Iowa Underdog

'Tis the season for bowl games. If you turn on your television at any given moment, you have an endless array of college football games to choose from. You can expect nailbiters, edge of your seat action, and come from behind wins. It is also prime time for politics. The Iowa Caucus was yesterday, January 3rd, and the New Hampshire primary is coming up next Tuesday.

Although most Americans would rather watch a sports showdown than a political playoff, they both feature plenty of suspense. Yesterday's matchup was almost as exciting as Michigan v. Virginia Tech.

At midnight on Tuesday, with approximately 95% of precincts reporting, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were in a statistical dead heat. This continued on for a few more hours. Romney was declared the winner by 8 votes. EIGHT. Most experts would call this a virtual tie, as would I. But at the end of the day (figuratively-we actually found out on Wednesday), Romney had won. That fact needs to be emphasized.

You see, in this Republican race there are very clear cycles. Romney has always been the frontrunner. Simultaneously, there are many "conservative" candidates vying to overtake him. Every month or so (it's been a week in some cases), a new candidate emerges as the next Tea Party savior. First it was Michelle Bachmann, then Rick Perry, etc. Newt Gingrich has picked up some steam within the last month or so, but faced a brick wall in Iowa, where he placed fourth.

The headline-maker of this first true 2012 electoral contest was Rick Santorum. Nobody expected him to have such a high showing. Everybody says that he was an underdog victor. However, I think we need to examine where he's drawing his support from.

Santorum is a bona fide social conservative. He's always voted pro-life, he's very much for traditional marriage, and so forth. He is the quintessential Tea Party candidate. Whereas  Romney is perceived as being a big business elitist, Santorum has all the populist fervor on his side. I think that will work to his advantage. The question is whether or not he can capitalize on the new found publicity and deliver.

Gingrich is still in the hunt, and regardless of him winning in New Hampshire or elsewhere, he will be a factor as long as he's in the race. Lest we not forget Huntsman: he's been pinning all his presidential hopes on the Granite State. For the past few months, he hasn't even campaigned anywhere else! We will have to wait and see whether his controversial strategy comes to fruition.