Paterno's passing marks the end of an era in college football

Joe Paterno died Sunday, and that's a predictable tragedy. Alabama legend Bear Bryant died less than two months after his final game with the Crimson Tide and like Paterno, who lasted just about as long, he lived to coach.

However unlike Bryant who treated his players like dogs, Paterno seemed to have a keener understanding of the human psyche.  He treated players like sons, and while that may not always win as many football games, it builds better men.

There was a big feature in Sports Illustrated (by Joe Posnanski, who was in State College this fall to write a biography of Paterno) a couple of years ago and it focused on one major point, Paterno’s goal, stemming from his father’s wishes for him, was to make an impact in life. And when that’s your goal, your charge isn’t just to winning games, a philosophy that’s lost on today’s what have you done for me lately sporting world.

It's sad to think that a man with the deserved historical stature of Joe Pa will have a big fat asterisk next to his name at least for a time, but when considering his life it will be impossible to ignore his tragic negligence in the Jerry Sandusky case. And don’t think I’m excusing him by saying this, but maybe he's been a bit too vilified for his role, either way though, this mistake is hardly of first line in his obituary significance.

Consider that no college football coach ever won as many games as Joe Pa. Consider that he stayed in one place for 46 years, spurning the NFL multiple times due to his life long quest to make an impact.

There will never be another Paterno. Just like there will never be another Bobby Bowden, or Bear Bryant, or Tom Osborne, or Bo Schembechler.

The firing of Paterno marked the end of an era. Coaching college football these days is too hard on the body and the mind for any one coach to have real longevity. The era of the long term icon coach is now long gone. And that's really too bad, because these guys represented everything that's good about the game. When they preached commitment it meant something because they had built their program from the ground up and by building it, they had proven their own commitment.

Joe Paterno built Penn State's football program from nothing and made it a powerhouse. He was left for dead in 2004 after winning seven games in two years, but he recovered and put together some excellent teams down the home stretch of his career.

I'll admit he was a bit of a punch line in the end, when he was much too old to be a major college football coach. He was probably not really doing much strategically and the Sandusky scandal certainly illustrates a certain out of touch quality.

But the man deserved to coach until he was 85, and without the scandal he deserved to coach until the day he died, because he's a coaching icon on a scale that we will never again see. Because he had a rare quality in a person, he actually cared.  And he most definitely made an impact.

Thoughts on the State of the Union

Nothing particularly surprising came out of the State of the Union tonight.  This was a campaign speech, and the President is a gifted political performer.  He proved that once again here, even with a long and sometimes very dry 6,000 plus word speech that helped set up and drive home some of the major themes of his reelection campaign.


My first major take away is that it was certainly no mistake that the President began and closed with references to the death of Osama Bin Laden for a reason.  He also got the most bipartisan claps in the chamber when he said this about Iran,  "Let there be no doubt:  America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal."  Obama's home turf this election will be on foreign policy; the GOP candidates will use their appeasement lines to throw red meat to the base, but in the general election, their foreign policy positions won't win any centrists.  In a weird twist of fate, the Democrat is the one who will really look strong on foreign policy this cycle.  


Foreign policy isn't usually a big issue, unless it's turned into an issue of the overall feeling of safety the country has. Obama can certainly make an argument that he's made Americans safer and if that message connects, it's powerful.


The second big thing is that the President's bipartisan pleas were mostly rhetorical grandstanding and this speech was an attempt by team Obama to draw a clear contrast with the Republicans on the economy first and foremost.  This line specifically will be a major line of attack by the Obama campaign:  "But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place."  It's a smart move by them to harp on the not returning to Bush era policies argument because it's their only real winning economic argument and is almost impossible for Republicans to rebut effectively.  


A third major take away is that the President used the bully pulpit well to set up another major focus of his message.  He channeled his American Jobs Act, pass this bill now and we can't wait message a few times to set up Congress as a do nothing body.  Every President proposes specific legislation in these speeches, but it's not always just because they know none of it will ever pass.  This go around that's all it was about.


If the President can connect with the do-nothing and let's not return to failed policies economic message, he's in a good spot politically.  Even though conventional wisdom says the GOP has the upper hand on the economic argument in the fall, that could be flipped on it's head by the President's team.  This would basically guarantee a win.


