Posted on 12/28/2011 1:12:40 PM PST by TBBT
Mitt Romney increasingly is being seen as a winner in Iowa, even if he fails to win the state's caucuses on Tuesday.
A second place finish on Jan. 3 in Iowa could lock up the GOP nomination quickly for the former Massachusetts governor, who appears all but unbeatable in the next contest — New Hampshire's Jan. 10 primary.
“If he comes in first or second in Iowa and wins New Hampshire, he will be the prohibitive favorite — it’s very difficult to see a scenario where he’s not our nominee,” said Al Cardenas, head of the American Conservative Union, who is officially neutral in the 2012 contest but worked on Romney’s 2008 campaign.
The political winds in Iowa have shifted from candidate to candidate throughout the past year.
Romney fared poorly there in 2008 and has not campaigned aggressively in the state this cycle, which would make a second-place showing even more impressive. It would look even better if he runs a close second to Ron Paul, who most Republicans doubt can emerge as the GOP standard-bearer given his foreign policy views.
“If I’m Romney, Ron Paul winning the caucuses is the second best thing to me winning the caucuses, and that’s a pretty close second,” said Steve Deace, a prominent conservative talk-show host in Iowa.
A win by the Texas congressman will likely help Romney because it will do more to disqualify the other candidates as the Romney-alternative than convince voters Paul should be the nominee, say Deace and other observers.
If Paul wins, Deace said “the entire Republican establishment will deem the entire process irrelevant and move on.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
It's a game of perceptions and momentum. To that end, the media will spin this hard...
One candidate has a chance to stop Romney. Will that chance be blown? Will the second tier clingers make Romney's strategy a success?
If not Newt, It will be Mitt.
I predict that won’t happen. It will be 3rd Place for RinoRom.
More psyops.
Again, I aint buyin it.
Yes. The GOP establishment can then go back to sleep for another four years.
It’s the opposite. We need to get Newt out of there for a conservative to challenge Romney. Only a conservative can beat Romney. Gingrich just matches Romney flip for flop.
Want four more of obama? Nominate romney. That way you’ll have either obama or obama lite. Either way you will have finished the complete destruction of the Republic.
If the establishment media tries to spin this as a Romney lock up, South Carolina will screw them up just for spite. No way SC voters and Florida voters are going to in effect disenfranchise themselves by “going along to get along” with Iowa and New Hampshire.
The latest Liberal/Liberal RINO Media spin....
Sounds like Ron Paul is certain to win Iowa....you don’t spin for the 2d place guy before an election
The meme is “He lost, but he really won.”
Romneycare and all his other liberal stances aside there are three other problems about the man.
1) Only John Kerry and Al Gore have him beat on flip-flopping. Romney’s the type to run pro-life in a GOP primary and once he gets the nomination he’d run pro-abortion to win the democrat votes and somehow explain that he never changed his mind or flip flopped.
2) If there was a democrat majority in Congress he would nominate liberal judges and by the time his re-election comes up in 2016 he will claim that he had to nominate liberal judges in order to get them passed through the liberal Congress. That’s Romney.
3) The other problem about Romney is that he’s too “in your face” as a candidate. He could easily lose it in a debate and earn sympathy for Obama. We don’t need that to be happening.
SC will go for Newt.......Iowa will take a back seat
The Iowa Caucus* should have an asterisk next to it every time you see it.
*Not a scientific survey.
Sheer humbug. Even if Romney comes in first in IA and NH, if Newt takes SC and FL by even more commanding margins, it’s hardly over.
I don’t see the Romnulan winning the south.
I will never vote for MItt f’n Romney under any circumstances whatsoever.
A lot of that we won’t have to worry about because Romney will never get elected. Kennedy used ads demonstrating his checkered tenure as a corporate raider at Bain Capital to savage him in 1994 and made him lose the Senate race by 17 points, the same year Newt and Republicans swept Congress overall. Romney had to stop using his line that he was a “job creator” because the ads proved otherwise. Kennedy didn’t even use all the ads because he was able to kill Romney’s numbers so quickly. The DNC has apparently been dusting them all off for reruns and never-before-seen scenes...
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58952_Page3.html
Look at the last group of idiots who declared victory before the first snap and look where they are now. I give you the 2011 Philadelphia Eagles Dream Team.
You can bet if Romney is the Republican candidate Obam will be re-elected.
Such as?
This guy needs to step back from the crack pipe. Newt will probably come in 3rd in Iowa, maybe 2nd in NH and then win SC and Fl. He has an excellent chance at the nomination. People just fundamentally don’t want Mitt. The GOP elite leadership and their minions want Mitt.
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