Iowa Caucus day. I can't tell you how jazzed I am. I don't have a whole lot to say so far that hasn't been said elsewhere, so I'll just link to some of the better recent posts. But I will post this recent polling chart, noting that the Ron Paul wave has probably already crested and that Santorum probably timed his wave about as well as possible... maybe just a few days too late.
Not that he really did anything to cause this wave to happen, or course. Near as I can tell, Santorum's been saying and doing roughly the same things for months. I saw him briefly interviewed on Fox last night, where he was asked why he's been rising in the polls. He didn't know. That's not a dig on Santorum. It's just a sign that what's going on out there has very little to do with the candidates' actions and a great deal to do with voters and activists still desperately seeking a conservative alternative to Romney. It also reminds us that if the anti-Romney activists could somehow unite on a single candidate, they could probably win this thing. But we've seen little evidence that they're capable of doing that with the given field of candidates.
Anyway...
Brendan Nyhan has a nice piece on the media's role in creating a post-Iowa narrative.
John Sides and Lynn Vavreck (reporting live from Iowa!) offer some evidence that the Iowa caucuses are actually pretty representative of the state.
Josh Marshall watches the GOP establishment crush Gingrich and becomes a convert to The Party Decides (even if he doesn't mention it by name).
Eitan Hersh finds that caucus goers aren't really different from primary voters in terms of ideology, but they do tend to be more passionate about community activism.
Brendan Loy: "In the future, everyone will have 15 minutes of being the Anti-Romney."
Think Iowans are a bunch of hicks? Think again:
1 comment:
Robert
said...
So, I haven't read this kind of commentary or analysis in big media yet, but I don't see how you read the Iowa results any other way than that it makes Romney's nomination inevitable. After the campaign to date was nothing if not a deathless search for a viable Romney alternative, in the state that was the least favorable ground for him to fight on, he won. If he could win under those circumstances, there's nothing to stop him. He can write his convention speech now.
1 comment:
So, I haven't read this kind of commentary or analysis in big media yet, but I don't see how you read the Iowa results any other way than that it makes Romney's nomination inevitable. After the campaign to date was nothing if not a deathless search for a viable Romney alternative, in the state that was the least favorable ground for him to fight on, he won. If he could win under those circumstances, there's nothing to stop him. He can write his convention speech now.
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