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It was easy to imagine Mitt Romney winning the Iowa caucuses. It was harder to imagine Romney winning Iowa and looking weaker at the same time.
And yet, that seems to be a fairly reasonable assessment of the race for the Republican presidential nomination this morning. As of about 2:30 a.m. eastern, the official results were released, and Romney eked out an eight-vote win over Rick Santorum, 30,015 to 30,007 — a difference of about one-tenth of one percent* — in the closest Iowa caucus ever.
Romney staffers and supporters were quick to say, “A win is a win.” There’s clearly some truth to that; Romney fought hard to come out on top in Iowa and he (just barely) succeeded. But in sports, when folks say “a win is a win,” they’re generally talking about a contest in which the victor won an ugly fight and the winner doesn’t look all that impressive afterwards.
In this case, that clearly applies to Romney. Consider this brief timeline of events:
2007: Romney runs aggressively in Iowa, invests millions, and expects to win.
2008: Romney ends up with 25.2% of the vote in a six-candidate field.
2009: Romney launches a four-year presidential campaign.
2011: Romney runs aggressively in Iowa, invests millions, and expects to win.
2012: Romney ends up with 24.5% of the vote in a six-candidate field.
Yes, the votes were tallied and the former one-term governor gets the bragging rights, but therein lies the point: there’s not much for Romney to boast about here. After five years of near-constant campaigning, Romney managed to get fewer votes in Iowa last night than he did in his first campaign. He also picked up the dubious honor of the weakest win in the history of the caucuses — no victor has ever managed to finish first with less than 25% of the vote until last night.
After spending nearly $4.7 million, most of it towards the very end of the contest, these are not results Romney should be proud of.
Santorum, meanwhile, comes out of the Hawkeye State with a long-sought title: the anti-Romney. Whereas Romney’s trajectory is underwhelming and reinforces doubts about his limited appeal, the former Pennsylvania senator closed stronger than anyone thought possible, and leaves Iowa with undeniable momentum, and a compelling pitch to GOP voters who don’t want to vote for a dishonest flip-flopper who only discovered his right-wing beliefs when pollsters told him it would advance his ambitions.
As John Dickerson put it:
Though the top two candidates tied, Santorum was the big winner. Weeks ago, the smart people thought that tonight he’d be addressing an empty ballroom of lonely, sad balloons. Instead, the crowd at his victory party is so thick I’ve practically got supporters on my lap as I type this. Santorum is now the only Flavor of the Week candidate to actually win anything, which makes him a genuine threat to Romney, at least for the moment.
When Santorum declared to his packed ballroom, “Game on!” it set the stage for a two-person contest going forward.
The smart money still says Romney is the frontrunner for the nomination, though largely by default. That said, much like the 1992 New Hampshire primaries, it’s the second-place finisher with the widest smile.
* Update: To clarify, reader N.L. reminds me that many media outlets are showing the difference as 0.1%, but that’s misleading. It’s actually closer to 0.007%.
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withay on January 04, 2012 8:10 AM:
Romney's 25.2% in 2008 was with 30,021 votes; he got six fewer in 2012, and 24.5%.
hells littlest angel on January 04, 2012 8:12 AM:
Bumper sticker I'd like to see:
President Santorum. Roll that around on your tongue.
c u n d gulag on January 04, 2012 8:13 AM:
So, for right now, it looks like it's Icky Sticky Rickey v. The Liar.
Poor Google Boy, if that Winter Baseball team he sponsored hadn't gotten stuck in traffic behind a pig truck on a two-lane highway, he'd have won in Iowa!
Yawn...
I'll miss Ol' "Oops" Perry, and "The Gal With the Faraway Look in Her Eyes" if they drop out.
But I hope Newtster stays in, because when that fat-boy gets his teeth in something, like Mitt's ability to lie on cue, he can be like a pit bull on a femur.
Let's hope Newt keeps talking about Mitt's Lie-ability.
Because, that may = an Obama win.
I can already hear the crunch!
Danp on January 04, 2012 8:16 AM:
Well, this ought to shut up all those nay-sayers who insisted no amount of money could push Romney over his 23% ceiling.
The big winner of the night, however, was Bob Vander Plaats, who proved that his endorsement is as powerful as any multi-million dollar campaign. And it's a bit cheaper. While conventional wisdom suggests that Santorum doesn't have the organization or the money to compete elsewhere, I think that will change once Perry, Bachmann and Gingrich drop out. Then again, Santorum's campaign can't withstand a ray of sunshine any more than Cain, Perry, Gingrich, Paul or Bachmann.
bignose on January 04, 2012 8:17 AM:
It may be a two person race, as Perry and Bachmann seem set to drop out...
But wait - Newt made some noise about staying in and keeping the "other candidates" honest, and you know he's not talking about Santorum. Now, Newt is not going to win the nod, but he's the best debator in the field, people listen to him (In the media, anyway, because he's wonky), and he has the potential to do some serious damage to Mitt.
square1 on January 04, 2012 8:17 AM:
The bottom line is the bottom line: somebody has to win this thing and it ain't gonna be Rick "frothy" Santorum. As usual, Mitt Romney wins by not losing.
