Bowl Games Today, and Iowa Votes Tomorrow

Today we will watch a feast of College bowl games and for those who love football emotions will be running high. What is fascinating about politics is how much emotion plays a part in what is definitely a sport just like football, and one that is just as brutal, maybe not so much physically but certainly emotionally. Let’s briefly look at where things stand in Iowa on the eve of the Caucus Bowl.

Today the media is signalling the “Santorum Surge” and raving about the perfect timing where he will gain all the benefits of rising late while at the same time not face the torrent of attack ads that the Romney Superpac has unleashed on Newt Gingrich. These attack ads are by all accounts effective, and have sunk Gingrich 20 points in as many days. Supporters of Romney say these are simply to contrast the 2 candidates, and all they are meant to do is state the facts. Gingrich has vowed to stay positive, and while this may be admirable in some quarters, political pundits at best deem it as risky and at worst suicidal. No matter what you think of Gingrich, it is hard to look at his record and say it is “in character” for him to stay positive. But on the plus side, we do admire the sentiment and would like to see more constructive campaigns and what candidates will do rather than consistently be bombarded with vicious attack ads out to destroy other candidates personally and politically.

Back to emotion, and the front-runner Mitt Romney. Will he be able to generate the passion that Barak Obama used to carry himself into office? Will Santorum surge ahead of him? As we look at both of these candidates, it is hard to see how either will light the intense fire that Obama, despite his record in office, will unleash. We are already reading that Obama’s organization in Iowa, which is a true battleground state, far outreaches any of the Republican challengers. The only candidate we see that operationally will be able to catch up is Romney. The rest of the field is ill-equipped both financially and professionally (with the exception of Gingrich).

But emotionally, you have to look once again to Ron Paul. We were sent a link to a blog post by a writer in Israel entitled: From Israel: Vote Ron Paul and Let My People Go. We were struck by the emotion that Ron Paul is able to ignite in his followers, and that person by person that fire spreads across the landscape. Whether this will reach critical mass, we can’t say. It is not probable, but it is certainly possible.

Santorum strikes us, from his debate performances, as an angry social conservative, one that will have limited appeal nationally and with no chance of beating Obama. An interesting article on Santorum that we read today is entitled Why Rick Santorum is No Social Conservative Savior. We may be wrong, but this “surge” strikes us as one with very little propulsion.

So as we watch college football and yell and scream for our various teams today, who will we cheer and yell for tomorrow on the Republican side? Well, we are not taking a side, and it is for the reason that our team isn’t playing, and we haven’t picked a new one to get behind yet. Our Republican candidate did not make the Caucus Bowl. But if you must know who that candidate was; the person that generates the emotion that we know could compete with Obama in November, it was Chris Christie.

 

Tags: , , , ,

Post a Comment