Moving on, one thing that really bothers me about the President is that he talks about reforming the tax code, but isn't really talking about reforming the tax code.  Instead he constantly offers new ways to make it more complex.  Warren Buffet probably shouldn't pay less in taxes than his secretary, this is true, but the way to fix this is to fundamentally (to channel Newt Gingrich) alter our countries tax code, so people are paying what they should be, not just to throw band-aid solutions on this massive problem.  


A major legitimate knock on President Obama is that his talk is cheap.  He loves to talk big on reforms, but seems to be unwilling to actually do the necessary work to get to them.  He instead falls into typical liberal laziness of raising taxes within the current flawed framework in order to pay for a bloated ineffective government.  


Tonight the President claimed to, "believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed:  That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more."  His record proves this assertion completely false, but it does sound great, doesn't it?  Invoking arguably our greatest President and claiming to believe in American ingenuity to turn us around is an excellent rhetorical flourish, but it's typical Obama, his talk is cheap.


Finally, I was disappointed to hear Governor Mitch Daniels' Republican response tonight, and only because he isn't running for President.  Daniels gave a reasoned and rational response to the President's speech, and in doing so, made every reasonable conservative wish, like me, that he had entered the race.  Though he still could (this would delight me to no end) it is highly unlikely that he will, but I do hold out hope.


You see, despite all my criticisms of President Obama, I do expect him to defeat Mitt Romney soundly, or win, at minimum, 45 states against Newt Gingrich in the fall.  And the reason is that they are flawed carriers of the conservative message, because of past policy inconsistencies that will be too easy for the Obama team to caricature in the general election.  Newt's "Reagan conservative" message is pretty well BS and his policy proposals would win him no independent support in the fall (15% flax tax exhibit A).  Romney says all the right things now, and that's the problem.  He used to not say the right things, but that was when he had to be moderate to win in the Northeast.


With a consistently conservative and rational candidate, the race would be a hard fought one, and a legitimate battle for the soul of a country that tends to be center-right.  But instead Republicans are making it easy on the talk is cheap campaigner in chief.


One final point:  Romney's team should take a long hard look at the Daniels speech because instead of trying to get the audience all rallied up with a robot, they should be taking a reasoned approach that cuts to the heart of the problems with Obama, this was Daniels' style tonight.  If he doesn't enter the race (fingers crossed), or even if he does, Romney should take up this style.  


O beautiful for spacious skies makes for a good patriotic song, but it's awful on the stump.  In fact, most of Romney's speeches this cycle have been awful, and it's because he seems uncomfortable.  Someone with Romney's reserved personality would be much better off to relax, like Mitch Daniels did tonight, and pick apart why the President has failed.  Take heed team Romney, before it's too late.

Paul's success points toward an Obama win and illustrates GOP disfunction

Ron Paul is a force to be reckoned with in the fight for the Republican nomination.  Sure he'll probably never break out of his current 20-25% percent floor and ceiling (which was formerly thought to be 15-20%), but if he continues to take such a high percentage of the vote, Republicans will be forced to reconcile with their Libertarian friends come convention time.  And believe me, this is all Ron Paul and his bellicose band of supporters want.

Both New Hampshire and Iowa have seen record turnouts for their first in the nation caucus/primary; party folks will tell you this is because of the strong desire to make the President a one termer.  They're lying for two reasons.  First of all the turnout hasn't exactly been off the charts, and more importantly they don't want to confront the inconvenient, but real reason behind the high turnout:  Dr. Ron Paul.

Paul brings liberals and independents into the tent by running as a Republican.  In 2008 13% of Iowa caucus goers were independents.  This year? 24%, 43% of them went for Paul.  And New Hampshire, largely considered an independent minded state saw a small uptick as well with 44% in '08 and 47% this year; however, Paul and Romney split that group.

The biggest Ron Paul numbers that should without a doubt give the GOP some serious concerns are his support among young people.  In New Hampshire 46% of those 18-29 went for Paul.  Romney with the same group?  26%.  Flip it to 45-64 years olds and you see the opposite happening.  Paul gets 19% of that age group, while Romney takes 42%.  And Romney really isn't viewed as particularly conservative, the big time social conservatives in the race fair much worse with the young.

Now I'll admit, Romney scored a huge win last night and broad-based support across the conservative spectrum.  He is going to be the Republican nominee for President, but he has Ron Paul to thank for that just as much as himself.

Paul, as I said before, brings in more Independents, which drives up turnout--many of the upcoming primaries do not allow non-Republicans, but Paul won't go for those states.  Without Paul in the race, turnout would probably be below 2008 levels and the stories would be that conservatives have excitement to get rid of Obama, there's just nobody good enough to rally behind or even that there isn't excitement to fire the President at all.  The first is actually true.  Paul just cooks the books, because there a whole lot of Paul supporters who wouldn't vote for Mitt Romney in the fall--43% in New Hampshire said they would be dissatisfied with him as the nominee.  Some would vote Obama, but many would stay home.

So, Republicans still aren't excited about Mitt Romney and never will be.  Ron Paul just artificially brings turnout up, his supporters are not mostly self identified Republicans (15% were in NH last night).  You can basically remove Paul supporters from the Republican turnout.  The enthusiasm gap will be massive in the general election.  People genuinely like Obama and want to give him another chance, especially given two recent developments--unemployment going down and bad strategy by House R's. 

Many think Ron Paul will run third party.  Those people are wrong.  If he does its bye bye Senate seat for his 49 year old son, because the Paul name will have lost the GOP the election.  Paul as a third party candidate means Obama wins, the Paul family can't have that.  Instead his people will go for Obama more than Romney or even another current Republican anyway.  This is because Paul's foreign policy is so important to his supporters.  Romney et al. want to go back to the GW Bush days.  That's catastrophic to Paul supporters.  But realistically, since both candidates won't reflect their views, they won't turn out and Obama wins easily because so many who voted in the GOP primary aren't voting again in November.

In a recent Gallup Poll only 27% of the country said that they were Republicans, 31% said they were Democrats, and 40% said they were Independents.  Even though many, though probably less than before, of those 40% are leaners that usually vote like partisans, it's a bad number for the Republican Party.

The previously mentioned Paul/Romney age divide illustrates the GOP's problem here; it's a party at war with itself.  They have allowed themselves to become the party of the rich white guy and the southerner, with a mean economic Libertarian steak.  They are outside of the mainstream on gay rights and immigration.  And the sad thing is most people understand the need to reduce the deficit, something Democrats clearly will never be serious about.  Something else the Democrats will never be serious about is education reform; they're too tied to the unions.  Republicans lead on two major issues for the future, but unfortunately, Republicans are too far behind on the two other issues to attract the younger generation. 

So instead those people are independents who don't believe in either party.  I mean really, its kind of pathetic that the conservative party in America has become such an anti-tax protest party that a Libertarian technically falls into their tent.  If Republicans would only stop fighting the already lost battle over gay marriage and illegal immigration, no there will not be fence built and no we don't have to be so anti-immigrant as a party, they would likely be winning a lot of young people support.  Instead they stick to these positions hard and fast and continue to clean up in Orange County and the Hamptons, but appear to be anti-regular guy.

Republicans love to invoke Ronald Reagan and act like they are like him.  There is not a Republican in the race who reflects Reagan at all.  Reagan understood you had to make deals.  He believed in supply-side economics because he truly felt it would grow the economy, which would benefit everyone.  That doesn't mean he never raised taxes because he had to lower the deficit. 

Libertarians see basically no role for the government; they only want it to not invade our liberties in any way.  Democrats might say they want a government that only does what it has to do, but that's a pretty slippery slope, a slope that has put us in financial ruins.  Republicans currently are dangerously close to the Libertarians.  

However, the moderate conservative tradition in this country is to understand the limits of government, and truly create one that does only what it must do in service to its citizens.  One that protects us abroad, while respecting our liberties at home.  One that calls for personal responsibility but understands that we cannot just completely be leaving people in the capitalistic dust.  One that understands that an "If it feels good, do it" society is catastrophic.  A lean, mean government leads to lower taxes for everyone and more freedom for everyone.  It also understands that there are a whole lot of issues that should be delegated to the states.  

An obsession with no new taxes does not necessarily lead to what's listed above.  Sure it would be great to never have to raise taxes and continue to lower them, but that's not always realistic.  This may seem close to Libertarianism, but it's really not.  This is because it sees a role for government, an important, but limited one.

The no role for government crowd has risen up before.  Senator Barry Goldwater, a Libertarian/Republican Senator from Arizona took on LBJ in 1964.  He won 38% of the vote, six states, and received 52 electoral votes.  The party, having had it's fun with the unrealistic wing, nominated Richard Nixon, a strong believer in the moderate Republican tradition, in 1968 and he won two terms.  People may hate on Nixon, with reason, for Watergate, but he took back the soul of his party.

Now Ron Paul won't be the nominee like Goldwater was, but let's hope the Tea Party crowd understands that the Ron Paul type is a guaranteed loser and stops it's movement towards this thinking before a Ron Paul type runs does get the nomination.  

Remember, as Madison warned us,  "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."  But since we are not, lets also remember what Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” An understanding of the first quote and embracing the second has lead conservatives on for years.

Bengals built for future success

Conventional wisdom on the Cincinnati Bengals this season will be that they were a year or two away from being a great team. And as it often is, conventional wisdom is correct.

What puts the Bengals in such a prime position? For starters, the Bengals were a good team this year, which is saying something.

They had a lot riding on a couple of important rookies, and most rookies don't pan out. More specifically, most rookie quarterbacks are a complete disaster, but Cincinnati's irrefutably was not.

Actually, as far as rookie quarterbacks go, Andy Dalton was about as good as it gets. And it certainly doesn't hurt that he had fellow rookie AJ Green to throw it up to.

Green is quite a talent at wide out, and the Bengals are lucky to have him. In fact, it's what the Cleveland Browns have been constantly lacking ever since they rose up from the dead in 1999. Their lack of a dynamic receiver-quarterback combo has put them in a football coma, and it won't end until they rectify this basic personnel flaw.

Easier said than done, but that's why the Bengals are in such a great spot. Pair the advantage of having Dalton and Green with the fact that their defense can actually play, in addition to the league taking a sharp turn toward the aerial attack in recent years, you'll see clearly that the future is bright in Cincinnati.

The key to the whole equation for future Bengal success is the aforementioned early connection between Dalton and Green. Green is a special player, he's the dynamic guy that every team needs, and Andy Dalton has the number one characteristic you look for in a quarterback: confidence.

Don't get me wrong; Dalton was unbelievably bad in every measurable way in the Bengals season ending loss to the Houston Texans. He threw three interceptions (one of which was not his fault), but he displayed confidence throughout the game, and throughout the season for that matter.

The moment never seemed too big for the redhead from Texas who had never run any offense but the spread in a meaningful football game in his life.

Sure, the Bengals didn't beat a winning team all season and only ended up 9-8. I'll also readily admit that taking a look at Dalton's stat sheet wouldn't exactly make the football version of Bill James bat an eye, but there is a reason that such a man has not arisen in the football world.

Much of the analysis we do of football players comes less from the specific stats and more from the bottom line. And what's Andy Dalton's bottom line? The man wins games wherever he goes. No matter how good or bad those around him are.

We're talking about the guy that lead Texas Christian University to a Rose Bowl win. Yes, their defense could play, but there's a reason quarterbacks receive the scrutiny they do; they are the leader. And what does a leader need above all else? Confidence, something Andy Dalton exudes.

He looked nothing like a rookie quarterback who had just seen his team's golden opportunity to advance in the playoffs go to the wayside on the team's final drive.

Instead, he tried to lead them back.

Instead, he was pushing the tempo and working hard to score. Granted, he made some mistakes along the way, but he played with guts.

A quarterback with guts and confidence and a receiver that seems to have the ability to take over a game offensively, that's a formula for success in the NFL. And now that the Bengals have the pieces, it's time to sit back and watch the game unfold.

New Hampshire Primary Predictions

The results in Iowa were predictably jumbled but they did begin the process of winnowing the field.  New Hampshire tomorrow likely won't lead to any dropouts (except maybe Jon Huntsman), but should add a bit of clarity to the race.

Here's how I see things playing out:

6. Rick Perry/Buddy Roemer: 1%

Perry isn't actually competing in New Hampshire.  In fact, after his bizarre indecision over his own place in the race on the night of the caucus and morning after, it was leaked that Perry would head to South Carolina directly after the back-to-back debates in New Hampshire this past weekend. He performed well in the debates, but got very few questions.  Perry really doesn't have a chance in the race because he's so damaged from his early gaffes, but, like Fred Thompson in '08, is going for a last stand in South Carolina that will likely splinter the conservative vote once again and lead to a win for the moderate Romney, just like what happened for McCain in '08 putting him on fast track to the nomination.  

