Clearly, nobody in Iowa has ever Googled "Rick Santorum"

I heard Romney prattling on about the wonderful meritocracy that is America and thought of this piece brought to my attention by an American colleague:

"Even in a lean year, [colleges] still try to keep the number of legacy admits consistent from year to year," she said. "It's embarrassing. They don't want to come out and say, 'Hey, the overall admit rate was 10 percent but for legacies it's 35.' It makes the general public mad."
Extract from - http://abcnews.go.com/Business/IndustryInfo/story?id=4626882&page=1#.TwRxivJbWuI

Is he and/or the rest of the country in denial?

Good luck waiting for Invictus to admit he's wrong about anything.

Fulham, how come you never comment about British politics? I guess because your country is perfect, right?

No far from it. Indeed I remember a recent debate about Farage and another one about Churchill and another one about Irish neutrality in WW2 in the light of the Battle of the Atlantic, but we had better not derail the thread eh?

Anyway Putin what is your view of legacy admissions? I am sure that you have much knowledge to impart on the subject. I am curious.

Yeah, I'm not terribly worried about Santorum (that came out wrong).
But yeah, what do Mike Huckabee and Pat Robertson have in common? Probably a lot of things actually, but one of those things is the fact that they never had a snowballs chance in hell of winning the Republican nomination despite strong showings in the Iowa caucuses. Iowa has had a history of boosting the campaigns of oddball, underdog, religious right candidates, with less funding and organization than other frontrunners. The rest of the campaign will change things I think, and candidates with less fringe views will emerge as the frontrunners, and people like Santorum and Bachmann will have to withdraw eventually.

Yeah Bachmann has already suspended her campaign, and Perry is going back to Texas to "assess" the Iowa results and "determine whether there is a path forward", which isn't a good sign for his campaign.

^ This scares me more than anything. These two do not like Romney, hate Paul (Bachman seems to hate Gingrich as well), and Huntsman is too liberal. The guy these two seem closest to is Santorum, and if they throw him their votes he might have a chance.

And Mafia, you are comparing this election to others where there were actual strong candidates. I think you can admit that this is not one of those elections.

but after sleeping on it, I think he has a lesser chance of winning the general election. While the skeletons in his closet are not reducible to a soundbite, his nomination would make the race into a foreign policy-social election which Democrats can easily win.

Yeah actually after thinking about it for a few minutes Perry possibly withdrawing was a scary result. I had kinda banked on him drawing all the socially conservative vote away from Santorum. Assuming Perry does withdraw that leaves Gingrich, Huntsman (at least officially, in any real sense he's not really in the race at all), Paul, Romney and Santorum. And Santorum is easily the best candidate for religious fundamentalists there. = / We'll have to wait and see.

A question. How do religious fundamentalists feel about Gingrich?

Not only the religious fundamentalists but much of the hardcore conservatives as well

He cheated on his wife and converted to Catholicism. I'm sure fundamentalist hypocrisy would allow them to vote for him in November but I am assuming they will look for another alternative until then

Yeah I figured that would be the answer. And Paul is always a bit of an oddball candidate.
Still looking at the polling; even in polls from yesterday, New Hampshire seems unaffected by the huge Santorum surge in Iowa (sorry), Romney still has a wide lead there 43%, over Paul 16% and Huntsman with 10%. Santorum is still only in a distant 5th there, with 5%.

I guess Santorum might benefit from New Hampshire social conservatives who are trying to overturn the recent legalization of gay marriage in New Hampshire, but you'd think that'd have already happened if it were going to, you know?

Crazyeyes and Perry are out now

We can retitle this campaign now, The 2012 Republican Presidential Primaries or, Why Mitt Romney Owes Dan Savage a Thank You Card.

Everyone knows Romney will win in NH, the danger is SC. But unless some crazy stuff happens, Id have to agree Romney has this. Even so, I don't like the fact that Santorum will be prominent in this race and, therefor, likely be able to demand some serious concessions for an endorsement. Can anyone say Secretary of State/ Vice President Santorum?

Ron Paul will likely win the actual delegate counts in Iowa, the folks who will do the actual presidential nominating at the actual Republican nominating convention this year:

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/did-ron-paul-just-win-iowa/289986

I agree with SC:

It's going to be Romney.

Which I guess is...OK? It seems a shallow field, Romney vs. Obama, who offends your senses the least...

But at least, though he's said some things I strongly disagree with, I can bear to LISTEN to Romney, and at least give him a chance...

Ron Paul?

I'd sooner vote Daffy Duck, I think he's the saner choice (and candidate.)

*sigh*... What's insane about not wanting to kill hundreds of thousands of people in more pointless wars and spending the country into (and beyond) bankruptcy?

Well, how else are we going to keep oil prices high? There's no profit in cheap refined fuel, duh.

Oh, and by the way, the establishment choice is Romney, so that there is continuity independent of who wins, Romney or Obama. The Republican nuts are all ruled out, and Newt ain't trusted to carry out orders. The Republican rank and file will have problems with Romney and he'll have to move to the right of Obama, which is pretty difficult at the moment, considering Romney's past and how far right Obama already is. My bet will continue to be on Obama. This "race" is very, very uninteresting and unexciting. Obama will be boringly and predictably reelected, the Dems will hold the Senate and possibly retake the House.

Notice how the entire media have already declare Romney the "winner" of Iowa, even though he won by 8 friggin' votes. Hello Fox News?

"*sigh*... What's insane about not wanting to kill hundreds of thousands of people in more pointless wars and spending the country into (and beyond) bankruptcy?"

Absolutely nothing.

It's just Paul's attitude, ways, means, ideas, philosophy, proposed solutions, proposed cuts, lack of an understanding of how the 21st century works and a desire to run a 21st century state in an 18th century style, and general outlook that I find to be the problem...

OH!

And the fact that, no, sorry, I DON'T buy he wasn't responsible, at least to some extent, for those racist comments in FOUR newsletters under his OWN name.

Sorry.

Character counts with me...

Obama may be a bore, and ditto Romney, but at least they don't come across as morally bankrupt or racist to me...see, that sort of thing counts for me...

"Obama may be a bore, and ditto Romney, but at least they don't come across as morally bankrupt or racist to me...see, that sort of thing counts for me..."

So killing hundreds of thousands of people in pointless wars and supporting the transfer of trillions of dollars from taxpayers to Wall Street robber barons is all okay, but an association with racist statements from 20 years ago is a deal breaker for you?

You don't consider the guy who has drastically expanded the predator drone program, which has killed hundreds of Pakistani civilians, to be a "morally bankrupt" person?

I think someone who supports the historical genocide perpetrated on the Chinese during the Sino-Japanese war (jpg) as a morally bankrupt person

"*sigh*... What's insane about not wanting to kill hundreds of thousands of people in more pointless wars and spending the country into (and beyond) bankruptcy? "

Oh come on tolstoy, the only reason people point out the war in afganistan and iraq over wars such as the war of the Triple Alliance is that the Iraq and afganistan War are just so damn cool. I mean think about it...