The Benefit of Distance

I saw the returns from the Iowa caucuses in Cartegena, Colombia. They were shown on Fox News which appears to be the new face of American media news around the world. I missed all of the last minute hype about the voting, however, so it enabled me to look at the results without being enmeshed in the day to day changes. Four things stand out:

1) Romney won in Iowa. This was not supposed to happen. All year long first one then another of the Republican candidates topped Romney in Iowa polls. But, in the end, Mitt pulled it out. The key here is not so much that Romney won, but that no one else beat him. In my view, this result makes a Romney victory for the nomination much more likely than before.

2) Ron Paul began to sink. Paul's domestic positions are simplistic and his foreign policy is naive and dangerous in my opinion. Nevertheless, he managed to catch on an come in third in Iowa. The state was particularly well set up for Dr. Paul. Since it was a caucus, the commitment of supporters was important, and the Paulite crowd certainly has a strong commitment to their candidate. Large numbers of college kids came out as well. Even so, Paul could not break above 3rd. My guess is that this will be Paul's best finish in 2012.

3) Rick Santorum came out of nowhere to lose by 8 votes. That is a win, a big win for the former Pennsylvania senator. Santorum, however, is another candidate whose candidacy was tailored to Iowa. My guess is that it will not play as well in New Hampshire or even South Carolina. Also, Santorum managed to be the only major candidate whose record was really never examined closely. Once that review takes place, we can expect to see Santorum fall back just like all the others.

4)Bachmann and Perry should drop out. They lost, and they lost BIG. Perry might be able to try again in South Carolina, but Bachmann will never have another state that will be as well situated for her as Iowa. She was born and raised there, after all.

Gingrich will limp into New Hampshire, but he should do better there than he did in Iowa. The Union Leader will see to that. The real question for Newt is whether or not the avalanche of negative attacks against him from Romney's allies in the PACs will stop or abate a bit.