There's also a legitimate chance that former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer, who hasn't made it into any debates because he's polling so low, will beat Rick Perry.  That's embarrassing for a big state governor, and illustrates why he should have just cut his losses after Iowa like his advisers were clearly telling him to do.  Perry will stay in for South Carolina, but it's bye-bye after that.

5. Newt Gingrich: 8%

Newt is a truly pathetic candidate at this point.  He feels like he's the smartest man alive and hires few political consultants, which has just made him lack organization and be the single most off message candidate in the race.  Exhibit A, his speech after Iowa:  He looked like he wanted to cry, was nasty about Romney without mentioning his name and drove no message.  It was a total waste of free media and came off as petulant to the voters.  Also, his whole positive campaign thing was stupid, it was because he had little to no money, and now that he has the money and a SuperPAC on his side, he's going negative too.

His Union Leader endorsement will get him some support, but that can only take a candidate like Gingrich so far.  He will go down South and also make a stand in a place where he has the chance to gain some traction, but as long as he remains the whiny Newt who has no message, he'll be stuck around 10% for good.

4. Rick Santorum: 11%

Santorum emerged out of Iowa with a chance to be the long awaited for conservative alternative to Romney.  He still has a chance to be it, but his insistence to talk incessantly about social issues in New Hampshire is a pretty horrendous idea and is winning him no support in the state.  Santorum camp has set expectations pretty low saying that double digits would be a win, but he's wrong.  He was smart to go to New Hampshire and prove that he's more than just a Bible belt and Midwest candidate, but he should have tailored his New Hampshire message to New Hampshire.  They don't want to hear you rail about gay marriage, Rick.  As James Carville would say, "It's the economy, stupid!"  Talk about your Grandpa who dug your freedom again, quit talking about social issues!  

Santorum has squandered his chances of making an impact in New Hampshire because he's treating the state like Iowa.  Some may like Santorum's "consistency", but focusing on the economy instead of social issues in the Live Free or Die State is a guaranteed winning message for a credible Republican.  He could have reached the top tier in New Hampshire too, but instead Santorum will finish disappointingly low tomorrow night.  He still is strong in South Carolina, but with Perry in, the aforementioned Huckabee-Thompson scenario will likely take hold there.

3. Ron Paul: 19%

I'm not going to say much about Paul here, he's basically running in a different primary because he gets independents and Libertarians, not Republicans.  Like I said before, the motto of the state of New Hampshire is Live Free or Die.  Sounds like a pretty nice place for a Libertarian to me.  So Paul Will get his 15-20% from his supporters and grab some other independents, no more and no less.  His strategy of trying to wrestle delegates from the Republicans to get pieces of the Libertarian philosophy in the Republican platform seems to be working well and Paul will certainly be an annoying mainstay in the race to the end.

2. Jon Huntsman: 23%

Huntsman has bet everything on New Hampshire and just like the rest of his campaign's decisions, this has been an awful one.  John Weaver might think it's fun to try and make moderates out of everyone and move the Republican Party to the left, but he should at least do it with candidates who have the record to do it.  Huntsman, had he used an intelligent campaign strategy that focused on his conservative credentials and not on his moderate temperament, would be considered the conservative alternative to Romney undoubtedly.  The Wall Street Journal calls his economic plan the best, he's pro life, pro gun, and his only moderate position really is the whole civil unions thing, which the Republican Party as a whole is going to have get over unless they want to get their brains beaten in electorally for the next 25 years.

Instead it's been mixed message city from Huntsman, he displays himself as an independent conservative on the stump, which is why he'll get some serious support in New Hampshire, which is essentially a center-right state.  But the SuperPAC supporting him has focused on his conservatism and even he has talked a lot about that recently.  He should've done it from the start; instead he's moved himself to the left because of a moderate temperament.  If Huntsman does anything but win in NH, he should drop out, but a second or third place finish might cause him to stay in for South Carolina and Florida.  However, it's hard to see a path forward for Huntsman.  Unfortunately, I agree with Huntsman on pretty much everything, he just doesn't have much of a chance.

