A Santorum surge from the rear
The final tally from Iowa was Romney 30,015, Santorum 30,007. The champion of the Sane faction of Republicans won by just eight votes over the most theocratic and anti-gay candidate in the field, a man with an underfunded campaign, who lost his last Senate race by 18 points, and who's barely registered in the polls until now.
Ron Paul got 26,219 votes. Add that plus the votes for Perry and Bachmann to Santorum's figure (plus the 58 votes for Cain -- some people really aren't following the news), and the total for the Nutty faction is 74,961, almost two and a half times Romney's number.
Santorum is just the latest not-Romney to surge forth as flavor-of- the-month for the Nutties, of course. Like his predecessors he will likely sink in the polls as he becomes better known (I suspect many fundies don't yet realize that he's Catholic, a religion the Chick-tract wing of fundamentalism considers practically a form of Satanism). But there is clearly a vast chorus of Republicans out there pleading, please, please, anybody but the Sane guy. What's next? A Palin write-in campaign? A draft-O'Donnell movement? I hear David Duke is free. The Republican party has a huge problem here, even if somewhat masked by the fact that the Nutty vote is still divided among several candidates.
Ron Paul got 26,219 votes. Add that plus the votes for Perry and Bachmann to Santorum's figure (plus the 58 votes for Cain -- some people really aren't following the news), and the total for the Nutty faction is 74,961, almost two and a half times Romney's number.
Santorum is just the latest not-Romney to surge forth as flavor-of- the-month for the Nutties, of course. Like his predecessors he will likely sink in the polls as he becomes better known (I suspect many fundies don't yet realize that he's Catholic, a religion the Chick-tract wing of fundamentalism considers practically a form of Satanism). But there is clearly a vast chorus of Republicans out there pleading, please, please, anybody but the Sane guy. What's next? A Palin write-in campaign? A draft-O'Donnell movement? I hear David Duke is free. The Republican party has a huge problem here, even if somewhat masked by the fact that the Nutty vote is still divided among several candidates.
posted by Infidel753 at 1:52 AM
7 Comments:
Four weeks ago I called Iowa for Romney. (Yes, I have a witness.) His win just shows what a good campaigner he is. Of course, he was dealing with absurd competitors in what appears to be an asylum (Iowa).
You left out Trump. Donald keeps telling everyone how rich and smart he is and how many black friends he has. A natural for the presidency.
Plus, his hair.
Infidel,
I'd be curious to know your take on my post over at Counting Cats on the utterly demented Rick Santorum.
Andy: The scary part is that he won by so little against such a field -- and that the combined loon vote was so much larger than his.
SK: Trump already had his own surge and fall, I think -- but if Perry can dream that the Nutties will come back to him in the end, I suppose Trump can as well.
I think Trump is more like Gingrich -- more a megalomaniac than a fanatic -- but not as bright and apparently even more ill-tempered.
NM: Thanks, I'll take a look.
One must remember that a caucus system, by its very nature, tends to encourage involvement by only the most enthusiastic, (fanatical), due to the amount of time spent in endless meetings, listening to endless speeches, etc. Even by Iowa standards, turnout is small, and we are also talking about rural America - less and less a significant feature in Presidential politics. Of course, we may also be witnessing the marginalization of the Republican Party into representing a Tea Party perspective, and little else.
Mendip: That's certainly true, and I had actually expected Paul to do even better in the caucuses for that reason. Unfortunately the Iowa results are fairly well in line with the overall trends in polling among Republican voters -- Romney's support has always been in the 20%-to-30% range, representing most of what I call the Sane faction, and he's only the front-runner because the Nutty faction -- making up most of the remainder -- divides its support among several candidates.
PS: Yes, I know I'm going to Hell for the post headline, but I probably was anyway:-)
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