Forget Mitt Romney’s whisper-close eight-vote margin of victory over Rick Santorum in Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses. The real tally stands at Romney, 25 percent, not-Romney, 75 percent.
That’s not good news for Mitt — or for President Obama.
With Michele Bachmann dropping out of the race yesterday — and with other candidates likely to follow after next week’s New Hampshire primary — the chances of a credible alternative to Romney the “inevitable” suddenly look very good indeed.
For there’s no way the Romney camp can put lipstick on this pig. The Massachusetts millionaire, who’s been running for the nomination for almost six years, feigned indifference to the Iowa result, but still spent millions there, mostly on negative ads against Newt Gingrich, whom he saw as his most potent rival.
Surprise: Rick Santorum saw things break his way at the last minute — after Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Gingrich in turn imploded (and Jon Huntsman never showed up). At a cost of about 73 cents a vote, Santorum tied the Romney machine (cost per vote: $100) and handily defeated wacky Ron Paul.
Santorum’s timely surge shows once more that Romney is finding it nearly impossible to break 25 percent, whether in opinion polls or in voting. By now the message should be clear: The GOP’s conservative base doesn’t like him, doesn’t trust him and — unless they have no other choice — won’t vote for him, no matter how much he panders to them.
This should not come as a shock. Romney’s steadfast refusal to disown RomneyCare — the spiritual and practical forbear of ObamaCare — is a huge strike against him, since repeal of the health-care monstrosity remains GOP Goal No. 1. And his plutocratic background is tailor-made for demonization by the Democrats and their Occupy Wall Street ground troops.
Pundits were quick to opine that Santorum has no real shot at the nomination. His campaign is too underfunded, he’s “outside the mainstream” on such social issues as gay rights and abortion, he lacks the organization to dent Romney in New Hampshire, etc.
Yet Santorum just could be for real. His working-class background — so eloquently invoked in his post-caucus speech — has great appeal to Americans who still love a Horatio Alger story.
What’s more, Santorum doesn’t have to win in New Hampshire next week to “win.” He only has to bloody Romney’s nose again: If he, a looking-for-payback Gingrich and a still-potent Paul can hold Romney to below 40 percent in his own backyard, then Mitt is in real trouble heading into South Carolina, where his northeastern-moderate brand won’t play well.
That’s why Santorum’s rise is not good news for Obama, either. The Democrats have been prepping for Romney — the poster boy for Wall Street “greed” — for months. But Santorum hits them where they’re weakest: on life, on guns, on religion. He has a natural appeal to legions of Reagan Democrats — the “bitter clinger” white working-class types whose votes are up for grabs, now that Democrats (pursuing a rich liberals-poor minorities strategy) can offer only a show of Wall Street-bashing.
Santorum’s western Pennsylvania upbringing, just across the border from Ohio, gives him a natural opening to Midwesterners — and it is in midwestern swing states such as Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin that the fall election will be won or lost.
Santorum could go after Obama right on Obama’s home turf, and is likely to have a far broader and deeper appeal to ordinary folks than the arugula-eating faculty lounger from Hyde Park.
Speaking near Cleveland yesterday, Obama again cast himself as the defender of the middle class. But his message turned on Washington-insider stuff — his (unconstitutional) “recess” appointment of Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (even though the Senate is not officially in recess). People want jobs; Obama’s offering words.
Talk about change: Santorum’s triumph in Iowa will bring him much-needed money and support, and if he survives New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida this month, he’ll be tough. Blindsided, the Obamanauts must now regroup, and figure out how to trash the devout Roman Catholic former senator. Thanks to the president’s sorry record, winning ugly is just about the only hope they have.