In Iowa Everybody Gets A Turn To Be The Front Runner... Except Santorum

How predictable-- and how predicted by virtually everyone following the GOP sitcom-- that the Newtster wouldn't last long at the top of the heap. Whether you're of the thought that it was just a matter of Iowa Republicans getting to know him and realizing that "OH NO, NOT THAT NEWT!" or if it was the dark hand of Karl Rove, it was just a matter of time before polls would be reporting Newt to be plummeting.

Newt Gingrich's campaign is rapidly imploding, and Ron Paul has now taken the lead in Iowa. He's at 23% to 20% for Mitt Romney, 14% for Gingrich, 10% each for Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry, 4% for Jon Huntsman, and 2% for Gary Johnson.

Gingrich has now seen a big drop in his Iowa standing two weeks in a row. His share of the vote has gone from 27% to 22% to 14%. And there's been a large drop in his personal favorability numbers as well from +31 (62/31) to +12 (52/40) to now -1 (46/47). Negative ads over the last few weeks have really chipped away at Gingrich's image as being a strong conservative- now only 36% of voters believe that he has 'strong principles,' while 43% think he does not.

Paul's ascendancy is a sign that perhaps campaigns do matter at least a little, in a year where there has been a lot of discussion about whether they still do in Iowa. 22% of voters think he's run the best campaign in the state compared to only 8% for Gingrich and 5% for Romney. The only other candidate to hit double digits on that question is Bachmann at 19%. Paul also leads Romney 26-5 (with Gingrich at 13%) with the 22% of voters who say it's 'very important' that a candidate spends a lot of time in Iowa. Finally Paul leads Romney 29-19 among the 26% of likely voters who have seen one of the candidates in person.

Nate Silver is now predicting an outright win in the caucuses next month for Ron Paul.

Of course the clear favorite among Republicans in Iowa is Anyone But Mitt (Please Save Us). As for Ron Paul, aside from his loyal band of followers, he's probably not a good fit for the GOP and can't possibly beat Romney anywhere but in a crazy caucus state like Iowa. He just isn't plausible for the party of the Establishment, because as much as we all want our raw milk and legalized pot, the banksters would flock (back) to Obama at the first whiff of a serious Ron Paul shot at the nomination. And they don't even hate him for his John Birch Society underpinnings or his racist history. As Jonathan Chait pointed out last week in New York Magazine, "Ron Paul is not a kindly old libertarian who just wants everybody to be free. He’s a really creepy bigot."

Around four years ago, James Kirchick reported a lengthy story delving into Paul’s worldview. As Kirchick writes, Paul comes out of an intellectual tradition called “paleolibertarianism,” which is a version of libertarianism heavily tinged with far-right cultural views. The gist is that Paul is tied in deep and extensive ways to neo-Confederates, and somewhat less tightly to the right-wing militia movement. His newsletter, which he wrote and edited for years, was a constant organ of vile racism and homophobia. This is not just picking out a phrase here and there. Fear and hatred of blacks and gays, along with a somewhat less pronounced paranoia about Jewish dual loyalty, are fundamental elements of his thinking. The most comparable figure to Paul is Pat Buchanan, the main differences being that Paul emphasizes economic issues more, and has more dogmatically pro-market views.

How, then, has Paul become a figure of admiration among social liberals?

One reason is that nobody is attacking him. Paul is (correctly) considered to have no chance to actually win the GOP nomination, so debate moderators have not bothered to research his past, instead tossing off generalized questions that allow him to portray himself on his preferred terms. The Republican Establishment is focusing all its fire on Newt Gingrich, and indeed, Paul’s rise in Iowa would greatly aid Mitt Romney’s campaign by preventing an acceptable alternative from emerging from the state with momentum.

Chait quotes Kirchick quoting Ron Paul's insane racist newsletter, which would never stand up to public scrutiny outside the deepest confines of the Old Confederacy (or in GOP primaries in backward states). "[T]he general themes of white racial paranoia," Chait concludes, "are so completely pervasive that the notion that they don’t represent Paul’s own thinking is completely implausible. It is possible that another contributor could have snuck in a line here or there that did not reflect Paul’s thinking, but they couldn’t have set the consistent ideological line for his newsletter. Paul may be a dissident from the main thrust of Republican policy-making but this is not because he’s more tolerant or more sensible than other leaders of the GOP. It's because he's crazier." Crazier than Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum? Crazier than Michele Bachmann? It boggles the mind.

Meanwhile, the teabaggers are ready for a fight... even if it's still unclear who they're going to fight with.

Interviews with activists across 20 U.S. states indicate that Tea Party groups, far from fading, have evolved into an increasingly sophisticated and effective network of activists. They are working to unseat establishment Republicans who they believe have betrayed the principles of lower taxes, limited government, and free markets.

"Those who think the Tea Party is on the wane are in for a gigantic surprise in 2012," says Debbie Dooley, co-organizer of the Atlanta Tea Party. "We have built a grassroots army and we will be a fine-tuned machine next year."

The goal of these loosely affiliated but fiercely independent groups nationwide is to hone their electoral skills and build a "farm team" of public officials who can ascend through the ranks of government. It's a long-term strategy that looks past the 2012 election to a takeover of the Republican Party and the U.S. Congress.

...In states such as California, with its liberal bent and new open primary system, that can mean recruiting small-government "blue dog" Democrats instead of Republicans.

"Yes, we do exist," said Leslie Eastman, a Democrat and member of the SoCal Tax Revolt Coalition in San Diego, with a laugh. She backs candidates such as John Chiang, California's Democratic state controller, whom she views as a fiscal conservative.

In most states, though, the Tea Parties' activism is aimed squarely at opposing mainstream Republicans such as U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is up for reelection in 2014. By then, Joe Dugan in Myrtle Beach points out, the state's four conservative freshmen Congressmen will have held national office for four years and be ready to mount a challenge.

Similarly, activists in Georgia say they have some challengers in mind for Republican U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss in 2014. Georgia Tea Party supporters flexed their muscle in May when they rejected Governor Nathan Deal's choice for chairman at the Republican state convention and elected their own candidate.

Twenty-three of 33 seats in the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate are up for grabs next year. Republicans need to win only four of those seats to gain the majority, which has made Senate races a primary focus of Republican Party activists around the country.

"Republicans are not sure yet they can beat Obama, so they're focusing on the Senate," said Republican strategist and CivicForumPAC chairman Ford O'Connell. Last year his PAC supported the successful campaigns of Florida Governor Marco Rubio and Pennsylvania Rep. Pat Toomey.

Now, in states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, conservative donors are waiting to see if Tea Party groups can coordinate their efforts, O'Connell said.

"If they can unify behind viable candidates, more money will flow to those candidates," O'Connell said. "The big question is, can they get there?"

And if they can, the next big question is what happens to the Grand Old Party. If Republicans hold the House, win the Senate, and perhaps even take the White House, that will set the stage for a Tea-Party driven "bloodletting", predicts Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report newsletter.

"What many people don't understand," Tucker Carlson, the conservative editor of the Daily Caller, said, "is the Tea Party is a pure populist movement against the Republican establishment."

Right-wing populism... it's the polite way of saying Nazis or Know Nothings, and between them is the apt description of teabaggery.