The frenzy leading up to the Republican Presidential Iowa Caucuses is mind boggling. As Shakespeare might have argued the Caucuses, "Are much ado about nothing". At the end of the day, whoever may be anointed is the decision of a 120,000 Republicans who take the trouble to pitch up to a voting event. Thus organization, money and exposure are paramount. Exposure is critical but is useless if your supporters don't get to the caucus meeting places. So the media hysteria and their multiple daily polls are not terribly relevant as the 120,000, that go to the caucuses are not necessarily representative of the sample of the 3 million polled Iowians. Even more significantly Iowa is not terribly relevant in the grand scheme of the prolonged labour that involves the election of the Presidential nominee. As an aside the Iowa caucuses have not been terribly successful in predicting the ultimate Republican presidential candidate.
MEDIA BLITZ
All this does not stop the media giving us a repetitious blow by blow commentary of the fortunes and fluctuations of the Republican nonentities involved in this year's Presidential nomination fight. For practical purposes there are two candidates for the nomination - Romney and the "Anyone but Romney Candidate - du jour". Everyone marvels how one by one the latter candidate has risen and then fallen. There was Bachman, Perry, Caine, Gingrich and now coming to you live is Santorum. Each candidate is promoted by the media and then slaughtered by the selfsame media to create an ongoing meaningless story. Santorum, in case you missed it has moved up, today, December 29, from about 6% to 16% approval to be a potential third placed candidate in the Iowa caucuses!
AND THE WINNER IS...
For those who are really interested in reality there are really two serious candidates in the Iowa caucuses race. The two are Romney and Paul. Both have extensive organizational infrastructures. Whoever wins is not very relevant. Romney will be very happy with second place as he is going to win New Hampshire and a win for Paul will translate into ziltch. Gingrich, who was top of the pops a short week ago, has said if he comes fourth that is just fine as he is going to win South Carolina. If Santorum wins, a very long shot - so what. He will be very happy to emerge from the shadows to come third. Whatever happens he has not the money, the organization and the backing to go anywhere. Huntsman is not even competing in Iowa as he is going to win New Hampshire! And so it goes......
MEDIA CIRCUS
This will not stop the media commenting and interpreting the Iowa caucuses up the ying yang. Jay H. Ell cannot wait for January 3 evening TV programs where there will be banks of learned panels interpreting, projecting and forecasting on the deliberations of the hardy that have pitched up to the caucuses. As they say in the computer world - garbage in garbage out. One almost wishes for a sex scandal to refocus the media onto something else.
COMES DOWN TO REALITY.
Even if Math is not one's strong point the Romney candidate is running at about 25% consistently. The "Anything but Romney candidates", in aggregate are running at 75%. The Romney candidate is the favorite of the Establishment and he has money and organization. In all probability the "Anything But" candidate will be the even more flawed Gingrich. The nomination process will go on for a long time. The media need this because, believe it or not, the ratings are higher on this than anything else for the moment - oh for a war!
ANYTHING GOES?
Whoever the "Anything But" candidate turn out to be he or she has a potential 75% constituency to work with. Notwithstanding this it is hard to see the "Anything But", beating Romney. The Republicans, for whatever reason, have a tradition in nominating an old warrior. The Romney candidate then has to persuade the "Anything Buts", to join in to get rid of Obama. This is going to be a hard hard sell.
If the sale does go through, Romney has got to decide what he is going to run on and how. The key issues are jobs, taxation and government programs. The 75%, "Anything Buts", are heavily into gays, marriage and other social issues that the crucial independants are not remotely interested in.
So it is a pity that have to go through with the meaningless rituals of Iowa and even New Hampshire and South Carolina, because only when these are over can one really define the debate. And before we can define the debate the Republicans, if they are still one party, need to define what their argument is going to be against Obama.
The whole nomination process needs to be rethought. Every state should have the election on the same day. If the winner does not get 50% the a run off between him/her and the second placed should occur. Then of course money and PACS should be removed from this and the Presidential election and we will be on the road to some sort of sanity. But meantime Santorum has gone from 6% to 16% in the polls.....
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