Little Ricky’s High-Water Mark, and Other Iowa Observations

If Iowa has proven anything in the years since Jimmy Carter came from nowhere to score a victory there in 1976, turning it onto something of a presidential Nostradamus for the media, it’s that even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then. And certainly, Iowa’s prognostications over the years are about on a par with Nostradamus, both in terms of clarity and in accuracy.

In 1980, fresh with relevance after having picked Carter four years earlier, Iowa picked George H. W. Bush (32%) over Ronald Regan (30%). We all know how that turned out. In 1988 the Democrats selected Dick Gephardt (31%), over Paul Simon(27%), with the eventual nominee, Mike Dukakis coming in third at 22%.

1992, as everyone knows, was Bill Clinton’s year. What did Iowa have to say? Tom Harkin (who?) at 76%, “uncommitted” at 12%, Paul Tsongas with 4%, and Bill Clinton at 3%.

In 2008, Iowa’s Republicans shoved eventual nominee John McCain into a 4th-place tie with Hollywood actor Fred Thompson. Mick Huckabee ran away with it (34%), with Mitt Romney getting virtually the same vote (25%) that he got in last night’s polling (24.5%).

Now, to be fair, Iowa has picked its share of winners over the years. For example, when an incumbent President is running, Iowa always picks them as their favorite for the nomination (Iowa Democrats last night gave President Obama 98% of the vote, for example, to 2% “uncommitted), even when there is serious opposition, as in 1980, when Jimmy Carter beat Ted Kennedy 59% to 31%.

But when the nomination is up for grabs, Iowa Republicans didn’t pick a winner until 1996, when Bob Dole came in first. Iowa Democrats have fared better, picking Walter Mondale in 1984, and are currently on a winning streak, with Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, and Barack Obama in 2008. And let’s not forget the guy who started it all, Jimmy Carter in 1976. But even Carter came in second that year to “uncommitted”, which polled 37% to Carter’s 28%.

In the 9 election cycles starting in 1976 (excluding last night’s results), Iowa Republicans have chosen the nominee 6 times (but thee of those were sitting presidents), while the Democrats have also chosen the eventual nominee 6 times (including 2 sitting presidents).

As for last night, here are all of the exact results in one place, presented in a way that lets you look at them all at once, so that you can visualize them properly, something few other news organizations will give you today.

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Mitt Romney – 30,015 votes, 24.5%

Rick Santorum – 30,007 votes, 24.5%

Ron Paul – 26,219 votes, 21.4%

Half-man/Half-pig mutant Newt Gingrich – 16,251 votes 13.3%

Rick Perry – 12,592 votes, 10.3%

Michele Bachmann – 6,073 votes, 5%

Jon Huntsman – 745 votes, 0.6%

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What does this all mean?

Probably nothing, really, which leaves us to invent our analysis out of whole cloth — our specialty.

Mitt Romney “beat” Rick Santorum by eight votes — eight votes — in a real squeaker, which further cements Mitt Romney’s place as the Rodney Dangerfield of Republican politics.

After two caucuses in which Iowans have given him the back of their hand, Romney’s probably glad that he doesn’t have to deal with these ignorant farmers again. No matter what happens from here, he’ll likely never have to debase himself by trudging through this rural hell ever again, having to engage in polite conversation with a bunch of rude and ornery bastards who probably don’t even know what a salad fork is, breathing in all of those rich, organic smells so unfamiliar to his sensitive, yet somehow rugged nose, freezing his ass off instead of being able to stretch out in his leather chair beside a warm fire in his study, feet up on the ottoman, a snifter of brandy in his hand, his Golden Retriever snoozing happily at his feet, while the smoke from his Montecristo curls lazily into the air. Yes. Too bad Mormons don’t smoke or drink.

Now Romney is finally able to move off to New Hampshire, civilization again, where people have dignity, class, intelligence, and where they will welcome him with the open arms he believes he so richly deserves. “This is my year, dang it,” he’s surely thinking, “and I’ve earned my reward.” Too bad he hadn’t managed to earn any respect along the way.

