NATCHITOCHES, La., January 4, 2012 — The Iowa Caucuses have ended with a whimper, not a bang. Rather than producing a clear winner, they gave us a night dominated by a three-way tie between Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. In the end Paul fell to a close third, Romney and Santorum locked in a photo-finish.
A bang ending would have been a clear victory by one candidate. The whimper is a muddle. But muddles still produce winners and losers, so let's consider who they might be.
Michele Bachmann: Clearly a loser. The only candidate to be born in Iowa and the winner of this summer's straw poll there, it was the sort of place she had to win. By not winning there, she showed that she can't win anywhere. Her last-place performance was a total defeat. She has no money and no organization to go on. Her likely best option now is to drop out and endorse Rick Santorum, whose positions are closest to hers.
Rick Perry: Clearly a loser. Perry's organization has been a mess from the beginning, his performance at debates uninspiring, and he failed to capture the imagination of Iowans. He's returning to Texas to assess the results of the caucus and decide where to go from here.
In other words, he'll soon be out of the race. He's going to ask himself who the eventual winner will be and whether he (Perry) has any chance of doing better in four years. Then he'll decide whom to endorse. The logical choice is Santorum. Santorum will lose against Obama if he wins the nomination, Perry will burnish his credentials with social conservatives, and he'll have a much better chance of being president in four years than if Romney wins the nomination.
Newt Gingrich: Another clear loser. His speech tonight was pugnacious and bitter, a clear announcement that he intends to be much more brutal with Romney. No more mister nice-guy, Newt's out for blood. He praised Santorum for running a great positive campaign, unlike "others" (Romney and Paul), then explained that Ron Paul is an honorable man (watch out for the knife, Dr. Paul) with dangerous ideas, while Romney won't challenge the status quo.
But Gingrich is crippled. He'll go on to South Carolina with little money and a weak organization. He'll make Romney pay, but his role now is really as a spoiler.
Ron Paul: Paul was within striking distance of winning tonight. He clearly did better than the national press, which ignored him all summer and well into the fall, ever expected. Had he won, the press would be explaining tomorrow that they expected it all along, just as they'll be explaining his strong third as unsurprising and unimportant.
For all that he kept it close, Paul is a loser tonight. He will go on, and he'll be a force to consider through the rest of the campaign. Sarah Palin has already warned that the GOP can't ignore him, and on that she's right. On the other hand, the Iowa caucuses were custom made to show the strength of a candidate like Paul, his supporters were enthusiastic, they expected a win, and they managed only 21%. It only gets harder from here.
Paul can't be counted out, but his campaign will have to get the message out beyond the faithful core. There needs to be some serious outreach to the large number of voters who aren't prepared to back either Romney or Santorum, but who also haven't been sold on Paul. He needed a bang and he didn't get it. He needs it by South Carolina.
Rick Santorum: Santorum is our first winner. Not technically - he lost, 30,015 to 30,007, but two weeks ago he was nowhere. But his victory does him no good. He has no money (though his fundraising has picked up considerably) and no organization. Had the social conservatives in Iowa not been divided, Santorum would have won easily, but once the campaign moves beyond South Carolina, social conservatives become less important.
In his favor, if Santorum gets Bachmann and the Tea Party behind him, he stays relevant and the Tea Party stays relevant. So he can expect some money and organizational support leaving Iowa. He got a new lease on life tonight, but it won't get him to the nomination.
Mitt Romney: A loser, though not as damaged as the other losers. Romney has the money and organization to march on through the primaries, and this won't turn off the money flow. Anyway, he'll say, didn't Ronald Reagan lose Iowa in 1980? Didn't Pat Robertson shock George H.W. Bush there in 1988? And yet...
Romney had the lesson drilled home tonight: He's not loved by the GOP. He's remained steady at 20-25% in the polls, and he stayed there tonight. 75% voted for someone else. He's the leader by default, not out of passion. He can fix that, but he still has a battle on his hands for the nomination. His performance in Iowa isn't an endorsement; it's resignation. When he moves on to states less dominated by Christian Evangelicals and Tea Partiers, he may find his numbers improving, but tonight isn't cause for celebration.
Barack Obama: Yes, he won the Democratic caucus in a landslide, but President Obama may be a loser tonight. The reason for that is Ron Paul.
Four years ago, Obama had enthusiastic support from young people who felt disenfranchised and wanted change. He attracted independents who felt that government was unresponsive to them and was embarked on a dangerous course. And those people are no longer enthused by Obama, but by Paul.
Obama is aided by a long and bitter GOP nominating battle. Newt Gingrich is embarked on a mission to get that result, and Romney's weakness provides the opening for Santorum and Paul, so the night wasn't a total loss for Obama. But it should get his attention.
On balance, tonight wasn't good for the GOP. With no clear, undamaged front-runner, they get a nominating race that will go on, internecine blood-letting that will leave the eventual winner weak and vulnerable against a president who is, for all his advantages, also weak and vulnerable. Only a third of Iowa voters polled tonight put defeating Obama as a top priority in their choice of candidate. That's got to be a scary number for the GOP establishment. Some Republicans might dream of a Romney-Paul ticket, but that won't happen, not ever, and it would be a terrible match anyway. Romney-Santorum would be as bad. However it binds its wounds, the GOP won't do it by melding any two of its front runners.
It promises to remain an interesting race.
James Picht is the Senior Editor for Communities Politics and teaches economics at the Louisiana Scholars' College in Natchitoches, La., where he went to take a break from working in Moscow and Washington. But he fell in love with the town and with the professor of Romance languages, so there he stayed. Now he teaches, annoys his children, and makes jalapeno lemonade. His father's family is from Iowa, and so is his father-in-law's. He tweets, hangs out on Facebook, and has a blog he totally neglects at pichtblog.blogspot.com.
This article is the copyrighted property of the writer and Communities @ WashingtonTimes.com. Written permission must be obtained before reprint in online or print media. REPRINTING TWTC CONTENT WITHOUT PERMISSION AND/OR PAYMENT IS THEFT AND PUNISHABLE BY LAW.
