Can GOP underdogs shake up Iowa?
There’s one easy way to distinguish between the candidates atop the polls in Iowa and those treading water — the front-runners don’t do 99-county tours.
With just three weeks left until the Iowa caucuses, the grand barnstorming tour of the state has surfaced as a key indicator of campaign health, with the top-tier candidates secure enough in their standing to pick their targets and the back of the pack forced to grind it out, town by town and county by sparsely populated county.
Continue ReadingNewt Gingrich has the luxury of parachuting into Iowa Wednesday and keeping to a relatively leisurely schedule — his lone public event in the state that day lands him at the University of Iowa, where the former House speaker will discuss brain science research. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, meanwhile, embarks Wednesday on a grueling 44-city bus tour that will keep him in Iowa for eight straight days, followed by another five-day stretch that has him working the stump on New Year’s Eve.
Michele Bachmann, like Perry mired well below Gingrich and Mitt Romney in the polls, has announced an even more ambitious tour: Beginning Friday, when she’ll stop in eight northwest Iowa towns, the Minnesota congresswoman will visit all of Iowa’s 99 counties within a 10-day span.
Bachmann and Perry are pikers compared to the campaign’s true road warrior — pavement-pounding Rick Santorum, who announced he completed his circuit of all 99 counties Nov. 2. The former Pennsylvania senator, who remains stuck in single digits in the polls, continues to hit the Iowa hustings harder than anyone else: His Tuesday schedule had him in Belle Plaine, Waterloo, Manchester and Marion, where he spoke to the National Contract Management Association.
Santorum told POLITICO, in an interview for the On the Line podcast, that he is banking on Iowa Republicans abandoning Gingrich and looking for a candidate on which to land. By maintaining his campaign push in small towns across the state, he is hoping to be foremost on the minds of caucus-goers who disqualify yet another front-runner.
“People who are for someone today are for someone else in two weeks and someone else two weeks later,” he said. “I think people are working themselves down the path. And the path is going to lead to the most consistent conservative, someone they can trust, someone who has taken the time to get to know them and answer their questions.”
Like Santorum, Bachmann and Perry are banking on polls showing that as many as two-thirds of would-be Iowa caucus-goers have not yet made up their minds, as a New York Times/CBS survey conducted last week found. That figure was a 9 percentage point increase from when the pollster asked the same question the first week of November.
“If you want to gather caucus night support, you’ve got to go ask for it in person,” said Tim Albrecht, the communications director for Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and a veteran GOP operative in the state. “It’s a recognition that retail politicking still works in this state. It’s still the most effective means of securing support.”
That may be true, but at the moment it’s not reflected in the polls. If anything, Iowa polls reflect an almost inverse relationship between poll position and time spent campaigning across the state. In the University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll released Monday, the only candidate trailing Santorum was Jon Huntsman, who has completely written off Iowa in an attempt to concentrate on New Hampshire.
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Reid J. Epstein
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NBC/WSJ Poll: Romney virtually tied with Obama nationally. Gingrich losing by 11 Head-To-Head:
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Read all 395 comments in our forumGINGRICH EXPOSES HIMSELF TO THE HEARTLAND CONSERVATIVES
Gingrich's undiplomatic and dangerous foreign policy comments combined with his anti-American Capitalism rantings have driven his polls numbers into a tail spin.
Newt calling himself a REALPOLITIK WILSONIAN may impress Obama's socialist base but he has lost the Center and Right.
Gingrich is giving a speech about brain science research at the University of Iowa? Given the large and ever growing number of brain science researchers there are in the world, why on earth would Iowans want to hear from a relatively ignorant layman on the topic? Maybe Gingrich is going to talk about the political implications of the brain science research -- at least that aspect of it that he thinks he can use in the future to neurologically control the minds of the masses. Gingrich has claimed to have long sought a psychology that would give him mind control of the masses. Maybe now he believes he can bypass the antiquated, now epiphenomenal psychological approach and go straight for neurological control. Maybe Gingrich will try to dazzle the crowd by trying to tie in his "vast" knowledge of cutting edge computer science (fiction) and talk about his plan (under his expanded PATRIOT powers to spy on and control U.S. citizens) to implant a "God chip" into the brains of Americans. The implantation will assure US of patriotism and a peaceful, harmonious, prosperous, happy society. (The "God chip," of course, will be soft and hardwire designed after Gingrich himself.) O brave new world....
