Romney Loses Iowa

A New Hampshire Poll the day after Iowa:

John McCain: 34%
Mitt Romney: 30%
Mike Huckabee: 10%
Rudy Giuliani: 9%
Ron Paul: 7%
Fred Thompson: 2%
Duncan Hunter: 1%

Among men, McCain leads Romney 35% to 30%. Among women, the race is closer with McCain getting support of 32% to Romney's 30%. Among moderates McCain gets the support of 53% of the voters to Romney's 24%. Among very conservative voters, Romney gets 38%, Huckabee gets 21% and McCain receives the support of 19%.

60% of likely Independent voters say they plan on voting in the Democratic primary while 40% plan on voting in the Republican primary.



Money doesn't buy everything. Mitt Romney squandered $10 million -- orders of magnitude more than Huckabee -- to lose. Make no mistake: he didn't merely "come in second," he lost. He staked a lot on Iowa, and no amount of spin can mask that, nor mask the reality that his calculations are now badly askew. Things aren't over for Romney -- with his money and press, he has a lot of mileage left in him -- but things are grim this evening. The way out for him involves beating expectations in New Hampshire and winning Michigan. If he does one, he totters on. If he does neither, his star swiftly fades.
Conservatives aren't as credulous as some hope. The data for this is still coming in, but it looks like people with strong ideological identification eschewed Romney for Huckabee and Fred Thompson. Romney's campaign to reinvent himself as a conservative, rightly viewed by many as plainly tactical, may have plateaued.
Mobilization of preexisting civil-society networks is superior to the creation -- or purchase -- of new civil-society networks. Mike Huckabee engaged families and churches. Mitt Romney engaged -- well, people who like Mitt Romney. Guess which got its people to the caucuses? Mike Huckabee appeals to and strengthens the existing web of community in which Americans live -- and that in which they wish to live. A winning Huckabee strategy henceforth builds upon this where it can, and promises it where it can't.