Iowa: What we learned

Well, so last night they had some caucuses. Mittens Romney won by a landslide of eight votes. Eight votes. Rick Santorum’s surge proved to have been at the exact right moment, as he finished just behind. Ron Paul’s surge was just a moment too soon and finished fourth. Everybody else sucked.

Here’s some things we learned:

- Not a goddamn one of the Republican pack can deliver a nationally-televised speech.

- Corollary: Somebody give Michele Bachmann a teleprompter.

- Corollary: I like Newt’s voice the best of them.

- Corollary: Perry’s was the most heart-felt, although that probably had something to do with getting out.

- Corollary: Santorum and Romney had the sharpest contrast—Santorum was calm, rambling things off the top of his head, and clearly out of his element, yet came closer to succeeding in getting the tone right; Romney was the clearly the most comfortable on stage, but he was far too frenetic, like a salesman trying so hard to sell you, that the speech just didn’t click.

- Corollary: Romney was the only one who went after the president.

- This race is down to two: And one of those two is Rick Santorum.

- Corollary: With Perry seemingly bowing out, and Bachmann living in a fantasy land where she keeps going, Santorum actually has a chance of winning this nomination.

- Corollary: The Republican Party, for maybe the first time ever, is about to nominate somebody who is not a Protestant Christian (Romney’s LDS, Santorum’s Catholic).

- In 2004, Romney won 30,021 votes, which got him second place; in 2008 he got 30,015, which got him first. That’s what happens when there are like eleventy billion candidates. That’s about to change.

- But, it was enough to secure McCain’s endorsement for Romney.

- It’s pretty clear that Gingrich is going to spend the rest of his 15 minutes bashing the hell out of Romney and loving the bejesus out of Santorum.

Related posts:

1. Some people gonna be voting today
2. Who is behind the Cain allegations?
3. The Real Problem with the Iowa Retention Elections: Why Are We Electing Judges At All?