“‘You know, comrades,’ says Stalin, ‘that I think in regard to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.'” — From “Memoirs of Stalin’s Former Secretary.”
Historically the Iowa Caucuses are very poor at predicting the party nominee. Interestingly, Romney looks to have a great shot at winning Iowa, something that seemed ridiculous three short months ago. T-Paw dropped out and Bachmann imploded, creating a midwest vacuum amongst the nominees.
R.P. will probably place second or third at the caucuses with around 20-25% of the vote; caucuses are his strong areas, where his narrow but passionate base can do more than primaries in states like N.H., where R.P. will almost certainly place behind John Huntsman.
Iowa very well may end up being a muddled mess where no candidate pulls over 25%, which is probably R.P.’s ideal scenario… a narrow “win” with mid-20s support that he can leverage into more national coverage. But in a campaign that now has Newt Gingrich (NEWT GINGRICH???) flirting with front-runner status, almost anything probably can happen.
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