Good evening!
We will talk about the differences b/w caucuses and primaries in another post. For new, let’s have a look at the first caucus which took place in Iowa on 3rd January, 2012. We will look at the Republican-side of the story in this post. Before the Iowa caucuses there were seven candidates who were in fray for the Presidential nomination from the Republican Party:
- Mitt Romney (Former Governor of Massachusetts)
- Newt Gingrich (Georgia; Former Speaker of the House of Representatives)
- Governor Rick Perry (Texas)
- Congressman Ron Paul (Texas)
- Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (Minnesota)
- Jon Huntsman, Jr. (Former Governor of Utah)
- Rick Santorum (Former Senator and Congressman from Pennsylvania)
Romney was considered to be a frontrunner, because of his 2nd-place finish in the Republican Primaries last year. However, in the few months before the Iowa Caucuses (the first ever Republican caucus / primary for 2012), Gingrich, Perry and Bachmann have all topped the polls at one time or the other, but none has been as consistent as Romney. Paul has been in the reckoning too. He has not been a frontrunner, but has a large grassroots support, which has been pretty consistent. = The guy may be a radical, but he is persistent, clean (so far) and has an excellent background.
Results:
My heart told me that Paul would spring a surprise in Iowa, but I would have been happy even with a Romney-Paul one-two. But as it turned out, it was a very close race in Iowa. The early entrance polls (yep, I have not confused it with exit polls) showed a close three-way tie with Paul leading the pack followed by Romney and a surging Santorum. But midway into the counting, it became clear that Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were running neck-to-neck, with Romney having a narrow lead. In the end, Mitt Romney won the Iowa caucus by the narrowest of margins - 8 votes! Ron Paul finished in 3rd place – not a bad showing for a man who is not even a Republican :) The narrow margin has spawned rumours of errors in the caucus tally, but Santorum has shrugged off any such rumours, saying that the race was essentially a tie.
History:
The Iowa caucus rules are a bit complicated to understand, with Business Insider claiming that Ron Paul May Have Just Secretly Won Iowa (in spite of his 3rd place finish). However, the official news is that the 25 delegates will be split 13-12 b/w Romney and Santorum. But in spite of all technicalities, the Iowa caucus is more about momentum, planning and strategy. The states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, all have a sizeable Republican support, and their demographic mirrors that at the national level. Hence those with a good showing in these three states would lend credibility to the candidate in the remaining races. For example, the results of the 2008 primaries in these three states were as follows:
S.No. | Iowa | New Hampshire |
1 | Mike Huckabee (34%) | John McCain (37%) |
2 | Mitt Romney (25%) | Mitt Romney (31%) |
3 | Fred Thompson (13%) | Mike Huckabee (11%) |
4 | John McCain (13%) | Rudy Giuliani (9%) |
5 | Ron Paul (10%) | Ron Paul (8%) |
6 | Rudy Giuliani (4%) | Fred Thompson (1%) |
7 | Duncan Hunter (1%) | Duncan Hunter (1%) |
S.No. | South Carolina | Nevada (same date as South Carolina) |
1 | John McCain (33.15%) | Mitt Romney (51.1%) |
2 | Mike Huckabee (29.84%) | Ron Paul (13.73%) |
3 | Fred Thompson (15.63%) | John McCain (12.75%) |
4 | Mitt Romney (15.3%) | Mike Huckabee (8.16%) |
5 | Ron Paul (3.62%) | Fred Thompson (7.94%) |
6 | Rudy Giuliani (2.15%) | Rudy Giuliani (4.31%) |
7 | Duncan Hunter (0.24%) | Duncan Hunter (2.01%) |
You can see that John McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee had the initial momentum (or using McCain’s language – “the surge”) in the race with a consistent top-4 showing. Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter and Rudy Giuliani withdrew after the initial primaries (around 8 were conducted in January, 2008). After February 7th, 2008, which was a super Tuesday (or a Tsunami Thursday) when more than 20 states had their primaries, Mitt Romney also gave up on the nomination because of the surge of McCain. After a month, even Mike Huckabee had to give up, as McCain clinched the nomination quite easily.
Implications:
After the initial showing in Iowa, Michelle Bachmann has quit the race, and Rick Perry had given up too, for a few hours! After saying that he would go back to Texas to “reassess” his campaign, Perry announced that he is still in the race! However, he’s concentrating a lot on South Carolina, and will be in New Hampshire for just two debates scheduled to be held before the primaries. Jon Huntsman was never in the reckoning for Iowa, as he had concentrated on New Hampshire form the very beginning. Newt is looking pretty good, but I am not sure how much of a dent he can make on Romney’s chances.
My take: The main problem lies with the voters in the bible-belt and the Christian conservatives. They want a “anyone but Romney” candidate, the way they wanted last time in 2008 (as Mitt and McCain are more centrists than rightists, hence Huckabee stayed in the race for a long time). But just like last time, they are not able to reach a compromise. Their votes will be split 3-way b/w Bachmann, Santorum and Newt, and Romney might just slide through in the larger picture. Too early to tell anyways.
In other news, the former contender Herman Cain had returned to Iowa. Not for campaigning, just looking for ass !!! (so sayd Mohit) J
Ciao for now J
Varun Reddy.
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