Here’s a meme I’ve seen a bunch of times already from many different sources that I’m kinda’ fed up with. Now that Senator Ted Cruz is polling well in Iowa, now all of a sudden, Iowa doesn’t matter. Why? Well, it’s because they hate Cruz.
But here’s what they say. Hey, Santorum won Iowa and he went nowhere so clearly Iowa doesn’t matter. But this is disingenuous because Romney was believed to have won Iowa in the days following the caucus. Here’s the Wapo headline: “Romney edges Santorum in Iowa caucuses; Paul finishes third.”
CNN reported: “Romney defeats Santorum by 8 votes in Iowa.”
It wasn’t until two weeks later that it was reported that Santorum won and even then it was under a cloud of controversy. Wapo’s headline is indicative of that: “Santorum finished 34 votes ahead of Romney in new Iowa tally; votes from 8 precincts missing.”
Romney’s “win” put some air in his sails, no doubt. And he ended up winning the nomination as you might remember living through that nightmare.
But then those same folks argue that Huckabee won Iowa in 2008 and he went nowhere. But did he really go nowhere? Huckabee in 2008 won seven states, I believe. That’s not nothing. And his import isn’t even just that. If you recall, his greatest achievement was blocking Romney from the nomination in 2008 for John McCain.
Mother Jones stated Huckabee’s importance rather plainly:
One key question now is, what will Mike Huckabee do? Recently, he’s become the anti-Romney spoiler–sweeping up non-McCain voters and preventing Romney from becoming a competitive alternative to McCain. It seemed that Huckabee and McCain had an implicit–if not explicit–nonaggression pact, and this has even fueled talk of a Mack-Huck ticket. So with no need any longer for him to block Romney to help McCain, what’s Huckabee’s role in the race? With his get-Romney mission accomplished, will he withdraw and wait for his reward?
So to say that Iowa doesn’t matter is a lie. Perhaps those pushing the meme don’t understand why it’s not really true. But maybe they do and just are pushing an agenda.
Romney lost Iowa and was blocked from the nomination by the guy who did in 2008. And in 2012, it was reported that he did win Iowa and then went on to the nomination.
Iowa matters.
