dagblog - Comments for "Gridlock in Iowa"

This is the main reason why I

kgb999 — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:51:36 +0000

In reply to The caucus system tends to

This is the main reason why I think Paul and Romney have a lock on #1 and #2. I am pretty sure they are training their respective caucus teams and whips to lock in for the other if it looks like their candidate won't prevail. Or at least they were a couple weeks back.

I think both Paul and Romney like the lay of the race better without Gingrich. Of course, I'm pretty sure Gingrich just tanked pretty hard in favor of Santorum in Iowa. So maybe now all bets are off ... although I can't imagine Romney would prefer to face an ascendant Santorum along with Paul for the rest of the race, so the alliance may hold.

If the trend to Santorum continues, it appears the "flavor of the month" wave mostly bypassed Ron Paul. I don't know much about Santorum. What's your take on his implodability factor?

Good point, and one reason

Elusive Trope — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:22:06 +0000

In reply to The caucus system tends to

Good point, and one reason Newt's lack of ground game may not be that big of death blow for him in Iowa.

The question for Iowa for this year in particular is how strong is the protest vote. Many of the voters don't like any of the candidates passionately. So some will just "throw away their vote" on the candidate closest to what they want in order to send a message to the higher ups. Is this kind of protest sentiment strong enough numerically to counter some of the dynamics you mention? Some think it might be. Santorum winning a few districts is not out of the question.

There is also the issue that the caucus doesn't actually allocate the delegates. That won't happen until June when the contest is basically over. The more messy it becomes, the harder time the pundits will have saying just who won what. If that is the case, candidates like Santorum and Bachmann and Perry might just be able to spin some kind of momentum out it, keeping them in the race longer, which would continue to keep Mitts' numbers down.

The caucus system tends to

Michael Wolraich — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:05:18 +0000

In reply to Gridlock in Iowa

The caucus system tends to force voters coalesce by default. I'm surprised that Nate didn't mention it.

In a standard primary, you just tally up the votes, so you'd get an even spread among the losing candidates.

But in a caucus, every district selects one candidate after extensive debate and multiple interim votes. When participants realize that the caucus won't pick their favorite candidate, they usually migrate to their second or third choice.

That's how Obama won Iowa. He picked up votes from Edwards supporters and others who preferred Obama to Hillary, even if he wasn't their first choice.

You could still get "gridlock" if different districts settle on different candidates, but I predict that most will follow a common pattern. The question is what will the pattern be?

Here's something to consider. We tend to think about candidates joining forces against Romney, but what will Romney supporters do if they conclude that Romney can't win the district? I suspect that they'll go for the most "reasonable" of the alternatives, probably Gingrich followed by Perry.

In other words, in Iowa, we might not see the anti-Romney coalitions people expect. We might see anti-Paul coalitions centered on Gingrich or Perry.

None. Nate seems to be

Elusive Trope — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:43:50 +0000

In reply to And which of them has an ego

None.

Nate seems to be proposing their supporters marshall behind one of them:

Still, there are a lot of Iowans who like neither Mr. Paul nor Mr. Romney, both of whom may be close to maxing out on their support. Mr. Romney, for instance, drew the support of 20 percent of caucusgoers in Tuesday’s Public Policy Polling survey despite the fact that only 44 percent of voters take a favorable view of him. In a seven-candidate field, converting about half of those who like you into voters is a very high conversion rate. The flip side is that about two-thirds of the voters who are not currently supporting Mr. Romney have a negative view of him.

There are extremely strong incentives for supporters of Mrs. Bachmann, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Perry to behave tactically, throwing their weight behind whichever one appears to have the best chance of finishing in the top two. What that means is that if any of these candidates appear to have any momentum at all during the final week of the campaign, their support could grow quite quickly as other voters jump on the bandwagon.

And which of them has an ego

Verified Atheist — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:17:59 +0000

In reply to Gridlock in Iowa

And which of them has an ego small enough to allow them to concede this early in the race?