League of Republican Voters

Th e stable of candidates for the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination has been called everything from a circus sideshow to the resurgence of the Republican Party (again). I’m more likely to agree with the former rather than the latter, but there’s no denying that there has been a significant interest in the Republican candidates, at least on the part of the major cable news networks. As Iowan Republican head to the polls today to nominate their favored candidate, it’s hard to forget that Iowa Republicans have picked picked three top favorites in as many weeks, with Rick Santorum enjoying the latest evangelical fueled surge. What does all of this mean for the Caucus, the nomination, and the general election?

Gene Lyons wrote on Salon.com about the Iowa Caucus as if it is the “American Idol for the politically obsessed,” to the point where commentators and talking heads are even giving candidates handicaps based on previous voter approval polling numbers. Voting on the candidate seems about as objectively balanced as voting for an American Idol contestant as well. Lyons writes about a grandmother interviewed by the Washington Post described her meandering from one favorite to the next. Rick Perry for his manufactured piety, Michelle Bachmann for her who-knows-what, then Newt Gingrich because he’s smart, until Rick Santorum got her ultimate support because God protected the troops during the Iraq pull-out and it was a sign of his divine will that the Christ-iest candidate get her support.

If that doesn’t make you dizzy you might try looking at a 6-month series of peaks and valleys nearly every candidate has ridden. All except Mitt Romney. The former governor of Massachusetts has held an impressively flat 23-25% approval rating for the majority of his primary campaign, becoming the default front-runner every time one of his opponents burned (or flaked) out. Now, as he campaigns furiously across the state in the last week, willing to forget the impressive slight that Iowa dealt him this time 4 years ago, he tries to overtake Santorum and Ron Paul, two candidates that have been in the back of paper nearly the whole election cycle thus far.

It remains to be seen whether conservatives, regardless of which candidate is chosen, will rally behind their ideology as they have been so fervently during the primary. The Iowa Caucus, however, will have very little bearing ultimately on the nomination of that candidate, other than securing a few delegates. It seems to me that the fuss has been mostly on primetime, and not by the voters.