DAY on January 04, 2012 8:19 AM:
I hear turnout was 126,000 vs 133,000 four years ago.
Analysis, please.
sick-n-effn-tired. on January 04, 2012 8:21 AM:
30000 @ 4.7 mil . About $150.00 per vote . He should have just sent checks directly instead.
Obscene does not begin to describe when that kind of money is unleashed on four hundredths of one percent of the population.
One thing though , Perry and Bachman proved that you can in fact be too stupid or too crazy to run for president
walt on January 04, 2012 8:21 AM:
Romney won the nomination by eight votes. He could have lost last night by 8,000 and still won. The problem for the GOP is that there is no other candidate with the resources, organization, and party support of Romney. Santorum is a bad-taste joke, Gingrich an hysterical self-dramatizer, and Ron Paul leads a bizarre personality cult.
Santorum will flame out fairly quickly since he's not personally appealing like Huckabee was. For Democrats, let's hope Gingrich rips Romney apart in the coming weeks. My suspicion is that the media will cover for Romney but someone has to tell the story of the least authentic man in modern American politics.
57andFemale on January 04, 2012 8:22 AM:
Do I remember correctly? hadn't Mittens written off all expectations for IA until a few weeks ago? (Even though he had practically moved his entire mansion to the state, he never thought he could win IA. His hatred of Gingrich ramped up his campaign).
So let me see if I get this straight: Romney decided to win IA when CW said that some evangelical nut was going to win anyway. Romney himself changed the expectations, spent huge sums of money to defeat Newt and proved one thing: 75% of Republican voters prefer the next damn near anyone to him.
Game on!
theAmericanist on January 04, 2012 8:22 AM:
Day: the answer is negative ads.
The purpose of third party negative advertising is to discourage voters from choosing the target, not to persuade them to support someone else.
Anonymous on January 04, 2012 8:23 AM:
DanP, I think the result of a Santorum soar is what Vander Plaats will crow about. As they say, timing is everything, and with the Santorum surge, it was a matter if IA not having enough time to unLove Santorum. He was the flavor du jour in the line of Not Romneys.
MsJoanne
hells littlest angel on January 04, 2012 8:29 AM:
Day: I've discussed this difference in turnout with a number of experts in the field, and the consensus is that this difference amounts to about 7,000, plus or minus the margin of error.
Jeff In Ohio on January 04, 2012 8:43 AM:
Romney was never invested in a ground game in Iowa. To say he ran aggressively therein 2011 is a stretch. He (and his pac) poured a lot of cash into ads to damage Newt and marginalize his other opponent and that's all. He only looks like a loser because he set himself up at the winner.
Santorum invested heavily in the ground game, as he had no money to run ads and he has no money going forward. He has no chance, he can win his own state for gods sake.
The real loser in Iowa is Paul and all the shrill progressives (Greenwald/Firebaggers( and 'thinking' conservatives (Sullivan) who embraced his isolationist bullshit and tried to pass it off as a contrast to Obama's 'warmongering'. Give me a fucking break. Paul invested both a lot of money and shoe leather in Iowa and got paid back with a bunch of college students with new copies of Atlas Shrugs, negative national press and a social media onslaught driven by the tinfoil hat brigade and Stormfront.
too ashamed of myself on January 04, 2012 8:47 AM:
Headline: "Tea Baggers squeeze Santorum into #2"
Cal State Disneyland on January 04, 2012 8:55 AM:
What sense like a weakness in the primaries is a strength in the general election. Namely, that Romney is too moderate.
Romney will be the nominee, the 75% who won't vote for him now will do so in the general election. And he will have the added bonus of having appeared too moderate to the Tea Party base, which will appeal to the independents.
square1 on January 04, 2012 8:56 AM:
For 30+ years, the GOP has existed as a coalition of 3 factions: a corporate wing, a White evangelical wing, and a libertarian wing. These factions are often hidden because members of each often use the same language.
The Iowa contest revealed little other than each faction has a preferred candidate: Corporate, Romney; evangeligal, Santorum; libertarian, Paul.
The corporate wing is far and away the most powerful, with the libertarians bringing up the rear.
My sense is that ANY GOP candidate is going to have a hard time holding the coalition together because the evangelicals are catching on that the corporate-types are blowing up the economy, and the libertarians are figuring out that the other two factions don't give a crap about small government.
Romney will have an extra hard time because the evangelicals don't trust a mormon and Romney has never shown any serious inclination towards principled, small-government libertarianism.
But you can't prove or disprove whether Romney will be able to hold the coalition together by looking at the Iowa results. Steve Benen tries to make hay out of the fact that Romney got slightly fewer votes than he did in 2008. But that is really irrelevant. The only question that is important is whether, after Romney wins the nomination, the Paul and Santorum voters will come out and vote for him. And you can't get the answer to that question by looking at the Iowa numbers.
c u n d gulag on January 04, 2012 8:58 AM:
Santorum could have gotten himself a few more votes in future primaries by going for the ever-critical Sherlock Holmes fans in the electorate by saying, "The game is afoot!"