The question now is who will drop out after Iowa: Perry, Bachmann, or Santorum? Or all three of them?
Why Iowa?
I wonder if it is time to think differently about the nomination process. In theory, candidates can get up close and personal with Iowa citizens and party-faithful. These party loyalists then determine who can best represent the party as the nominee.
This works if and when the Iowa loyalists represent the electorate.
Unfortunately, they do not. On the Republican side, many of the Iowa party-faithful are extremist who take radical positions. this forces candidates to pander to these extremes. This includes Perry preaching more than politicking. It includes candidates having to take very strident and extreme positions to pacify these extremist.
So, candidates have to satisfy this narrow and often narrow-minded group to get through the Iowa hurdle.
This is not good politics. It requires pandering and tailoring positions. It allows a relatively small group of extremist to skew the political nomination process.
Maybe it is time to get a broader section of viewpoints in the nominating process.
What if all 6 candidates end up in the 15 to 20 range?
Looks like a cluster effect.
.........discuss brain science research ? I thought he would talk about mining minerals on the Moon............or at least fit in some time to sell his books and movies..............lol.
I predict GingRich will come in 5th in Iowa...............those placing in front of him, in no particular order.............Paul, Romney, Bachmann, Perry............
If Iowians do what they ALWAYS do ............then Michele Bachman will win Iowa..........
If........................IF Republicans want to beat Obama on Tuesday night November 6th, 2012 then its ........Romney/Rubio.....
Barack Obama 47%
Mitt Romney 45% (-2)
Barack Obama 51%
Newt Gingrich 40% (-11)
Barack Obama 50%
Ron Paul 37% (-13)
Isn't it strange how Ron Paul continues to be ignored? Wake up call coming.
Dennisv21: Dec. 14, 2011 - 7:26 AM EST
What if all 6 candidates end up in the 15 to 20 range?
That simply won't happen.
We haven't seen any evidence yet of increasing support for any of the lower tier. Typically Iowa voters break in the last week a bit harder than the polling suggests for one or more candidates. We saw that with Huckabee and Obama in 2008, and John Kerry in 2004.
If Paul can't beat BO then it's all moot anyway. It will just be more business as usual, with the Fed printing funny money so the U.S. can continue to pretend it is still an economic power.
Paul is the thermometer of American fortitude. Will we buck up and realize where we are financially? Or just continue to rearrange the deck chairs ont he Titanic?
GINGRICH EXPOSES HIMSELF TO THE HEARTLAND CONSERVATIVES
Mitt Romney said, 'My views are progressive' .
Do not trust this Mitt flip flopper Romney.
Mitt Romney is for big government.
Mitt Romney supported bank bailout and Obama's stimulus.
Mitt Romney loves mandates.
What does it tell us? He wants to take away your liberty and freedom and replace it with Government.
Mitt Romney also said ' human beings are causing global warming'.
I think Bachmann is going to surprise a lot of people. I can't wait until she wins Iowa. A lot of people on this very site are going to eat crow. I'm going to love it!
I think Bachmann is going to surprise a lot of people. I can't wait until she wins Iowa. A lot of people on this very site are going to eat crow. I'm going to love it!
Maybe after the Iowa caucuses you'll start taking your meds again, too.
No, these lame underdogs will not be making a difference. They all suck.
I think Bachmann is going to surprise a lot of people. I can't wait until she wins Iowa. A lot of people on this very site are going to eat crow. I'm going to love it!
Of course stealth-libber Neo would love Michelle Bachmann to hand the presidency back to Obama.
LOL
Axelrod V. Gingrich: "The Higher A Monkey Climbs Up A Pole, The More You See Of His Butt"
IF ANY OF THESE GOOD PEOPLE SAID THAT ABOUT OBAMA, THEY WOULD BE HANGED IN THE MEDIA, EXCUSE ME, THE PROPOGANDA WING OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY. 2012. 2012. 2012.
the american voters are ready to get the "send Obummer home program" going! Sooo lets get this done so we can move america forward and put americans back to work and fix our economy.
Isn't it strange how Ron Paul continues to be ignored? Wake up call coming.
this is ALL they have! You are going to see a lie and truth twisting campaign right out of hollywood directed at voters with low IQ's! This is all they have and all they can do.
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