That's right, the Iowa Caucuses are over. Why am I commenting on this only now? Because, whereas our news media covered virtually nothing but the Iowa Caucuses for two straight weeks, I thought it best to let the ecstasy surrounding this rather exclusive and undemocratic event run its course such that the matter might finally be discussed with sobriety. So I'll now offer my take on the outcome: In the last few years, the Republican Party's internal politics have distinctly shifted rightward as a product of the influence of the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party movement has (whether they recognize it or not) in effect won over the GOP to its cause. One can see as much in that, when surveyed on the matter, 69% of Republicans today claim to support the movement in question. All the Republican presidential candidates openly support the Tea Party movement with the sole exception of Jon Huntsman, who remains a 1990s-styled American conservative. This definite shift has resulted in Republican politicians scrapping their previous support for market-based initiatives for health care reform (e.g. "Romney Care") and for environmental protection (namely cap-and-trade schemes, such as the one invented by Newt Gingrich's group in the '90s), campaign finance reform (see John McCain's and George W. Bush's historical support for banning soft money campaign contributions), and so forth in favor of a much more rigid ideological alignment with laissez-faire economics. Without understanding that this shift has occurred, it is either impossible or nearly impossible to break down the results of the Iowa race along ideological lines. But proceeding from the recognition of this general rightward shift, we can see the true significance of Iowa's results: (We also, again, need to recognize that the Iowa Caucuses are meetings of party functionaries, not a vote of ordinary, rank-and-file Republicans. Party activists are somewhat different sorts of people than are ordinary, rank-and-file members. They tend to keep up with the news, receive news from multiple sources, and have a high level of motivation and even sophistication. Most Republicans, by contrast, rarely watch anything but Fox News, are very discouraged, and aren't very political. This was a vote almost exclusively of well-informed and highly motivated partisans, in other words. The more democratic primaries will not be.) There were three candidates who got the support of more than 20% of Iowa voters: Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul. Well we can break that down ideologically as follows: Rick Santorum represents the right wing. Mitt Romney represents the center (center as in the center of GOP politics, not the center of national or international politics). Ron Paul represents the left flank. (Whoever carries the youth vote represents the left.) The former two basically tied, while Ron Paul emerged in third. Is there really any significance there? Well, Democratic-leaning press outlets (namely MSNBC) tend to speculate that Republicans simply vote toward the far right end of their party's internal spectrum, and thus tend to pick whichever candidate is the most ideologically extreme. This is just one more proof that that's just not true. Looking back at the last roughly forever, partisans, be they Republicans, Democrats, or whatever, usually wind up going for the center of their own internal spectrum of debate. It's just that the political center of gravity changes over time and with economic developments in the real world. The two most recent cases of someone distinctly on the right edge of the Republican Party winning the presidential nomination I can think of are Barry Goldwater (1964) and Ronald Reagan (1980, '84). And even Reagan moderated somewhat in his second term, one observes. Mitt Romney will win the nomination, as I predicted months ago, well before the whole Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum "surges". More evidence emerges daily. He is already leading the polls by a wide margin in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and he will almost certainly win Nevada as well. All of this sets a definite tone for the rest of the campaign. Partially that's because he's got tons of money in the bank. Partially it's because women compose the majority of voters. And partially it's because Republicans, not unlike Democrats and others, usually tend to think pragmatically (i.e. who can actually win the general election) when it actually comes crunch time. Anything else signals of true inner-party instability and major, historic demographic shifts therein. The historic shift though, as already mentioned, has already occurred. This is not a year of inner-GOP chaos. The pragmatist "anybody but Obama" is the standard rallying cry I see in Republican circles this year. The Iowa Caucus set an indecisive tone, signalling little more than that Iowa GOP functionaries are uncertain as to what they want (except that the don't want a libertarian). But the larger trend is clear.
