Intense Iowa Caucus

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. I did, and I’m enjoying two more weeks of winter break until I return to school. (Another plus for college!) The New Year is starting out to be an intense one with last night’s caucuses in Iowa. Mitt Romney pulled off a victory by a mere eight votes, and underdog Rick Santorum took the state of Iowa by storm. But I’m wondering if this Santorum surge will carry over to New Hampshire and South Carolina, and whether Huntsman’s decision to skip Iowa will help or hurt his campaign.

Mitt Romney: 24.6%
Rick Santorum: 24.5%
Ron Paul: 21.4%
Newt Gingrich: 13.3%
Rick Perry: 10.3%
Michele Bachmann: 5%
Jon Huntsman: 0.6%

The Iowa Caucus is something taken very seriously by candidates and voters of both parties. It seems to be glorified straw poll, inflated by a lot of media hype, but most candidates take advantage of this to interact with voters and gain exposure. Though the process really began in earnest in 1972 with candidate George McGovern, the influence of the Iowa Caucus was proven in 1976 with Jimmy Carter who went on to win the Democratic nomination and the presidency. Some interesting results from past caucuses:
-Bill Clinton, George H.W Bush and Ronald Reagan lost the Iowa Caucus (but, obviously, won party nominations and later, the presidency)
-In 2008, Mike Huckabee won, and John McCain (GOP nominee) was 3rd with 13% of the vote. (Newt Gingrich won 13.3% of the vote last night.)
-In 2000, George W. Bush won the Ames, Iowa Straw Poll, the Iowa Caucus (with 41% of the vote), and obviously, the party nomination and the presidency.

These past results just go to show that the Iowa Caucus does not necessarily predict a winner. There’s still a long, volatile road of campaigning to go before the GOP chooses a candidate to run against Obama!

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t discussed my opinion on GOP candidates on this blog yet. Why? Because, to be honest, I am quite undecided at this point. (I know, hard to believe!) I like certain qualities of certain candidates, and can’t put my money on any one person yet.

What I do know is this… in this next election, we cannot be passive and apathetic as we were in 2008. America desperately needs a proven leader with the knowledge, experience, and resolve to turn the country away from the entitlement-obsessed and—dare I say it—socialist road that we’re traveling on right now. Sometimes, I am reminded of Benjamin Franklin’s quote to a bystander, who asked what kind of government the Founders had created after the ratification of the Constitution. Franklin’s answer: “A republic, if you can keep it.” I believe there are Americans out there who will devote every last ounce of their energy to work to keep our republic—I am one of them. But I don’t know if the republic can be kept, if America as we know it can survive another four years under the so-called leadership of the current administration. Call me pessimistic, but there is so much riding on this election. It’s an event we can’t take lightly.

On a lighter note… Obama has been taking some reelection advice from former (one term) President Jimmy Carter. Carter advised Obama to not “alienate voters with controversial positions.” I could rant a lot more about this, but I’ll just say that I hope Obama takes the advice of oh-so-successful Jimmy-Iranian-Hostage-Crisis-Carter. Because after one term of Carter, we got Ronald Reagan.



http://iowacaucus.com/2012/01/03/iowa-caucus-history-lesson/
http://www.uiowa.edu/election/history/index.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/winners-losers-iowa-caucus/story?id=15273630#.TwUV2s1siW1