Trailing by just 8 measly votes is Little Ricky Santorum, who has surely reached his high-water mark. As little as a fortnight ago, Little Ricky’s numbers were terrible, and everyone who wasn’t paying attention had counted him out. But Little Ricky’s strategy was playing out right in front of everyone’s noses. He toured the state tirelessly, visiting, as we pointed out yesterday, all 99 of Iowa’s counties, and being the only candidate to do so, digging in deep with the Iowa voters, and getting some real traction as a result. Having been catapulted to two Senate victories by that wide swath of conservative Pennsylvanians who live outside of the cities, Little Ricky knows a thing or two about how to appeal to frightened rural morons whose primary motivations are God and their hatred of other people. And he’s parlayed those efforts into a free ticket to New Hampshire — the big time — and yet another place where he’s not expected to do well, this being New England, after all. A third place finish is all he’ll need in New Hampshire to put some serious wind in his sails as the yapping newshounds head for the next outpost — South Carolina, birthplace of secession, Jeff Davis country, where the only acceptable integration has been the seamless integration of the Ku Klux Klan into the ranks of the Republican party. Where half-man/half-pig (and fellow ex-Pennsylvanian) Newt Gingrich is currently in the lead, but whose support will melt away like snowflakes in Hilton Head when faced with the prospect of a freshly fired-up Santorum coming to town with solid showings in Iowa and New Hampshire under his belt. Not to mention his genuine moron-conservative bona fides, which will play well here, particularly when held up against Newt’s troublesome record.

Or so Little Ricky must be thinking. But it was those very conservative Pennsylvanians that gave him those two Senate victories who finally turned their backs on him in 1996, handing him a crushing 18% defeat at the hands of Bob Casey, a conservative Democrat — the only kind of Democrat who has a hope of doing well state-wide in Pennsylvania, unless you have extra-suffrage powers, like Ed Rendell. In the end, even Keystone State conservatives had had enough of Little Ricky’s “my opponent does all these terrible things that it’s perfectly OK for me to do” bullshit, and handed the worthless little putz his ass at the polls. And this when he was the third-highest ranking Republican in the Senate. But what a difference 5 years makes, especially when you’re playing to an audience who doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, about your history. Still, under the scrutiny that his bold, new status as Republican dark horse will bring him, it won’t be long until Ricky has become the latest chart-topping favorite who is cast to the gutter as the party, begrudgingly but inevitably, coalesces around the only viable candidate to face President Obama this fall; Mitt Romney.

Ron Paul’s 21.4% is just about where he’s been all along, and was no surprise to anyone. Ron Paul is this race’s cult candidate, something of a Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, whose followers are rabid, wild-eyed true believers. A surprising number of whom are young, impressionable college-age kids, a tiny minority of that traditionally liberal-leaning demographic. A hate-filled bunch of vengeful loners, mostly, rebelling against their peers as much as they are against the government, who will one day grow up to be their generation’s versions of Rush Limbaugh. Losers, much like Limbaugh himself, who could never get a date, couldn’t join a frat or a sorority, and whose ostracization fuels their loathing of everything they secretly long to be a part of.

This is the essence of Paul’s appeal. You are powerless to do anything about being such a loser, so join with me and we’ll tear the whole system down. In this cult, you may openly hate blacks, Jews, liberals, gays, and government — most especially government — which is only just another clique that you can’t get in to. And that hates you because you’re such a loser. Well, we’ll show ‘em.

Paul is rising on a tide of the disenfranchised loser who, in tough times like this, are growing in number. But they are still on the fringes in America at large, and that he managed to glean one out of five caucus goers in Iowa does nothing to change that. Our whole thesis is that Iowa is not representative of America at large. One out of five Iowans is not one out of five Americans. Paul will last through the primaries, we predict, and may even mount a third-party run for the roses. But he will not prevail, not this year anyway, and like all of the other third-party candidates before him, he will eventually fade away. Now, his son, the current Senator from Kentucky, is another matter entirely.

And now we come to half-man/half-pig mutant candidate Newt Gingrich. What can we say about Newt that we already haven’t scandalized you with? The man is a pig. Literally. He carries porcine DNA in his blood. He sees the entire animal kingdom as fodder for his sexual conquests. He is a liar and an opportunist. He will do and say anything that suits him. His appetite for self-aggrandizement is utterly insatiable. He’s a con man, a grifter, a sexual deviant, a thief, a liar, an unprincipled bastard of the worst kind. That Newt Gingrich is not rotting away in a prison cell somewhere awaiting execution is an indictment on the entire criminal justice system. That he is running for President of the United States is a cruel irony, and is the most accurate barometer measuring the decline of western civilization that we have at our disposal. An America absent Newt Gingrich would immediately see an improvement at fundamental levels throughout the entire spectrum of our society, perhaps even lifting us completely out of the intransigence that has brought America to a standstill, and which was introduced to our politics by none other than Newt Gingrich. He is a pustule on America, and when the final chronicle of this period of America’s history is written, Newt Gingrich’s name will completely eclipse that of Benedict Arnold as America’s quintessential villain, a viscous, ugly, rotten bastard who should be drawn and quartered and whose carcass should be splayed out in a smokehouse like the filthy pig that he is.

But we digress.

As for the other candidates, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, and Jon Huntsman, well … who cares, really, their candidacies are over.

And now, on to New Hampshire.