A Day After Murky Finish, Some Defending Iowa’s Role in the Political Process

Iowans offered the nation something less than a clear path forward with Tuesday night’s razor-thin finish, which gave the rest of the country a vastly disparatein the Iowa Caucus.

Republican consultant Chris Drummond, who ran U.S. Sen. John McCain’s South Carolina campaign in 2008, told a Charleston, SC news station, “This is obviously step one for the process. For us here in South Carolina, it means absolutely nothing.”

It raises an interesting question: Did Iowa hold up its end of the bargain as voters prepare to hit the polls in New Hampshire on Jan. 10 and in South Carolina on Jan. 21 and so on throughout the nation?

Political watchers in Iowa and elsewhere backed Iowa’s first-in-the-nation performance this time around even as the Hawkeye State backed a favorite in Mitt Romney, a dark-horse Christian conservative with no money and little national presence in Rick Santorum, and a party outsider in Ron Paul.

"In a word, Rick Santorum's finish rejuvenates the role of the Iowa caucuses," said Dennis Goldford, political science professor at Drake University, adding that his  "tortoise" strategy of building support through lots of appearances and contact with Iowa Republicans reaffirms "the traditional caucus playbook."

The worth of Santorum's strategy was questioned this year as politicos tried to evaluate the impact of the many televised debates among the candidates. Those debates deflated Rick Perry's campaign and inflated Newt Gingrich's last fall, but Goldford said Santorum's second-place finish reaffirms Iowans' unique role in presidential politics.

Former Iowa GOP chairman Mike Mahaffey agreed saying Iowans have changed the dynamic of the race.

“What we do is give everyone who is running a chance to show their wares. Our job is winnowing the field,” Mahaffey said. “We changed the dynamic of the race to some extent. There's always arguments against Iowa, but you have to start some place, and I don’t think Iowa hurt itself at all last night.”

And, to some degree, Iowa did change the course of the race. to her campaign today after a sixth-place finish in her "home state," and Rick Perry said he was "reassessing" his candidacy on Tuesday after a fifth place finish, although today he announced he would campaign in South Carolina. And after a fourth-place finish, Newt Gingrich has already started changing his positive, nice guy campaign to a more aggressive, attack-minded approach.

David Redlawsk, Rutgers University political science professor and director of
the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling, said real changes historically come out of Iowa the contest. Better than expected finishes have proven to translate into more media attention and consequently more votes down the road, he said.

The caucuses don't always immidiately cut down the field in terms of who is in and out, but they winnow who is and isn't relavent for the media to cover.

“I think the caucuses’ armrest is pretty safe, at least as much as they can be at this stage. Republican turnout was strong and Santorum shows that grassroots really can pay off,” Redlawsk said.

Jerry Crawford, a Democratic strategist who ran Hillary Clinton’s 2007-08 Iowa campaign, stood up against his counterparts' critics that harp on Iowa for rallying behind, as they see it, .

“I think there couldn’t have been a stronger result from Iowa. Rick Santorum’s ability to tie for the win with no money proves that Iowa is about retail politics. The voters will spend the time to get to know people and will not be overrun by the expenditure of millions of dollars. I don’t know how it could have come out any better,” Crawford said.

Crawford also questions those who doubt Santorum's viability.

“They don’t need me to help them, but I am far more worried about Rick Santorum then I ever have been about Mitt Romney. He proved his chops by winning in blue collar Pennsylvania. The 2012 election will be decided by those blue collar voters. I fear him much more than that sandy-haired plastic humanoid.”