It was by all accounts, a squeaker

The GOP caucuses in Iowa yesterday were unbelievably close.  Romney won with 30,015 votes (24.6%) and Rick Santorum came in second, a mere 8 vote back, with 30,007 (24.5%).  Ron Paul came in third with 26,219 (21.4%) and Newt Gingrich was fourth with 16,251 (13.3%).  Everything pretty much went according to expectations as far as who the top four were, although the exact positions and the closeness of the top two were a surprise - to me at least. I thought Santorum had enough momentum to overtake both Paul and Romney, even though he was still well behind the two in the polling averages at RCP in the last week. Boy was I close - off by 8, or rather 9, votes.  I also thought Ron Paul would drop off further than he did and would place fourth behind Gingrich, who I thought would perform a few percentage points better than he did (I was thinking 15% to 16%).

Part 2a - GOP primaries – The Wildcards

Matrix-like: There is no spoon.

NOTE: This is a continuation from Part 1.

There are three big wild cards in the GOP presidential nomination race, and one minor wild card. The three big wild cards include two personalities not in the race – Donald Trump, and Sarah Palin. The in-the-race wild card is Ron Paul and the minor wild card, also in the race, is Rick Santorum. 

Each of those four individuals has some concrete or at least a potential part to play in this election cycle. Each one has the potential to make a significant difference or to be a non-factor depending on what they decide to do. A look at what they bring to the process is in order.

Part 1 - GOP primaries – after Iowa, what next?

Spoilers alert.

The Iowa primary race is a watershed moment for the GOP presidential race. Right now the possible paths, even knowing the likely outcomes of the Iowa caucuses are too numerous to contemplate. But if we winnow it down to a number of possible first stage results, some of the likely consequences and next steps can be extrapolated.

The likely outcomes of Iowa based on polling are possible to narrow down. The polling could result in a number of different Iowa winners, despite the decidedly large number of undecided Iowans. To simplify, let’s narrow the field into two buckets – Top 4 finishers, and Also-rans. Perhaps a bit harsh, but this is politics, so there’s no need to couch the wording in niceties.

RWN - John Hawkins' Case For Newt Gingrich

Right Wing News

John Hawkins makes the case for Gingrich over at Right Wing News; My Final Short & Sweet Case For Newt Gingrich. Despite Newt's obvious shortcomings, I agree with John Hawkins - Newt has a number of things in his favor and I am leaning towards Gingrich. He's a better choice than Mitt Romney and despite everything you hear, he's quite electable. As for the rest of the GOP field, there are great qualities in many of the candidates and if it were a three or four way race, I'd be less inclined towards Newt and more towards being undecided. But I don't think any other candidate has the potential sustainability plus polling to go head-to-head with Mitt for the whole of the primaries. John Hawkins makes that his very first point in his case for Newt.

I've always been a fan of Right Wing News, but I have to say, I'm very happy to be in synch with Mr. Hawkins in this case. Not to mention Thomas Sowell and Art Laffer.  I'm in quality company.

The shape of things to come

Things are sort of in hold-mode now for me with the Iowa caucuses tomorrow being the starting gun of the race while everything up to now has been stretching exercises for the marathon to come.  I'll feel a little more confident about the shape of the race once it starts.  In the coming weeks I'll take a look at the shape of the race, the implications of the primary race on the overall race. Right now all the speculation adds little value to the chronology, even if it is fun to watch.

Nonsensible Shoes will also be back to a more regular posting schedule starting tomorrow - unless of course I win a lottery in the meantime...

The march is on

The day after tomorrow the Iowa caucus kicks off the primary season for the 2012 presidential election.  It's the start of an almost year long march towards the election.  Less important than the implications of that march are the predictions of who might eventually win.  While I intend to look at the overall implications of the race this month, let's start with something less meaningful, since it's less effort on a January 1st morning.