Jon Huntsman recently said that Iowa picks corn, not Presidents. It was a dumb thing to say. However, since he was already running last in Iowa, it probably doesn’t matter. He is right in that Iowa doesn’t necessarily decide who will be President, but Iowa often does decide who will not. As Dick Morris said recently, Iowa is the biggest political graveyard in the world. No one may really win in Iowa, but someone is almost certain to lose.
Most polls show Romney at or near the top. The most significant change has been with Gingrich, who is falling like a stone. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Gingrich drop down to fifth. That would be a disastrous result for him. If he stays in the top three, or even a strong fourth, he can continue for at least a while, but if he finishes below both Perry and Santorum he will be in serious trouble.
(Note: today Gingrich cried while discussing his deceased mother, and then floated the idea of Sarah Palin as VP. This looks pretty desperate to me.)
Ron Paul is also dropping in the polls. For a long time it looked like he might even win Iowa. He still might do very well, because his support is rock solid, but he is finished as a candidate for the Republican nomination. His isolationist views on Iran are even to the left of Obama. When you get schooled on manhood, by Michelle Bachmann, you’ve got a problem.
Michelle Bachmann appears to be fading away. Unless something changes she is going to finish fifth or sixth, barely edging out Huntsman. Since she won the straw poll last fall and since she has invested all of her time and effort in Iowa, she has to do very well there to continue. I don’t think that is very likely.
That leaves Perry and Santorum who are both surging in the polls, at the expense of Gingrich, Paul and Bachmann. This is likely to be an interesting result. They say there are three tickets out of Iowa: first class, coach and standby. This year that may change. Romney will probably get the first class ticket. But Ron Paul, who is likely to come in first or second, won’t benefit much even if he wins. It really doesn’t matter what happens in Iowa, because Ron Paul is a fatally flawed candidate.
That means Santorum and Perry will probably finish third and fourth, without much margin between them. Santorum needs this more than Perry, primarily because he has zero money. Perry doesn’t need to win; he just needs to show a pulse. But if they finish third and fourth, it will really be viewed as finishing second and third, because Paul doesn’t matter anymore. I think both would get a coach ticket out of Iowa.
At that point it could become a two man race for the non-Romney position. In such a race, Perry would have an enormous advantage. The reason is that Perry has already taken the hits and he is still somewhat upright, but everyone has ignored Santorum. Santorum was hammered with negatives during his 2006 re-election campaign, which is why he lost. If he has a strong showing in Iowa, the first impact will be a major assault by opponents in both parties. It won’t be pretty.
Perry, on the other hand, has already been tested. The Republican Establishment tried to take him on in Texas by running Kaye Bailey Hutchison against him in the Republican Primary for governor. Then the Texas Democrats tried to take him on during the general election. Please keep in mind that George W. Bush was the first Governor in the history of Texas to be elected to two consecutive four year terms. Rick Perry was the second. He has now been elected to three consecutive four year terms. Opponents have been trying to dig up dirt, unsuccessfully, on Perry for years.
The Republican establishment is afraid of Rick Perry, because he is not part of the cultured elite. They don’t fear another George Bush as much as they fear another Goldwater. What they fail to realize is that no other Republican would have done any better against Johnson in 1964. Lyndon Johnson took over from Kennedy in November of 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated. He was still in the “honeymoon” period during the 1964 election. In addition, we had the “Gulf of Tonkin” incidents on August 2 and August 4, 1964. On August 7, 1964, Johnson asked congress to pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which unleashed the Vietnam War. At a minimum this was awfully convenient for Johnson who was being hammered by Goldwater as being too soft on national security. Once congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which Goldwater had to support, Johnson coasted to election.
The Republican establishment firmly believes that a candidate running for election with strong conservative principles is doomed to a Goldwater like defeat. Reagan proved them wrong, but just like the Global Warming Alarmists, true believers are seldom distracted by inconvenient facts. They actually believe Reagan won in spite of his conservative positions. They are wrong. He won because of his conservative principles.
I think both the Obama administration and the Republican establishment are terrified of Rick Perry. He is a real threat to the establishment in both political parties. This year I believe the American people are fed up with both parties. Usually, when a candidate says he or she is not part of the political establishment, they are lying. In Rick Perry’s case he is definitely part of the Texas political establishment, but he is not part of the Washington establishment.
Ron Paul is doing well because he is playing the role of an angry man promising real change. Paul cannot win this election, but the country is still desperate for an angry man who looks ready, willing and able to really change things. I have a dream of Rick Perry going around the country saying: “I’m mad as hell at all of them and I’m not going to take it anymore.” If that happens, he just might run the political table. A lot of pundits view Perry as a weak candidate with little chance of winning. I disagree. I think Perry just may turn out to be a Super Star. The question is whether or not we will get the chance to find out. We may be less than 100 hours from getting that question answered.
TDM