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Jewish World Review Jan 6, 2012/ 11 Teves, 5772 Money --- it can be overrated By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
In the end, Iowans behaved responsibly. The two Republicans who would be most viable in the general election -- former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pa. Sen. Rick Santorum -- were first and second in a photo finish. Texas Rep. Ron Paul finished a disappointing third (21.4 percent) as his anti-military, anti-Israel, pro-Iranian foreign policy views became better known.
The conventional wisdom says there are "three tickets out of Iowa." This year, there may be only two. Rep Paul has zero chance of winning the nomination. Iowa was his high water mark. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (4th with 13.3 percent) will soldier on, but his hopes of winning the nomination are all but gone. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (5th with 10.3 percent), and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann (6th with 5.1 percent) are done, though Gov. Perry -- who's been slow on the uptake all campaign -- seems not to realize this yet.
And, according to the conventional wisdom, the results in Iowa make Mr. Romney a prohibitive favorite, thanks to his vastly superior financial and organizational resources.
"Money is the mother's milk of politics," famously said former California Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh. But it can be overrated. Mr. Romney spent $4.63 million on media advertising in Iowa; Mr. Santorum spent $618,000. Mr. Romney got 6 votes for each $1,000 spent on advertising. Mr. Santorum got 49.
For a prohibitive favorite, Mr. Romney is remarkably weak. He beat Mr. Santorum by only 8 votes, with the lowest percentage of the vote (24.6) of any Iowa caucus winner ever, slightly lower than he'd received in 2008 (25.2).
"I think there's one screaming huge story here tonight, and that is these Republicans just don't want to vote for Mitt Romney," Democratic operative James Carville said on CNN. "It's kind of like trying to give a dog a pill that keeps spitting it out."
Mr. Carville was spinning. But Mr. Romney rarely has scored more than 25 percent in national polls of Republicans. If the roughly 75 percent of Republicans who would prefer not to have Mr. Romney be their nominee coalesce around Mr. Santorum, his prospects will be much better than purveyors of the conventional wisdom assume.
Much depends on what Mr. Gingrich does. Thanks to his strong performance in debates, he rocketed to a big lead in the polls. But once his ample baggage was aired -- much of it in attack ads paid for by Mr. Romney -- he plummeted like a stone.
One of the oddest things about the campaign so far is that Mr. Romney, the frontrunner, has mostly been spared criticism by the other candidates. They've been too busy attacking each other to focus fire on him.
That's about to change. Mr. Gingrich is angry about the attack ads Mr. Romney ran against him, and is out for revenge. I doubt Newt can revive his fading candidacy. But if he goes into full attack mode, he could do Mr. Romney substantial harm.
Because few saw him as a contender until about a week before the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Santorum also escaped the proctological exam to which Mr. Gingrich has been subjected. This will change now.
His strong opposition to abortion and gay marriage make Mr. Santorum a bete noire for liberals. But these are not unpopular views among Republicans, though few share Mr. Santorum's intensity.
The most knowledgeable of the GOP candidates on national security, Mr. Santorum's great challenge will be to convince economic conservatives he's one of them -- or more nearly so than Mr. Romney is. Libertarians denounce him as a "big government conservative" and a "conservative technocrat."
Libertarian fears are exaggerated. Mr. Santorum cares more about social issues and defense, but you don't amass a 92 percent lifetime voting record from the American Conservative Union by voting for big government. Mr. Santorum supports far deeper cuts in domestic spending than does alleged libertarian Ron Paul.
But in politics, perception is reality. Now that the spotlight is upon him, Mr. Santorum must persuade small government conservatives he's one of them. If he can do so in the next couple of weeks, I think the resources he needs to compete with Mr. Romney will materialize.
The odds still will be long against Mr. Santorum. But what seemed impossible a little more than a week ago no longer will be improbable.
A Santorum presidency would be a gift to buffs of political trivia. The only president from Pennsylvania was James Buchanan. He was widely considered the worst -- until Barack Obama. And only one person in history was elected president after having lost a race for the U.S. Senate. His name was Abraham Lincoln.
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JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.
© 2011, Jack Kelly |
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