A look ahead to the first votes in the US GOP primary

This first appeared in The American Magazine, January 2012 issue

So now it’s Herman Cain who bites the dust.  Or might he surface in July next year as the running mate, i.e. vice presidential candidate, on the Republican ticket? If so, with whom?  And who else among the fallen hopefuls fits with which eventual contender for the top slot against Obama? I found no less than 52 hopefuls for my article in October, and now it appears there’s only two, or possibly three.  Sure? no, there must be a better choice for the Grand Old Party than former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, now in first place, and Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts.

The table below shows just how volatile the race has so far been.  One after another, first Sarah Palin in the Spring, then Romney, who peaked at 25% support of Republican voters in July, then Rick Perry who soared to 32% in September and then crashed, then Cain who hit 26% in October, and who’s now toast.

So what’s now the lay of the land across American as we get the first of the polls in December?  The national front runner today is Newt Gingrich, a politician whom I’d written off a few months ago, three times wed and an admitted adulterer with a record of being fined $300,000 for giving ‘inaccurate statements’ to the House of Representatives’ Ethics Committee, now leading Mitt Romney a Mormon in a country where nearly a quarter of voters say they will never vote for a Mormon, while one potential Republican candidate after another talked her self (Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann) and then him self (Tim Pawlenty, Rick Parry and now Herman Cain and many others) out of the running. 

But as the attention turns to ‘real people casting real votes’ as the politicians love saying when they’re behind in the polls, we must now focus on the early state races.

With the Iowa caucus less than a month away, immediately followed a week later by the first true test, the New Hampshire primary, the dropouts are busy positioning themselves as the pollsters begin to test the strength of matched pairs of Republicans to go to the wire next November against the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and, most likely, Joe Biden. We won’t know for sure who the candidates for president will choose as their VP partner until the party conventions in the summer.

In Iowa, it’s not a primary where voters go into polling booths and swing one lever on the electronic voting machine to choose their favourite candidade, it’s party supporters in people’s front rooms in small groups, with supporters of one candidate or another gather in one corner of the room or another, and argue their support for their man or woman. And there will be some who chose to sit in the kitchen, figuratively speaking, who are the don’t knows/none of the above/haven’t focused yets or those who are still holding out for one of the many no longer on the ballot. A few will still be holding out for these, and may well sit on their hands on 3 January and not vote, or more likely vote for the one least offensive to themselves. 

At the moment, as the field is narrowing to a handful of candidates to be tested in less than a month in Iowa. The lead is held by Newt Gingrich at around 25% to Romney’s 15%, but with Congressman Ron Paul tied with Herman Cain at 12%, it will be interesting to see where Cain’s votes go now that he’s out of the race.  Cain’s dramatic surge in support came largely from Tea Party supporters of Palin, who peaked at 31%, Bachmann’s peak at 14%, Cain at 14%, lately the fading Tea Party’s favourite to beat the comparatively moderate Romney .  As a black to try to win over the solid black supporters, 11% of voters in 2008, 19 out of 20 voting for Obama, he’s a strong contender, but would twice-admitted adulter Gingrich want mulit-accused Cain as his vice-presidental candidate?

For that matter, would anyone want Sarah Palin? Sure they want her endorsement, which has recently been trying to boost Rick Santorum’s standing, languishing with just between 2% (New Hampshire) 3% (nationally), and 5% (Iowa) and five percent She leaped to fame as John McCain’s running mate in 2008, and since then is mainly known for a rent-a-mouth on late night chat shows.  She certainly wouldn’t do any better bringing in the women’s vote in 2012 than she did in 2008.  The swing among all voters between 2004 when two men were the Republican candidates for president and vice president and 2010 was 5%.  In 2008, one man, McCain, and one woman, swing nationally 5%, among women, also 5%.

Jon Huntsman, former Governor of Utan, but with service in no less than five administrations and who was Obama’s Ambassador to China, a very big job indeed for a man who originally worked in Ronald Reagan’s White House, is in my view the best qualified candidate and yet can only muster a couple of points nationally, and is from a safe Republican state so fails to bring any big block of marginal state’s delegates to the ticket, and besides, is a Mormon.  He’s death to a Romney ticket, so Gingrich’s nominee, maybe...could be a runner.

New England New Hampshire’s a very different place than Middle America Iowa, and so is its political composition.  While Gingrich has a 10 point lead over Romney in Iowa, the situation is reversed in New Hampshire, where Romney is leading Gingrich by 7.  Romney has a substantial war chest and a well organised campaign team with offices and volunteers throughout New Hampshire, Gingrich is less well funded but catching up fast, and just building his local campaign, in a state when the local campaign catches the national attention big time, is flooded with cameras and news reporters, feature writers and pundits.  They sometimes say to pollsters and media in New Hampshire that their reason for not voting for one candidate or another is that they haven’t met him yet.

Likely Republican voters are making up their minds as to who think should be their candidate, with 82% giving a choice among the eight front runners in September, 85% in October, and 87% in November.

Next month’s blog will be written the day after Iowa, and before New Hampshire, and I’ll be updating it and tweeting on the weekend. Follow me: @RobertWorcester.