The caucus turned out mostly how I thought it would. Romney beating Santorum by a mere 8 votes out of 120,000 or so cast. Paul was in 3rd, Gingrich managed to eek out 4th, to my surprise, as I thought a combination of Perry's ad blitz and 45% of ads in Iowa being negative attacks on Gingrich would flip that order. Bachmann finally received her official "get out of my house" notice, they were actually counting Huntsman's and Cain actually received a few votes from people who are worse at reading denials of a candidate than Bachmann herself.
Thats:
1.) Romney
2.) Santorum
3.) Paul
4.) Gingrich
5.) Perry
6.) Bachmann
Compared to my prediction
1.) Santorum
2.) Romney
3.) Paul
4.) Perry
5.) Gingrich
6.) Bachmann
I don't think I did too bad, considering how close Romney and Santorum were. There is definitely more going on in this though as it is not votes that count but delegates. If they had been broken up by percentages, it would have been Romney-6, Santorum-6, Paul-5, Gingrich-3, Perry-3, Bachmann-2 but as I understand it the breakup was Romney-7, Santorum-7, Paul-7, Gingrich-2, Perry-2, Bachman-0. Who knows how they broke this up, I haven't been able to find it, but in the end this greatly benefits Ron Paul.
Now for the breakdown on the night, who gained what, who lost what.
Romney
The only way that Romney could have "won" going out of Iowa was if he had some overwhelming percentage, something north of 35% or 40% at the very least. If he had come in second, it would have symbolized a mistrust from the party, if he had come in 3rd or lower it would have been catastrophic. The "first" place finish he had last night, with those whopping 8 votes, that is .00006% of the entire votes cast, does get him the press of a 1st place win, but for anyone looking beyond that headline, he is teetering on the edge.
Santorum
The Dick Santorum fever coming out of tomorrow is fascinatingly interesting to me. Of all of the candidates, he probably comes out looking the best. He has been in the race for a very very long time and never really spent much time out of the single digits. While all the other candidates had their moment in the sun and were then beat down using whatever skeletons they have in their closet, or in the case of Michelle Bachmann, being crazy-stupid, the surging "MUST NOT VOTE MITT" crowd could never settle on one conservative. By conservative, I mean social conservative, like the ones that elected Bush Jr. As of yesterday, that vote was comprised of Santorum himself, Bachmann, Perry and the remainder of Gingrich's support. As of today, Perry hinted at a possible drop out but then decided to head to South Carolina, Bachmann herself dropped out and Gingrich is looking worse and worse for wear. I'm starting to see a quickly forming pattern here and that is a conservative movement that coalesces around Dick Santorum. Bachmann is gone, Perry is on his last legs and not even his money can save him and Gingrich will probably stay in the race longer than he should, but he will continue to drop. All of those votes have to go somewhere and right now there are 4 possible candidates, well, make that 3 since as much as I like Huntsman, the GOP doesn't so no votes will go to him. Hardly any of the votes will go to Ron Paul because the GOP fear his nomination and Romney will get very few as well because he is seen as a RINO (Republican in Name Only). That means, going roughly on national polls, that Santorum would be closing in on 50% of the vote. Essentially, that is how I see this race continuing. There is no one else left for the conservative tick so they will be left with the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the product of anal sex, Dick Santorum, to face down Romney.
Ron Paul
Ron Paul has fantastic organization in Iowa. Organization that he doesn't have anywhere else. Plus he has the benefit of Iowans being able to register day-of the caucus meaning independents can caucus for him. This was evidenced by roughly 45% of the overall Paul vote being independents. That means, if it had only been republicans, he would have had something like Newt Gingrich's turnout.
Ron Paul is going to go on to other states, and probably get in the high teens to low twenties in most places, he doesn't have the organization around the country that others do, nor does every state allow independents in. Finally, and I think this is probably the most damaging part, there are just too many people in the GOP establishment that refuse to accept him as a serious candidate and he therefore has a ceiling he can't break through.
Gingrich
Newt has been categorized as being on his last legs before, frankly its amazing he made it long enough to get the boost he did. His boost came from a combination of rather good debate showings, his strength, and Herman Cain dropping out of the race. He also had the largest flash in the pan boost of any of the other rotating potential nominees. He also has a habit of really pissing people the hell off. I once saw him described, rhetorically speaking, as willing to throw a grenade under the table and hope that it hurts the other person more than it hurts him. After "50" years in politics, as he likes to say, that makes enemies, a lot of enemies. It also makes for a smorgasbord of negative ad material and he saw that hit him, hard. He dropped from mid 30s to a caucus showing of 13%. This is probably the true death knell for his campaign because I see no way for him to recover now that the voting has begun.
Perry
Last night Rick Perry left the stage saying he would return to Texas to reconsider potential paths to the nomination. I can't fathom what helped him make his decision because frankly, the gaffs he has had so far should have wiped him out ages ago, but he just has way too much money behind him. This morning he said he is taking his campaign to South Carolina. I see South Carolina as a showdown between him and Santorum and will be fantastic to watch, though, barring gaffs himself, I think Santorum will probably win and drive Perry home, finally.
Bachmann
Last night Michelle Bachmann finally saw the writing on the wall that the rest of the country has seen for months now. She went into the weekend crazy-eyed confident about how she would come out in first. She came out in an effective last with 5%, if you take into account that Huntsman wasn't even trying in Iowa. Now she can go back to her Minnesota district where she prays away the gay to keep her husband straight and try to win re-election to the congress. That is, re-election to the seat in congress in a district that is heavily favoring republicans already, and have a difficult time of it too I might add.
Final Power Rankings:
1) Santorum
2) Paul
3) Romney
....
....
99998.) Perry
99999.) Gingrich
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