Iowans kick off unpredictable GOP contest
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DES MOINES, IowaThere are only three tickets out of Iowa, or so the saying goes.
But trying to figure out who will win, place and show in Tuesday's caucus meetings here is a real crapshoot.
There have been six candidates to lead in the state since the summer and now the socially conservative Rick Santorum is surging -- the fifth anyone-but-Mitt Romney candidate to catch a wave.
According to the most recent poll of likely caucus-goers by the Des Moines Register newspaper, Romney leads the pack with 24%, while libertarian Ron Paul is second with 22%.
But it's Santorum, who has leapfrogged Newt Gingrich for third place with 15%, who is gaining attention.
"We've raised more money in the last few days then we have in the last few months," Santorum told supporters at a campaign stop Monday in Iowa.
Santorum has campaigned exclusively in Iowa for the past 100 days, and has held more than 370 events throughout the state's 99 counties and is reaching out to its evangelical Christian voters, who handed the state to Mike Huckabee in 2008.
At a rally Sunday, Santorum predicted he'd do well Tuesday because, "folks in Iowa understand that the keys to America are strong families and strong faith."
But until this week, his glad-handing retail politics style hasn't paid off.
(The Des Moines Register, in its endorsement of Romney, wrote they thought Santorum was running to be minister-in-chief, hinting that his campaign is focussed on religious issues.)
Less than a week ago, Paul was leading and Santorum languished in single digits.
But now he's hoping for an upset win here in Tuesday's caucus meetings, where voters gather in groups around the state and discuss the strengths of the various candidates before electing a favourite for the group.
Santorum's surge has also caught the ire of his competitors, with Paul and Rick Perry blasting the former Pennsylvania senator on daytime talk shows as a liberal big spender in disguise who supported excessive government spending when he was in Congress.
All of the Republican candidates vying for the party's nomination are sprinting to the finish line with the caucus voting expected to wrap up Tuesday evening.
Santorum held five campaign stops Monday and has visited all 99 of the state's counties.
Paul, who campaigned Monday with his Tea Party darling son, Senator Rand Paul, criss-crossed the state and travelled some 640 km.
Romney began campaigning Monday before sunrise at a fairground in Davenport, Iowa, and held four other rallies at small businesses throughout the state.
And all this last-minute campaigning might just pay off.
In the recent Register poll, 41% of those who intended to vote in the caucuses hadn't yet made up their minds who they would support.
Despite that scarcely populated Iowa accounts for a paltry 1% of delegate votes at the Republican nomination convention this summer, candidates view the Midwest contest seriously as a momentum-builder. So far, candidates and independent political action committees (Super PACs) that support them have poured more than $6 million in advertising here, much of it negative.
Gingrich credits his sharp decline in the polls to millions of dollars spent on negative advertising flooding TV, radio and even car windshields highlighting his storied past.
On Monday, Gingrich conceded he wouldn't win Iowa and vowed to play tougher in New Hampshire.
Former Utah governor and ambassador Jon Huntsman, who is skipping Iowa and campaigning exclusively in New Hampshire, has repeatedly called Iowans' ability to pick winners.
"They pick corn in Iowa, they pick presidents in New Hampshire," he said last week, repeating a popular joke in the Granite state.
New Hampshire's primary is next Tuesday and Romney currently has twice the support there of his closest rival.
Bryn.weese@sunmedia.ca
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