Romney takes Iowa Caucuses by Just 8 Votes Over Santorum

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Say hello to the Republican pick to run against Obama...

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Romney takes Iowa caucuses by just 8 votes (http://news.yahoo.com/republican-rivals-face-first-test-2012-iowa-001445344.html)
Reuters – 23 mins ago

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses by a mere eight votes over former U.S. senator Rick Santorum, a party official said on Wednesday.

Romney's razor-thin, eight-vote margin of victory came out of a total 122,255 votes cast on Tuesday, Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn said.

Romney won 25 percent of the vote, or 30,015 votes, in the first contest in the state-by-state battle for the Republican presidential nomination to face Democratic President Barack Obama on November 6.

The Republican candidates now head to the New Hampshire primary next Tuesday, where Romney holds a commanding lead in the polls.

Santorum vaulted from the back of the pack to emerge as the latest conservative contender in a Republican race that has been marked by volatility. Ron Paul, a U.S. congressman from Texas with libertarian views and an antiwar stance, came in third place with about 21 percent of the vote.

Romney is a favorite of the party's business wing, while Santorum appeared to be consolidating the state's large bloc of Christian conservatives.

Voters gathered in public meetings at hundreds of sites around Iowa such as schools, libraries and churches, listening to speeches touting the various candidates before casting their ballots.

(Reporting By Mary Milliken; Editing by Will Dunham)

[Rohirrim]

There's going to be an odd dynamic rearing its head at some point. The extremist evangelicals on the Right fringe have been driving the GOP further and further Right. The Palins, Bachmanns, Santorums, et al have dominated the dialogue of the Republican Party and all other candidates must bow down to that extremist wing in order to have a chance of winning in the primaries. Of course, the influence of that fringe disappears in a general election. The question becomes, will the evangelical Right, which is fervently pentacostalist Christians, come out to the polls for a Mormon? After all, many in the pentecostal wing don't consider Mormonism as an acceptable form of Christianity.

[24champ]

Too early to celebrate. Everyone in the field is going to gun for Mitt at Saturday's debate. So we'll see what happens.

I highly doubt Santorum will be the nominee, he'll be too easy for Obama to run against.

[Blart]

We've known it will be Mitt from the start. Obama's camp started targeting him months ago, but I doubt it will help - he'll likely be our next president.

The Tea Party candidates all appeared stupid, ill-informed, and fringey-insane... because that's what's required to be a Tea Party candidate. Their supports want to have their cake (social security, medicare, strong military) and eat it too (lower taxes) - it's simply impossible.

Romney's lying, we all know it, but that's good enough for the GOP.

[Arkie]

That's amazing. 30,015 votes to 30,007, mostly counted by hand by very elderly people. "Some guy in a truck" delivered the results from one of the last precincts holding up the final tally. It doesn't seem very secure from human error or voting fraud.

[24champ]

That's amazing. 30,015 votes to 30,007, mostly counted by hand by very elderly people. "Some guy in a truck" delivered the results from one of the last precincts holding up the final tally. It doesn't seem very secure from human error or voting fraud.

Truck story is false and made up. In any event, all campaigns signed off on the numbers when they were tallied up at their precincts.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Quotes

<big>"The rap on Iowa? It doesn’t represent the rest of the country…
It's too white, too evangelical, too rural. Still here, politics are personal.”
</big><big style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
- NBC's Andrea Mitchell Link (http://news.yahoo.com/msnbc-andrea-mitchell-iowa-too-white-too-evangelical-193905818.html)

She's right, of course.

It's ridiculous to hold America's first primary in a state ruled by religious insanity.</big>

http://www.bartcop.com/gop-flow-chart-3023.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Ask candidates about Bush

In all the debates and all the interviews of all the Republican candidates running for president, I have not yet heard a single question about former president George W. Bush.

After all, he's the one who got America into the mess we are in so I would think the Bush issue should be discussed. I'd like to ask the candidates how they would compare and contrast their policies with that of the Bush administration. From what I see if we vote for any of them they're just going to do the same thing Bush did. Why would we want to do that again?

