Rick Santorum Wins in Iowa!

Well, no, Mitt Romney won by 8 votes last night, but it really is a big, big victory for Santorum.. and a big win for the "anybody but Mitt" crowd.  

Romney really needed to win outright to show Republicans that he had the party faithful behind him.  But he just couldn't get it going.  Republicans aren't crazy about Romney, and they are still playing the "Anybody but Mitt" song.  Meanwhile, as one by one each of the other candidates rose and fell, it was time for Rick Santorum, whose claim to fame is his rampant anti-gay rhetoric and his extreme anti-choice rhetoric.. even going so far as opposing birth control.  

Will Santorum be another of those 15-minutes-of-fame-and-top-poll-numbers Republicans.. or will he have some staying power as the Evangelical/Tea Party wing of the Republican party flail around for somebody to hang onto?  After Santorum, there really aren't any Evangelical or Tea Party candidates left, are there?  So he may wind up as the Evangelical/Tea Party standard bearer, even though it is unlikely he could be chosen as the actual Republican candidate.      

Who Supports Romney?

Since Romney is still likely to be the eventual nominee, let's look at who supports Romney (and who doesn't)  according to the exit polls:

• People over 65. (33% for Romney).  49% of young people 17-29 support Paul, 30% of the 30-44's support Santorum, with 26% of the 45-64's supporting Santorum.
• Neither men nor women.  Men favor Paul (24%) ; women favor Santorum (27%).
• The least educated and the most educated.  High school or less, 22% for Romney.  Post graduate degree, 29% for Romney.  "Some college" went for Santorum; college graduates split in a 3-way tie for Paul, Romney, and Santorum. 
• The wealthiest.  36% of those with a family income of over $100,000 supported "Mr. Silver Spoon" Romney.  Santorum came in second in that group and he captured the $50,000 to $99,999 income group.  Paul captured the under $50K group.
• He did not capture self-proclaimed Republicans (They favored Santorum) or independents (They favored Paul).
• People who consider themselves "moderates" or "somewhat conservative" supported Romney, 32% and 38% respectively.  ("Liberals" supported Paul; "very conservatives" supported Santorum.)
• People who opposed the Tea Party movement backed Romney.  People who "strongly supported" or "somewhat supported" the Tea Partiers backed Santorum.
• Evangelicals did NOT support Romney; they supported Santorum.
• Of those who believe the economy is the biggest issue, 32% voted for Romney; also 48% of those for whom the biggest issue was who could beat Obama voted for Romney.  The "strong moral character" people voted for Santorum; and the "true conservative" people voted for Paul.
• Romney attracted the suburban voters; the three top candidates split the larger city voters, and Santorum attracted the under 10,000/rural people. 

What about the others?

Ron Paul was a strong and respectable third, with support among the young and among new caucus-goers.  However, Texas Governor Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann are likely to drop out sometime soon.  Where does this leave Newt Gingrich?

Gingrich did not attract significant numbers of any group of people; so there is no toe-hold for him.  He can't take the Tea Party/evangelical vote; even Romney gets a much larger part of the "somewhat conservative" vote; he does not take a plurality on any issue.  The only group in which he makes a headway are those who think the biggest issue in 2012 is who "has the right experience".  Newt comes in second in this group, with 28% of those people backing him, while 35% of those people back Romney.  And, no surprise, only 4% of those Repubs caucusing in Iowa think that Newt has a "strong moral character".  

As one Huffington Post writer believes, the biggest winner of the Republican Iowa caucuses was Barack Obama.  It makes sense; as the Republican candidates self-destruct, cannibalize each other, and appear really disunited.  Meanwhile, the President's poll numbers are finally inching back up, teasing with that 50% mark after months in the low-40's.   

Next stop:  New Hampshire.   

What's New in the Polls today? Gingrich and Romney "Acceptable"

Republican voters consider Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney "acceptable".


From Pollingreport.com :

1. 62% of Republican-leaning voters consider Newt Gingrich "acceptable" as their candidate according to a Gallup poll conducted in late November-early December.  54% of those same Republican voters consider Mitt Romney "acceptable".  41% feel that Rick Perry is "acceptable", 37% feel that Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain are "acceptable".  34% would give a nod to Ron Paul, 28% to Jon Huntsman, and 27% to Rick Santorum. 
2. Obama is up in Gallup's Daily Tracking poll with a 43% approval rating.  He's been in the range of 40% to 44% approval since early November.  The range has gone up a few points since late summer.
3. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index seems to have stalled at the -50 level (yes, that is a negative) over the past few weeks.  Over the past few years, the CCI was at its nadir in late 2008/early 2009 with a reading of -54.  It hit the negative 30's in early 2011, but then went back down.  So.. people are still pretty "uncomfortable".
4. From mid-October through late November, Ron Paul's favorability rating has been around 32 to 38% favorable; 34-35% unfavorable. 
5. From mid-October through late November, Mitt Romney's favorability rating has ranged from around 38% (now) up to 49% (mid October) and does seem to be decreasing.  His unfavorables  range from 35% to 38%.
6. From mid-October through late November, Newt Gingrich's favorability rating has ranged from 35 to 36%.  His unfavorables show more variation, from 39% up to 50%.
7. As of mid-November, 72% of people who lean Democrat want to renominate Obama as their candidate.  (This number has been fluctuating between 70 and 83% since early 2010.)  26% said find another candidate.
8. In terms of possible 2012 presidential matchups, Obama leads Gingrich 49 to 40%, and Romney, 45 to 44%.  Obama and Romney have been trading leads of 1 to 6% for a year now.
9. As of mid-November, 45% of people felt that Obama deserved to be re-elected, and 48% said that he did not deserve to be reelected.  
10. In a generic Congressional ballot, the Democrats are outpacing the Republicans by 1 to 4 percentage points.  In late October, 48% of the people said they would vote for the Democrat in their district in 2012, and 43% said they would vote for the Republicans.
11. The Democrats in Congress are getting 24 to 30% approval ratings in October through mid-November; the Republicans in Congress are getting 19 to 23% approval ratings in the same timeframe.
12. The overall Congressional approval rating averaged 11% in November.  To be fair, Congress has not received very good ratings in the last 6 years, which represents the available time frame of data at pollingreport.com . The highest ratings were in early 2007 and late 2005.  In both timeframes, Congress reached an approval rating into the low 40's%.  November 2011 has the lowest ratings, even lower than October 2011 ratings.
13. On the Supercommittee and its collapse:  53% of the country said they were following the Supercommittee "very closely" or "somewhat closely".  54% felt the committee members should have "compromised more".  24% blamed the Republicans for the collapse, 15% blamed the Democrats, 55% blamed both parties equally.    

The Role of the Government in Capitalism

"Why do you think corporations are sending jobs overseas? Lower costs? Larger margins? Cheaper labor? Less taxes? Less regulations? Unions?"

This series of questions was asked by someone commenting on an article about jobs a few weeks back.  The person posing the questions seemed to be hostile:  He wanted to make sure that people who were complaining about the lack of jobs understood that the problem was all of those regulations, nasty unions, the insistence of the American labor force on fair wages and working conditions.  (Just a touch of sarcasm there.)


I didn't reply to that particular post, but I did copy these questions and thought about them, as these kinds of questions are typical in discussions about the current jobs crisis. 

Do we want to become a Third World country?

After consideration, here's my reply to the series of questions in the first paragraph: