Iowa Caucus

Well, I was bound to get into the nitty gritty of U.S. politics at some point and so here goes.


The Iowa Caucus graced us with its presence yesterday, kicking off the Republican primary season. Of course, you know that the Caucus/Primary purpose is to gear the GOP up for the Republican National Convention in which the world will know who will be next in line to run against President Obama.


Not to give away the ending for those of you who weren't up at the wee hours of this morning when the final votes were tallied, but the results were as follows:


Mitt Romney     24.6% or 30,015 votes
Rick Santorum   24.5% or 26,219 votes
Ron Paul          21.4% or 26,219 votes
Newt Gingrich   13.3% or 16,251 votes
Rick Perry         10.3% or 12,604 votes
                                                   *Source AP


Here's what this tells us:


1.Republicans are once again divided on who they are going to vote for. Conservatives and moderates are voting differently and they are doing so in a big way.


2. Many Republicans are backing a candidate that they want to be President instead of the one that they think can actually win the presidency. (Be honest with yourself, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann and so many others don't stand a chance at actually winning the presidency).


3. 30,000 people were either moderate enough to vote for Romney, or smart enough to realize their candidate doesn't stand a chance.


4. If Conservative and Moderate Republicans don't get on the same page, the Republican party could lose big. Divided parties never win, unless the supporters of one group move over to the other side. This won't happen here. Why? Take Ron Paul for example. He'll likely just run as an Independent if he doesn't win the nomination. Which will allow for votes to be taken out of the hands of the Republicans, with the Democrat vote remaining unchanged. You do the math.


My opinion: if you want to even pretend to mount an actual race against President Obama, you need to listen to your more moderate voters. Why? Because the truth of the matter is that moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats actually have very little differences between them. I know, I know, Democrats and Republicans, something in common? Actually, they do. Believe it or not, the actual distinction is not Democrat or Republican, but liberal, moderate, or conservative. The way we align ourselves politically have nothing to do with actual beliefs. With this in mind, Republicans must vote for someone who can appeal to conservatives and moderates, if they are going to campaign well. Liberals are a lost cause. We're voting for Obama.