Rick Perry prevents catastrophe as South Carolina, Florida loom
So, like all of you, I was glued to what turned out to be a nail biter of a caucus in Iowa last night. Mitt Romney barely defeated Rick Santorum to take the first victory in the actual contest to represent the Republican party in the 2012 election. Like, seriously, they were tied at ~24.5% with 99.5% of the polls reporting. I literally have never seen an election for anything as close as that was (I suppose the 2000 presidential election, but I was too young to follow that in an minute-by-minute way).
And ok, the obvious caveats before I get into this. Yes, winning Iowa isn't really that impressive, it doesn't mean someone will win the nomination, and often goes to very right of center (American center) politicians. Sure, only really Texas and California matter.
I'm going to throw this out there: Going by what they have said their policy will be, Rick Santorum is by far the most problematic candidate in the race. His stance on reproductive health is archaic to say the least, of all the candidates he seems the most eager to legislate his own views on religion and morality and the obvious homophobic stuff. Economically, sure, he might not be much worse or better than the other candidates who compete with each other to give the most lucrative taxation systems to the already rich, but in terms of moral conservatism, Santorum is from a bygone age. Further, his explicit stance on Iran is: lets bomb them, though to be fair, he isn't as insane as some other candidates, as he wants to work with the Pakistani government in order to continue killing Pakistanis, not explicitly start a war with Pakistan.
However, Santorum lost last night's election by the smallest of margins. Looking at population density maps of Iowa compared to the riding map, it becomes clear that Santorum's largest support base comes from rural areas with small pop. densities. The obvious assumption is that these are the rural Christian conservatives, which isn't too large a stretch, as that is the base Santorum is expected to do well with and that population is vehemently against Romney. Further, two such rural ridings went to Rick Perry, a fellow Christian conservative with disastrous views on moral and foreign policy. If you look even at the ridings Santorum won, often it is Perry who finished in second, with Romney often not even placing in the top 3.
So, Perry received only 10% of the vote overall, and wasn't expected to do well anyways. If we imagine a scenario where this 10% were to vote for any of the candidates except for Perry (ie: Perry drops out), the clear advantage in that case would be for Santorum, or Bachman though I don't think she would have been boosted by much. Santorum would have needed only the slightest boost, and if Perry's 2 ridings alone had gone to Santorum, he would be going to New Hampshire as the undisputed victor of the Iowa poll.
News today suggests that Bachman is out of the race, something that stands to improve Santorum's chances much more than Romney's, yet Perry is still in until South Carolina (according to his Twitter). Given Romney is the favorite for New Hampshire, this probably doesn't mean anything for the next caucus, as the greatest challenge there will be Paul and the potential libertarian vote. However, the following caucuses are South Carolina and Florida, states where Romney has always struggled and where the Christian conservatives vote in force.
Even with a resounding victory in New Hampshire, Romney is going to face a massive hurdle in these states, especially considering these are votes he is not expected to win. With Perry still in the race some votes may be siphoned to him from Santorum, which might assist Romney, but what if Perry drops? In that scenario, Santorum wins huge majorities in South Carolina and Florida, moving into a series of caucuses including Nevada, Colorado, Arizona and Georgia. The momentum his campaign could pick up from such a showing in Iowa and two quick wins in SC and Fla might be enough to rocket him through many of the early caucuses, potentially derailing Mitt in the process.
Ok, so ya, this has been the game this whole time, with one candidate or another rising to challenge Romney and then eventually imploding, however, its now at the point where other options are dwindling fast. If we assume there is a mass part of the Republican party base that just simply wont vote for Romney and isn't interested in Paul, and candidates like Perry and Bachman are dropping out, this constituency is left with essentially one option. So, if Perry sticks around until SC and Fla, that would be wonderful, as the mega-conservative evangelical vote will be split, and if nothing else, it will reduce the momentum the Santorum campaign would receive in those votes. However, if Perry drops, Santorum becomes the "not-Romney" candidate by default that appeals to the Christian voters, and Santorum looks poised to make huge wins that may elevate him to representing the Republicans in 2012.
So, while I obviously think all of this is disastrous because of how negatively a Santorum presidency would impact Americans and the world in general, if you disagree, think of it this way: Santorum wont beat Obama.