Romney Gets Hucked

On the Republican side of the Iowa caucus I must admit I'm a little less surprised by the outcome. Of course Romney let me down because I thought for sure he had it wrapped up. Not by a whole lot, but I did think he would win by at least 2 percentage points. He spent $6 million alone on television ads. That's easily a few hundred thousand per vote. Obviously it didn't pay off.

Mike Huckabee, by far one of only two TRUE conservatives in the race, got his Christian right folks out and from the appearance of things he did a heck of a job with it. It will be much harder for him to repeat this in New Hampshire on Tuesday, however. He's currently polling in third place. I've read numerous stories from people shocked at the religious right's turnout in Iowa. This turnout doesn't surprise me. Iowa is relatively a secular state, but the religious crowds are very strong and very active. The Republican Party in the last 10 years or so has done a very good job of organizing Christian fundamentalists in many states and Iowa is one of them. I've spent quite a bit of time in Iowa visiting in-laws and working on campaigns and I will admit that the Christian panic groups are very active and Huckabee took full advantage of this.

Once on a trip to Iowa something that really stuck out at me was when I saw a house with a flagpole out front flying the Confederate battle flag. Not that I care and not that I'm offended by such; I'm surely not since I have one inside my own home, but what surprised me was Iowa seems to have a southern sympathy or some sort of identity crisis. The guy who lived in the house was a full blown Republican and claimed to be a born again Christian. His vote was for Ron Paul but said his second choice was Huckabee. None of that made sense to me. Iowa is a northern state with a very northern accent yet here was a guy in total denial of geography and Christianity. This wasn't an isolated incident, similar instances of people occurred throughout Iowa.

I would think a majority of Republicans would have to be upset about the party's current frontrunners. But Iowa has never had the same effect for Republicans as it has for the Democrats. There's still plenty of time for Huckabee to vanish and plenty of time for Romney or even McCain to take the lead. I'll close by saying that Giuliani appears finished and Thompson not far behind.