1. Mitt Romney: 36%

Romney has a home in New Hampshire and is from a neighboring state therein lies the reason that it's always been considered to be a place he should do very well.  I don't tend to break from the conventional wisdom on that.  However, expectations are sky high for Mitt and anything other than a 15 to 20 point win could very easily be spun as a loss for the Governor, especially with the possibility of a Huntsman surge into second.  Still if Romney wins New Hampshire, as he without a doubt will (his worst poll has him up by 13 on Paul), the air of inevitably around him only thickens. This is especially true if Perry and Santorum split the social con vote in South Carolina, which basically guarantees a Romney win there. 

In both debates, more so the Saturday nighter, his opponents treated him like the nominee, letting him bash Obama and quickly deflect any of their criticism.  A particularly telling moment was when Jon Huntsman killed Mitt on his job creation numbers in Massachusetts (47th) and talked about how he was number one in Utah.  Romney responded by basically patting Huntsman on the head and congratulated him, then moved on to bashing Obama.  Conversely, on Sunday morning, Newt and Santorum teamed up to knock Mitt off his stride by killing everything about his record.  In the campaign, if the first dynamic continues to be the dominant one, then Romney glides to the nomination.  If it's the second, he could be in for a fight.  Either way he wins, but it's probably better for the party if he has to fight for it a little bit because it will make him a stronger general election candidate.

Iowa Predictions

The days of poll numbers with no votes officially end tomorrow night at 7 when Iowans head to their local high school and caucus for the candidates that have been groveling for their support for the past 6 months.  

Even if the results tomorrow are inconclusive, they will most certainly begin the process of winnowing this rather weak field.  Here's how I see things shaking out (the 3% I don't add is the Huntsman, Roemer conglomerate of people who haven't played in Iowa). 

6. Michelle Bachmann: 6%

After the last debate a couple of weeks ago where she looked strong, it looked like Bachmann may have been in position to surge one more time.  Unfortunately for her, it's clear that she didn't have the resources to compete.  In fact, she just made her first ad buy in Iowa since August.  With the important role the airwaves continue to play in politics, Bachmann's inability to utilize this medium to change the game was clearly a big part of her demise.  

In addition to this, the Santorum surge has killed Bachmann, since they were playing for the same type of voters; losing out on the evangelicals was the last straw.  I suppose Iowans felt she already had her chance in August, when they handed her a straw poll win that took her to the top of the polls.  Realistically, she was probably finished once the inept Rick Perry took over that lead.  Despite the fact that Bachmann claims she's headed to South Carolina after Iowa, it's bought to see a path forward for the Congresswoman if she gets embarrassed on caucus night.  

My final Bachmann prediction:  on Wednesday she'll announce she's heading back to her Congressional office for now to continue to work on substantive policy like the light bulb freedom bill.  Subtext there, Bachmann never should have been taken seriously as a Presidential candidate.

5. Rick Perry: 10%

One word:  Oops.  After this embarrassing debate gaffe it became impossible for Perry to win, it's that simple.  Even though he overhauled his campaign staff and has looked much better as of late, Perry's role as a serious candidate ended on the debate stage that night in Michigan.  Though Perry does have substantial executive experience, a message built on legitimately bold policy proposals and his true Washington outsider status, and social conservative bona fides, his candidacy was mortally wounded long ago.  

It's too bad really, had Perry started out with his current staff he would probably be the front-runner.  He wouldn't have had to go quite as extreme as he has, and would just be able to talk all day about the 3 things I discussed above about him (bold policy, outsider, and social con).  

Perry probably won't drop out even if he finishes embarrassingly low on Tuesday night because he has a lot of money, making it worth it for him to skip New Hampshire and go hard for three weeks in South Carolina to save his candidacy.  But this is pretty much impossible, the chances of resuscitating the Perry campaign are about as good as resuscitating a man that died two months ago.  "Oops.." famous last words.

4. Newt Gingrich: 13%

Newt rose to the top a little too early and negative ads have mortally wounded him in Iowa.  This doesn't mean his candidacy is dead, just his Iowa prospects.  Let's be clear about one thing here, there was nothing noble about Newt's lack of negative responses to the pro Romney Super PACs attack ads.  He didn't respond because he didn't have the money to run effective ads back at Romney and fighting back too strongly on the stump could backfire, especially with Newt's bomb thrower rhetorical reputation.  So Gingrich did what he felt he had to do. 