Marc Perkel (http://marc.perkel.com/)

Great point.

When you ask a Rethug what his plans are to fix America, they always say
"we need to cut taxes and get the government off the backs of business."

But Bush did that and bankrupted the whole world.

Only a Republican would think the answer to getting out of the giant hole Bush put us into is to continue digging.

http://www.bartcop.com/absolut_corruption.jpg

[epicSocialism4tw]

^ An Obama shill talking about corruption. Ha!

Funny.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_WPMKi5H2_0A/S-8q1Nn0wTI/AAAAAAAAGq8/3Pu-MPrxaSM/obama%20sachs%5B3%5D.jpg

[Rohirrim]

After all this time, money, attention and focus only something like 147,000 people voted. Pathetic. If this represents the best the Republicans can do, they're in deep ****.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

After all this time, money, attention and focus only something like 147,000 people voted. Pathetic. If this represents the best the Republicans can do, they're in deep ****.3 million people in that state and that's the turnout. Republicans don't seem very excited to run anyone against Obama.

[epicSocialism4tw]

After all this time, money, attention and focus only something like 147,000 people voted. Pathetic. If this represents the best the Republicans can do, they're in deep ****.

Um...hate to break it to ya, but this is a republican party caucus. Hilarious!

Its not a statewide general election. These are the party hard-cores.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Americans Against the Tea Party (https://www.facebook.com/NoTeaParty)


‎"Efforts are underway by some wealthy Republican donors and a group of conservative leaders to investigate whether a new Republican candidate could still get into the presidential race. The talk is still preliminary and somewhat wishful, but it reflects dissatisfaction with the two leading candidates, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. " - Don't you love it when they eat their own?


https://s-external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQCuTapFOqQkqf6m&w=90&h=90&url=http%3A%2F%2Fi.huffpost.com%2Fgen%2F455773%2Ft humbs%2Fs-ROMNEY-IN-NH-large.jpg (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/mitt-romney-conservative_n_1184760.html)

Mitt Romney's Conservative Critics To Take One Last Stab At Preventing His Anointment (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/mitt-romney-conservative_n_1184760.html)

www.huffingtonpost.com (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/)

If you recall, as far back as May of last year, various forces had begun to mobilize in the conservative movement to prevent Mitt Romney from winning the 2012 GOP nomination. As Jon Ward reported, this was a "top goal" of Freedomworks, "the nation's most influential national Tea Party group."

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

^ An Obama shill...

There you go bearing false witness again. tsk tsk

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Um...hate to break it to ya, but this is a republican party caucus. Hilarious!
Thx for pointing out that only 147,000 Republicans are interested in their party in Iowa.

[Arkie]

The Iowa social conservatives couldn't find a candidate. I think six different candidates topped the polls at one time. By the end of the year, the top two choices were a "peace activist" and a "moderate Massachusetts Mormon." Their straw poll winner already had her turn as the flavor of the month. She dropped back to the bottom, so it was Santorum by default.

[Requiem]

~ 614,000 registered Republicans and how many showed up?

LoL. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/01/05/bloomberg_articlesLXAY1Q1A1I4H.DTL)

[24champ]

A good politico article...


Because of the divided nature of the opposition and Romney’s organizational and financial advantages, GOP elites made the case Wednesday that there was no clear way he could be stopped.

“I thought Newt [Gingrich] could’ve been a threat for a while, but [the insurgents] have not been able to unify,” said one former Republican national chairman.

A veteran House Republican who is ostensibly neutral said: “I sort of think it’s over, right?”

“South Carolina and Florida are the nails in the coffin, which is why the right is so mad — they see it coming but the dominoes are falling just right for Mitt as they did for [John] McCain,” said the House member. “The party establishment does not want this intra-warfare much longer so we can focus on just Obama rather than the oddballs on the stage that can’t even remember the DOE or EPA.”

Indeed, Perry’s move was akin to dumping a bucket of cold water on Santorum, who won a significant moral victory in losing to Romney by just eight votes in Iowa and has already raised $1 million since last night.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71095.html#ixzz1icWC84Qj


Far right is fit to be tied...