Instead of white smoke, Iowa is belching thick fog. Mitt Romney has won by, erm, eight votes. At least so we think, the Republicans say that it has to wait until ‘Certified Form E’ will be returned by all the Iowa counties, which will take two weeks, so this gossamer majority may well vanish.
Already some votes have been lost, others miscounted, so I doubt Romney will be doing much of a victory dance today. Iowa’s indecision is final. He has won by a majority of 0.0065 percentage points. It’s pretty good for the man who almost beat him, Rick Santorum, who won 30,007 votes to Romney’s 30,015. And Santorum didn’t spend a fraction of the budget Romney did. Also, although Romney has finished first he has marginally less support than he gathered in Iowa in 2008, when he only managed second.
More Republicans than ever took part in this Iowa primary, but half were reportedly undecided 24 hours ago – and they remain, collectively, undecided now. The enduring image from Iowa will be all of those voters who were interviewed, right up until the end, saying they still didn’t know who to go for. And if no one inspired them, what chance is there of Romney (or whoever) inspiring the swing voters?
Sometimes the American political system can pick unlikely winners, as happened with Obama. At other times it can end in spectacular and farcical indecision, like Florida 11 years ago. Iowa seems to be going through one of these less decisive moments. Lucky old Obama.
P.S. The story now is not ‘victorious Romney’, but ‘surging Santorum’. Several ‘anyone but Romney’ candidates have enjoyed a surge at some point, although Santorum’s has come at just the right time. There’s no doubt that Romney will do well in New Hampshire next week. He’s polling at 40 per cent; he has senators endorsing him there; and a second home, etc. (He has been a pretty infrequent visitor to Iowa, by contrast.) But how well can Santorum do in New Hampshire? And how long will this go on, until the Republicans pick a victor?
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