And it looks like it may be working out.  Someone was going to talk about Newt's many stupid mistakes in the past, so why not let it happen in Iowa?  Even though it's first, Gingrich really actually plays well in the South, not the Midwest, so his mistakes came out big time in a state he doesn't play well in anyway and now the stories, when the campaign makes a southern turn (SC and Fla) at the end of the month, are not about Newt's misdeeds.  Instead, all of that's aired out and I repeat, it was going to all come out at some point anyway.

Moving forward Newt could still beat Romney (probably not, but he could) and in an exchange with Chris Matthews yesterday on the trail he gave away his New Hampshire strategy.  Since he probably won't win there, it's practically Romney's home state, he's going to do what he didn't do in Iowa and lambaste Romney for his liberal/moderate positions in the past, then run to the South where the primaries are in his neighboring states and he can win.  Will it be enough?  Who knows, but at least it looks like somebody plans to test Romney's record.  However, there's no doubt that David Axelrod and Jim Messina are quite pleased with this development.

3. Ron Paul: 18%

Dr. Paul isn't a Republican; he's a Libertarian, that's why he won't win.  I heard Chuck Todd say that Paul has the "highest basement and lowest ceiling" in the race, and I tend to agree with that.  Paul's anti-war, anti-government faithful will come out in droves for him, but that's it. 

Like it or not, the neo-con foreign policy is what's dominant in the Republican party today, and most at least ascribe to the "intervene when ours or our allies interests are at stake" foreign policy.  Paul is an isolationist Libertarian.  It's a sad commentary on the current party that libertarian economics are the dominant strain, but fortunately isolationist foreign policy hasn't caught on the same way.  Paul will get his roughly 15% from his supporters, but no more.

Paul's path forward is continue to get roughly 15% all the way to the convention, and hopefully get to play a role in the writing of the party's platform (which sounds more powerful than it is) with the delegates he has.  

2. Rick Santorum: 23%

It's actually pretty funny that a Catholic from Pennsylvania is the leader in the clubhouse to win the evangelical vote, but I guess that just illustrates the weakness of this field.  I'm taking the Santorum surge seriously and expecting him to continue to take support from Bachmann and Perry (actual evangelicals) and even some from Republicans who were supporting Paul.  His second place finish will be because the evangelical vote slightly coalesced around him.  Not quite to the Huckabee level, but Santorum isn't a former pastor.  

Santorum is lucky his surge happened when it did, because he has some moderate skeletons in his closet (endorsement of Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey in '04 for one) and an 18-point loss in his last election.  He also endorsed Mitt Romney last time around, and no matter how late it was it's a good talking point for Mitt.

Moving forward Santorum claims he's going to New Hampshire where he'll try to use his momentum to have a respectable showing, but he's probably going to lose big there and get out after some low finishes in the south as well.  Santorum is probably another Iowa one state wonder.

1. Mitt Romney:  28%

The only number that matters when it comes to Romney in Iowa is 48%.  That's the percentage of voters who, according to the Des Moines Register poll, view Romney as the most electable in a general election.  Republicans want to fire Obama, even if it means putting up Romney, who doesn't excite them, to do it.  

Mitt won 25% of the vote four years ago, and he's not going to lose any of that support, but because of the excitement gap, he won't get much more than that.  Many see a Romney win in Iowa as sealing the deal for him.  I say not so fast, even though he is likely the nominee; a win in Iowa does not equal the nomination quite yet.

Here's why:  Yes, probably gets a blowout in New Hampshire, but after that, there's the South where Gingrich plays.  Sure he could get enough momentum out of two straight wins, but conservatives still aren't wild about Mitt and they'll continue to give the Gingrich a chance.  He's tough and mean, and probably can't win, but can bloody Mitt a bit.  That being said, Romney is very well organized and can take this race to the end.  It might take a while, but Mitt Romney is still likely to be the Republican nominee.

Finals Thoughts

The Des Moines Register Poll also said that 41% of Iowans are still undecided, so all of this could be wrong.  Literally every place prediction I made above could be wrong.  This race has been fluid and will continue to be well past Iowa.  Tuesday will certainly give us some interesting results to chew on and then we'll see what path forward the candidates choose.