Reflections on the 2012 Iowa caucuses

I expected Mitt Romney to win the Iowa caucuses Tuesday night and stated that most voters would consider him the safest candidate to defeat President Barack Obama in November.

Rick Santorum (left) and Mitt Romney following a debate Dec. 11, 2011.

I also expected Ron Paul to make a strong showing, and he did by garnering 21 percent of the vote - netting him a third place finish. Despite being 76 years old and sounding a little kooky in interviews and his post-Iowa speech, Paul seemed to garner a lot of enthusiasm and energy from younger voters and those truly looking for a huge change for smaller government (and no, this is not an endorsement of Paul).

The biggest surprise of the night, however, was Rick Santorum - who is the most popular social conservative in the field at the moment. Given his surge in the polls in the last couple weeks, I expected him to finish in the top three. I just didn't see him losing to Romney by eight votes - especially given his views on abortion, gay marriage, education, and foreign policy. But then again, this is Iowa and Republican voters tend to go against the grain.

The losers of the night

Michele Bachmann

Perhaps the biggest loser of the night was Michele Bachmann. By all accounts, she great job introducing herself as a candidate for President at the beginning of a debate in New Hampshire in June 2011. As a congressional delegate from Minnesota, Bachmann spent a great deal of time milking her Iowa roots. Heck, she even took down former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty after he called her out for accomplishing nothing in Congress. It turned into a win of the Ames Straw Poll in August and great momentum for the Republican nomination.

But then Bachmann let her real views come out and down came the dominoes. It wasn't just her conservative views on social issues like gay marriage and abortion. She also wouldn't apologize or acknowledge factual errors she made on everything from congressional spending to HPV vaccinations. As a result, she only garnered 5 percent of the votes and finished sixth. Bachmann had said she would continue on with the campaign, but said today she "decided to stand aside" and drop out of the race. 

Another loser in this was Rick Perry. Here's a social conservative who carried the swagger and offered a lot of red meat to conservatives on every issue. It may have given him enough hype early on with conservative voters. But watching him during the debates was too brutal for voters to bear. As a result, he garnered 10 percent and finished fifth. He is now reassessing his campaign and is not expected to continue announced he is moving on to South Carolina.

Finally, there's Newt Gingrich - perhaps the sorest loser of the bunch who finished fourth with 14 percent. Instead of saying he was going to go on and win New Hampshire and South Carolina, Gingrich seems more intent on destroying the campaigns of Romney and Paul and helping Santorum win.

Now onto New Hampshire, where I am expecting Romney to continue the momentum toward the Republican nomination.