The Distrust of Conservative America

Bart Kerremans analyzes the outcome of the Republican election in Iowa. Kerremans is professor of International Relations and American politics at the Catholic University of Leuven.

Romney faces a balancing act: He must get more conservative voters to his side without losing too many moderate voters to Paul. The argument that he alone can defeat Obama takes center stage.

With the Iowa caucuses, the Republicans launched the process in which Obama’s main opponent in the presidential election of November 6 will be announced. It will soon be followed by primaries in New Hampshire (Jan. 10), South Carolina (Jan. 21) and Florida (Jan. 31). What is the significance of the results in Iowa?

First, the great conqueror is organization. The three highest-scoring candidates (Romney, Santorum and Paul) were indeed for months known as the three candidates with the best-developed organization in this sparsely populated rural state. Both Romney and Paul were were supported by the organization they already had expanded in the previous Republican primaries in 2008. Santorum had invested enormously in this during the last year dispite his continuing low scores in the polls. He gambled on being ready when the ever-skeptical conservative Republicans, after their brief idylls with successively Bachmann, Perry, Cain and Gingrich, would again go looking for a candidate who could best represent their ideas.

It turned out to be a correct guess. Santorum connected this guess to a relentlessly stubborn campaign for a cause that seemed lost. Of all the candidates, he organized the vast majority of meetings in Iowa, even though until mid-December they barely attracted any people. Especially with evangelical Christians, this had an effect. Last week, a poll by the Des Moines Register still showed that their share in the caucuses would be much lower than in 2008. The results from yesterday show that this is not so. Their share reached up to almost 60 percent again. Apparently, Santorum, who in this group scored far the best, succeeded at the last minute to get many of these people to the caucuses, and this is now in his advantage.

Despair Attempt

The role of the caucuses in Iowa (and the primary in New Hampshire) is primarily to decimate the participants. By participating at the top Santorum and Paul besides Romney are still in the race for the Republican nomination. For other candidates, the race is almost over. Gingrich seems to intend a desperate attempt in South Carolina but he will have a hard time; Santorum quickly will become the candidate of the religious-conservative voters, a group that, in November last year, still gave Gingrich the benefit of the doubt, but now firmly will choose the side of Santorum.

Gingrich’s sometimes doubtful conservatism will definitely help Santorum. At least he can only hope that it will work out like that. Next week in New Hampshire, a really strong result for him is not expected. The voters are less conservative and there are also strong libertarian supporters. Romney and Paul will therefore score highly. Santorum may hope that both will divide the price equally among each other so Romney’s favorite status is not too much strengthened before the primary in conservative South Carolina. Meanwhile, Santorum gets the time to gather capital through conservative fundraisers. He will need that given the high financial strength of Romney’s campaign.

Impaired

Romney will not be happy with his results in Iowa. Actually, his narrow victory exposes his main weakness. He is mistrusted by conservative America and seen as a necessary evil to get Obama out of the White House. However, with Santorum as an opponent, he will continuously be pushed in the conservative direction, something that can weaken him in a possible conflict with Obama in November.

Furthermore, Romney can only hope that most of Ron Paul’s supporters eventually will choose his side, especially after a potentially delineated victory in New Hampshire. But Paul’s strong score in Iowa will undoubtedly will make this more difficult, partly because he and Romney largely seem to attract the same voters: more moderate Republicans. What they besides that expect from the more conservative Republicans has very different causes. With Paul it is about principled libertarian voters who do not want government intervention. With Romney it is about conservatives who believe he is the only one that can beat Obama.

Romney thus awaits a difficult balancing act. He must get more conservative voters to his side without losing too many moderate voters to Paul. The argument that he is the only one who can beat Obama will be central. Or how the results of Iowa in the Republican race will further continue playing.