up not going for Romney. You’d think the undecided would have gravitated to the “safe choice”, but they apparently couldn’t bring themselves to it. Even after his huge ad blitz, Romney has obviously still failed to win any converts. Seems to me this result forecasts, an extremely hard road ahead for him — and for the GOP.
It will be interesting to see whether Newt’s ads which should be devastating, can do to Romney what Romney’s money did to Newt in Iowa. Hard to see how the GOP is going to come out of this intact.
off topic but…..President Obama will announce the recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in speech in Ohio today. About Time
Yeah, this is a big move on Obama’s part. And about time. This “pro-forma” bullshit is unconstitutional, and so is the failure to give these people a vote. The constitution says that the Senate “shall give advice and consent”. I see no room for indefinite delay in that.
That’s good news. I just read earlier today that he’d missed the window for the recess appointment.
More than anything it’s a story about money. In the first race where there was a no holds barred surge of dollars, the millions couldn’t overcome Perry’s own foot in mouth disease to give him better than 5th; Mitt’s millions couldn’t make him into a charasmatic contender; Santorum turned warm and fuzzy without any money at all and won the hearts and then of course Newt’s addiction to money finally gave him away as he lost all professional control when he was denied control of purse strings.
So what values would the Rep party have without money?
So does this make Santorum the official not-Romney?
But Mitt won in a state generally regarded as more conservative than most, and after having inserted himself there only recently. Maybe he didn’t do so badly after all given the circumstances.
But he was a known quantity. Everyone knew he was running again. He was the next-in-line after all. That he could only hold his support from last time is pathetic.
I’m struggling to understand what the republican nominee pretends to make the election about. What is Mitt telling people?
“Mitt Romney will rebuild the foundations of the American economy on the principles of free enterprise, hard work, and innovation. His plan seeks to reduce taxes, spending, regulation, and government programs. It seeks to increase trade, energy production, human capital, and labor flexibility. It relinquishes power to the states instead of claiming to have the solution to every problem.”
To me it seems like this Heritage Foundation piffle only works for A) true believers and B) people who don’t understand what it means (“low-info” voters). Now, I don’t see how they beat a likable incumbent with a national organization with that message. So I go back to saying that despite all the corporate money in the world there is nothing there. The cupboard of republican messaging is absolutely bare. All they will have to make an imprint is negative attack ads.
But the negative ads will be flying uncontrolled and dense in the general. Don’t underestimate their effectiveness. I’m not sure Americans care about real content anymore.
I think for a negative campaign to work in a presidential election there has to also be some credible alternative that people like. You can go mostly content free but you can’t be entirely content free when there is a likable alternative.
We had a three month freakout about Jeremiah Wright, which was apparently the best the geniuses behind the curtain could do. And no one gave a shit. Now, the republicans can and will go negative on the economy, but the problem is that to the extent that Obama hasn’t already embraced their framing, their economic message doesn’t appeal to anyone except the base and the stray low-info voter. Corporate money certainly controls electoral politics but I guess I feel like we’re not quite to the point where corporate money gets free hand to craft the entire thing from beginning to end. Look at all the movies that bomb despite massive ad budgets. If the product is total shit, no amount of marketing is going to cover that up. Maybe in 2016 it will be worse but I just don’t see how the republicans can pretend to win an election about nothing, which is what Romney represents, when they barely won the last election about nothing in 2000 with a better candidate, electoral hijinks, and some nonsense about compassionate conservatism. And this time they have to face a much better candidate who is the incumbent. Maybe I’m way off but I just don’t see how Romney could pull it off, short of a national emergency or something.
2008 Iowa republican caucus results:
Mike Huckabee 40,841 34.4%
Mitt Romney 29,949 25.2%
Fred D. Thompson 15,904 13.4%
John McCain 15,559 13.1%
Ron Paul 11,817 10.0%
2012 Iowa republican caucus results:
Mitt Romney 30,015 24.55%
Rick Santorum 30,007 24.54%
Ron Paul 26,219 21.51%
From Mitt Romney’s point of view that’s pretty damn pathetic. 4 years and millions of dollars later and he gains 66 votes.
Yup. If the numbers spotlight any real winner, it’s Ron Paul.