If you have been following the republican nomination process at all this year, you have had the privilege of watching a grade A circus for free. Now, I'm from Iowa, I know Iowa politically like the back of my lever pulling hand and I've basically had my top 3 picked for months now. Before I get into that though, a little explanation of how Iowa Caucuses work. For a candidate to be viable in each precinct they have to have a certain percentage of the voters in the room. 4 years ago, in my precinct, it was 8 people. This number is based on how many total representatives the precinct gets to the county convention. So if you have 4 delegates, you need 25% for 1 delegate. The caucuses are also not limited to a single vote, so if a group does not have enough then they can join another group. For instance, I caucused originally for Richardson, we only had 4 people so we all discussed it and went over to Obama and consequently, Obama gained an extra delegate.
Now that you, hopefully, have a decent understanding of how it works, it will make it easier to follow the logic behind my predictions. First I'll go through each of the candidates.
Bachmann - One of many social conservatives in the race, mediocre support after sinking like a stone, but she'll have her few people in each precinct
Huntsman - My favorite, but for some reason he hasn't grabbed the attention of the masses, probably dead in the water, but he hasn't really campaigned in Iowa either.
Paul - Ron Paul has a VERY loyal VERY energetic group of supporters, but at the same time he has a ceiling. He has other problems too, namely isolationism and the fact that while personally pro-life, he says its up to states to decide. He also is probably the least electable or maybe a bit more electable than Santorum. This is where the redistribution of voters plays its biggest role in my opinion. The rest of the caucus goers, or at least the free ones who's candidates are not viable, will not even touch Ron Paul. They will rally around other candidates so that someone, almost anyone, gets more delegates and not him.
Romney - He did decent 4 years ago. He's doing worse this time. He's mormon. He is seen as the guy that fires you, not the guy that you want to have a beer with. He's flip floppy out the wazoo, sometimes even in the same response. I don't have a problem with him being mormon, obviously since Huntsman is too and he is my favorite, but social conservatives do.
Gingrich - He's plummeting like a rock down a well. People remember him for what he was as speaker a guy willing to get himself dirty if it means you will be slightly dirtier. Most importantly, he took that money from Fannie and Freddy.
Rick Perry - Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann are the biggest groups I see likely to switch candidates day-of. To everyone else, he's a joke. To social conservatives, he says a lot of the things they like, but he's just had too many idiotic moments on national tv.
Rick Santorum - The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex. If you're not familiar with why I put that line, google "Santorum." He snagged a huge endorsement from Bob Vanderplaats a social conservative nutbag who runs some nutty organization in Iowa that thinks its influential. This is where I see the spare delegates congregating, a lot of which has to do with the endorsement.
Heres how I see the ultimate break down. The top 3 I can see being almost interchangeable too.
1.) Paul
2.) Romney
3.) Santorum
4.) Gingrich
5.) Bachmann
6.) Perry
7.) Huntsman
This brings me to the most important point. The Iowa Republican Caucuses are at a very large risk of being irrelevant. They already have a statistically horrible rate of picking the final candidate. The problem is that Iowans as a whole are slightly left of center, but very very independent. Now, this is less true for the democrats, as I have experienced their party dynamics all the way to the state level, but the Republican party caucus goers are insanely far right, social conservatives. In 2008 they chose Huckabee. So all these polls happening are dramatically under polling Santorum. In the end, if the Iowa caucuses select anyone other than Romney or Gingrich, it essentially becomes irrelevant. Paul has no staying power, his numbers in Iowa are big, but that isn't the case pretty much everywhere else. Bachman and Perry have positioned themselves so far right that most people can no longer see them off in the distance. Huntsman, well he's screwed anyway. When it comes down to it, the establishment HATES Ron Paul and they will do everything they can to make sure he doesn't get in. That leaves them with Romney's "electability" and Gingrich's brains. That leaves the rest of us with a rocking good time.
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