Tuesday, January 3, 2012

The race for 2012 begins tonight

After months and months and months of GOP campaigning and debates, and a constantly changing slate of front-runners, the moment has arrived. Tonight is the Iowa Caucus, the official kick-off for the race to determine who the 2012 Republican nominee will be. I'm already worn out.
The race boils down to three factions fighting for the top spot in Iowa and the big 'mo that follows: the establishment pick (Mitt Romney), the outsider (Ron Paul) and the evangelical standard-bearer (?). As of today, it's being reported that some 40 percent of (mostly evangelical) voters are still undecided. With that big a number of undecideds, it's just about impossible to say who the top tier going into New Hampshire will be.
Conventional wisdom and polls now say former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (Flavor #5) has a strong shot at landing in the top 3 tonight. It's possible. He's put more time and effort into winning over Iowa's electorate, especially its social conservatives than any other candidate, save Ron Paul. And Iowa is known for picking religious fundamentalists with no real shot. If Santorum doesn't come in third place, at least, he's done.
It looks like it will be a showdown between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, with the former holding a very slight lead in the polls. However, Paul's support could be underrated because many of his supporters use cell phones and aren't polled as much as older voters with landlines.
The big question is who will evangelicals support? Will they go for Santorum, who has no money and no game beyond Iowa? Will God bestow a real live miracle on Michele Bachmann's crashing campaign and keep her in the game to New Hampshire? Or will these voters coalesce around Rick Perry (who does have the machine and money to get through to Super Tuesday)?
And then there's Newt Gingrich (Flavor #4)... no matter where he winds up in tonight's total, he won't drop out. He's got books to sell and big-money speeches to make; and being a candidate gives him a spotlight PR money can't buy. He's also still, for whatever reason, polling high in states like South Carolina and Florida. Tonight could change that, though, if he fails to crack the top 4.
I predict Paul will win the Iowa Caucus with Romney coming in second. I also predict Perry will beat expectations and come in third or fourth. With an unfriendly SC primary looming, that would be Romney's biggest nightmare.

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