2012 Republican Primaries
IowaOn January 16th, the Republican Presidential primaries officially kicked off with voting in the Iowa Caucus. The first candidate to announce his candidacy, Rick Santorum, had campaigned heavily in the state for nearly two years. This allowed him to break the 1% threshold, the largest percentage of votes he would get in any primary. Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota held an early lead in this state, leading the early polls in part because of his early campaigning; he was the earliest major candidate to declare he was running. Unfortunately for him, as more republicans announced their candidacy, his lead continued to erode until the week before the election when he polled consistently in fifth place.
The next candidate to announce he was running was Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico. The governor was the de facto successor of Ron Paul’s Libertarian campaign of 2008. He was able to win over the Ron Paul faithful, but no other demographic. His performance fell slightly below Paul’s 2008 showing. His announcement was followed by that of Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. Barbour was a strong establishment figure in the Republican Party with a past lobbying for Big Tobacco. This drove away many potential supporters, dooming his campaign from the start. He did, however, spend a lot of resources in Iowa, allowing him to make a strong showing considering his weak position.
The first truly major candidate to declare he was running was former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Romney was viewed as the “heir presumptive” of the Republican Party after his close defeat by McCain in 2008. Many political pundits declared that this was “Romney’s year”, stating that he should “easily coast to the nomination in August”. Romney’s vast personal resources and instant name recognition gave him an instant advantage in the primary, one that could only be rivaled by his next major rival; Newt Gingrich.
Gingrich announced his campaign about a month after Romney. Gingrich had been toying with the idea of running for President for the past few elections. Many pundits thought that he was too old this year to just flirt with the idea; he had to take it or leave it and it appeared that he was going to try and take it. Gingrich’s exalted status amongst the Tea Party gave him a block to build his support around, but adds dredging up the fact that he had cheated on his wife while she lie in the hospital with cancer caused much of the evangelical and ethics voters to look elsewhere for a conservative standard bearer.
That conservative was found in the person of South Dakota Senator John Thune. Thune was a young, charismatic, socially conservative candidate that was able to capitalize on Gingrich’s weaknesses to steal much of his support. He was seen by many as this year’s Mike Huckabee, indeed Huckabee endorsed Thune on his Fox News TV show. It was Thune who released the devastating add attack against Gingrich exposing his infidelity in the face of his wife’s illness.
The last major candidate came as a surprise to those who had not been following politics closely. Mitch Daniels emerged as a strong player with a successful record as the two term Governor Indiana. He had strong fiscal conservative credentials and was a smart pick for people worried about the shaky economy. His major flaw was the way he relegated his strong social conservatism behind economic issues, calling for a truce on social issues until the economic ones were solved. This view did not go over well with the primarily socially conservative voters in the Iowa Caucus, causing him to lose support to Thune.
Romney’s strategists had decided that part of his loss last year had been focusing too many resources on the Iowa Caucus, a contest that he could not win with a strong social conservative in the running. Determined to not repeat the mistakes the prior campaign, Romney only campaign lightly in Iowa, focusing instead on laying the groundwork for the New Hampshire Primary which he believed would give him the momentum to win the general election. Gingrich so damaged, the contest came down to Thune vs. Daniels. In the end, Thune won out, with Daniels in a close second, Romney third, Gingrich fourth, Pawlenty fifth, Barbour sixth, Johnson seventh, and Santorum a distant eighth.
John Thune
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