Editorial; A narrow victory Thursday, 05 January 2012 05:10

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has won Iowa by the tightest of margins, a mere eight votes, over surging social conservative Rick Santorum, a former senator who had been all but ignored until his poll numbers began to rise a week ago. In the past six months, Iowa Republicans have oscillated in their presidential preferences, sending six different candidates to the top of the pre-election polls in the state. Tuesday night seemingly failed to bring any greater clarity as three different candidates -Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul – finished neck and neck in the caucuses.

Interestingly, both Romney and Santorum were expected as recently as a month ago to win. But more remarkable was the  gains made by the latter. Santorum, a deeply socially conservative former senator from Pennsylvania, earned his success with gruelling public meetings across the state, largely beneath the media attention.  He bet everything on Iowa, spending more time in the state than any other candidate and holding more than 250 events. Even two weeks ago, it looked like a gamble unlikely to pay off. But, as caucus day approached, Santorum finally began to rise as the conservatives and evangelicals he had courted so strongly came to his side.

Despite Santorum’s impressive performance, Romney’s narrow victory places him in a good position to win New Hampshire’s primary next week before the candidates come face to face in a more competitive primary in South Carolina. Moreover, Romney has won the endorsement of Sen. John McCain, the last Republican nominee for president.  McCain remains popular in New Hampshire, where he beat Romney 37-31 percent four years ago. His backing for Romney reflected an effort by the Republicans to avoid an intra-party bloodletting that could leave the eventual nominee in a weakened position to take on Obama.

The results from Iowa claimed casualties: Rick Perry announced late in the night that he would go home because of his poor showing, appearing to surprise members of his staff.  And Michele Bachmann ended her campaign to become the 2012 presidential nominee yesterday and called on supporters to rally behind the party’s eventual choice.

However, the many uncertainties in the Republican camp are good news for Democratic President Barack Obama. He is building a huge fundraising and vote-getting organization for the November general election. His polls numbers are improving as the jobless figure drops. Even then he will have a tough battle ahead. The Yes-we-can president has hugely disappointed his supporters with a series of failures and by failing to fulfill his campaign promises. If Obama wins a second term, it will be mostly because of the failure of Republicans to put up a strong alternative, than his own achievements.