.
Mitt Romney won his anticipated victory in the Iowa
Straw Poll, with 32 percent and 4,500 votes, but fell
short of expectations. Ex-Gov.
Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, with 18 percent, exceeded
them, and is the man of the hour to the political press.
The results from Ames, and South Carolina`s decision
to move its primary to Jan. 19, are fraught with portent
for the GOP and the party`s hopes of holding the White
House.
First, the turnout at Ames, with 14,000 voting, was
modest, in comparison to 1999, when George Bush finished
first with 7,500 votes out of 23,000 cast.
The diminished turnout suggests the GOP is not as
hungry as it was when Bill Clinton was ending his second
term, or as excited as it was about its candidates or
prospects.
Second, the 18 percent showing by Huckabee and the 15
percent by Sen. Sam Brownback mean both will be in the
race to January. And, as both are strong social
conservatives competing for the
pro-life and
Christian vote, both will be jostling each other—and
both will be
tearing down Mitt Romney`s credentials as a social
conservative.
That Huckabee came in a strong second and Brownback a
close third, however, is not bad news for Mitt. It means
both will be in the race until January, and neither can
wholly unite pro-life and Christian voters against him.
As they split the vote in Ames, they will likely split
it in January, to Romney`s benefit.
There is other good news for Romney in the returns
from Ames. Because his victory was not overwhelming,
because Huckabee made a strong showing, the Iowa
race—with its prospect of an upset—becomes far more
interesting to the national and world press.
Here is where the new calendar comes in.
As South Carolina has moved its primary to Jan. 19,
New Hampshire will move up to Jan. 12 or before, and
Iowa, which has said it will hold the caucuses in the
new year, will thus have to hold them in the first week
and perhaps the first few days of January.
This means the national and world press, a day after
Christmas, will be heading for Iowa and camping out to
cover the GOP race, as well as the Clinton-Obama-Edwards
showdown that same day.
Especially if the GOP race appears close, the
coverage of the candidates—particularly Romney and
Huckabee—will be intense. Left out of that coverage will
be any GOP candidate not competing in Iowa.
Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and
Fred Thompson each thus face a major dilemma and
crucial decision. Given their pathetic showings at the
straw poll, where their names were on the ballot but
they did not speak, if they contest Iowa, they will have
to spend time, energy and money even to be competitive.
And they would risk a third- or fourth-place finish. But
if they skip Iowa, they could face a media blackout for
the 10 days between Christmas and the caucuses, while
Romney and the rest in Iowa are all over the national
news.
If all three wait in
New Hampshire, all three could be in the dark until
the news from Des Moines rolls over the country and
propels the winner of the caucuses to the forefront in
New Hampshire.
Moreover, South Carolina, by tightening the schedule
and pushing Iowa and New Hampshire closer to New Year`s
Day, and crowding them closer together, increases the
momentum value of an Iowa victory.
Perhaps the best hope McCain, Thompson and Giuliani
have of stopping Romney is to have Huckabee or Brownback
defeat him in Iowa. And the surest way to do that would
be for Brownback or Huckabee to drop out and stop
splitting the social conservative vote.
But given the strong performance of both, that
appears unlikely.
Bottom line: The front-runners, Thompson and Giuliani,
and McCain have left their destiny in other hands. If
none of them is going to contest Iowa, and try to take
Romney down there, all have a vital interest in helping
Huckabee or Brownback tarnish a Romney victory with a
strong finish, or defeat him in Iowa, which might finish
him. For today it does not look like any of the
three—Thompson, Giuliani or McCain, who ran seventh,
eighth and 10th—can do it themselves.
For the front-runners, this would be the best of all
possible worlds. For even if Brownback or Huckabee
emerged with the moral victory in Iowa, neither has the
resources for a national campaign, though the checks
would pour in, in the event of an Iowa victory.
All of which raises an interesting question.
Did Romney hold down the score at Ames to make the
race more exciting, to give a victory there in January
greater drama, perhaps to lure Giuliani or Thompson or
McCain or Newt Gingrich back into the state, where in
that country of the Sioux, he could scalp them all?
The Republican race has suddenly gotten more
interesting. The Iowa Straw Poll has a way of doing
that.
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Patrick J. Buchanan needs
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State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and
Conquest of America,
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