T2 on January 04, 2012 9:04 AM:
A quite crazy man, Rick Santorum. A guy so crazy that he DID NOT win reelection in his own state of Pennsylvania. Maybe he should have run in Transylvania. But in Iowa, he's a winner. So it's Crazy vs. Flip-Flopping Liar for the GOP nod.
And Herman Cain......Herman Cain got 58 votes. Not 5800, not 58,000. Just 58. When I said weeks back that the GOP wouldn't vote for a black guy, I meant it. One wonders what would have happened if that legion of harassed women had chosen to stay quiet?
berttheclock on January 04, 2012 9:08 AM:
"The game is afoot" Perhaps, he could have garnered a few more votes around the University of Iowa's excellent writing department. Of course, he would have had to soften his homophoebic remarks. But, the irony to me is that Paul garnered support from those young students of Iowa State, who ravish the idea of "individualism" at a university which is bought and paid for by Big Ag corporations.
SadOldVet on January 04, 2012 9:08 AM:
The smart money still says Romney is the frontrunner for the nomination, though largely by default.
I beg to differ on this evaluation!
The smart money still says Romney is the frontrunner for the nomination, though largely by untraceable super-pac money.
Question 1) How much untraceable corporate money went into Iowa?
Question 2) How much untraceable corporate money will go into buying the nomination for Mittens?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Question 3) How much of that untraceable corporate money is coming from Wall Street?
Question 4) How much of that untraceable corporate money is coming from the oil and coal industries?
Question 5) How much of that untraceable corporate money is coming from sources external to the United States?
Welcome to the wonderful world of post Citizens United Not Timid (C.U.N.T.) vs FEC!!!
Anonymous on January 04, 2012 9:09 AM:
DAY on January 04, 2012 8:19 AM:I hear turnout was 126,000 vs 133,000 four years ago.Analysis, please.
This is just further evidence that Obama really is a Kenyan witch doctor. Despite the clear hatred all Republicans have for him, he was able to reduce the number of those feeling strongly enough to come out and select his eventual opponent, and he did it without using a raging snowstorm or other extreme meteorological event.
you are welcome
johnny canuck on January 04, 2012 9:11 AM:
Anonymous on January 04, 2012 9:09 AM was me, but captcha was so intimidating i forgot to identify myself.
jayackroyd on January 04, 2012 9:24 AM:
I really don't think "winning" is the right word. Iowa's not a winner take all primary. The idea that Romney "won" is a misapplication of the horserace metaphor; Romney's "purse" is no bigger than Santorum's. "Dead heat" is a more appropriate horserace metaphor, where the purses are split.
Sgt. Gym Bunny on January 04, 2012 9:27 AM:
So the GOP competition is between two outta work Republicans, one who was booted out of the Senate, the other who never could get into the Senate... hmmm... Good Luck! (Which is all the more abominable that one sitting Senator and another sitting Representative couldn't muster any gusto against either of these two certified losers.)
Anywho, I don't see Ricky appealing to anything more than church lady wing of the GOP. He comes off as a bit too dweeby for the uber-masculine guns-n-military brass and corporate swindlers. I saw him on Meet the Press this Sunday, and he looked a little too big for his breeches talking about his amazingly silly foreign policy platform...
chi res on January 04, 2012 9:27 AM:
GO RON PAUL (you confederate bastard)!!
Stay alive long enough to make Mitt spend bunches and bunches of money! Soak that f'n PAC for millions!
Hedda Peraz on January 04, 2012 9:31 AM:
@berttheclock:
Even University of Iowa sophomores are sophomoric.
to paraphrase Dorothy Parker, "If all the students who read Ayn Rand were laid end to end, I wouldn't be surprised."
tomb on January 04, 2012 10:33 AM:
Santorum is now the only Flavor of the Week candidate to actually win anything
I think the proper way to spell the phrase is:
"The Flavor of the Weak"
dj spellchecka on January 04, 2012 10:35 AM:
@sadoldvet...if you click on the words "spending nearly $4.7 million" in steve's post you'll see that half of mitt's iowa money came from super pacs..
as for known donors, here's mitt's top 5:
Goldman Sachs: $367,200
Credit Suisse Group: $203,750
Morgan Stanley: $199,800
HIG Capital: $186,500
Barclays: $157,750
stinger on January 04, 2012 10:37 AM:
Talking head this morning: "Romney surged to a strong finish... tied with Santorum for first" with no hint of irony.
@johnny canuck: good one!
I hate Captcha.
exlibra on January 04, 2012 11:38 AM:
Maybe Santorum should have tried harder to get himself on the ballot in Ole Viginny.
Rick Massimo on January 04, 2012 11:42 AM:
Astute analysis, but please don't use "Santorum" and "Flavor of the Week" in the same sentence ever agin. Please.
William Eaton on January 04, 2012 12:44 PM:
Santorum is the flavor of the month?? (laughs at self)
Mike on January 05, 2012 7:32 PM:
http://theleastobviousanswer.blogspot.com/2012/01/vampiric-mitt-to-win-nh.html