Eaton: Iowa up to bat first in showdown for GOP nod

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Eaton

Updated: January 29, 2012 8:15AM

It’s just a week away from the official launch of the 2012 presidential campaign and our neighbors to the west in Iowa are in the spotlight. What happens at Iowa’s Republican Caucus could change the world or it could mean little.

There will be no bickering over what candidate Democrats will offer for the presidency in 2012. Their efforts will be fixed on re-electing President Barack Obama.

But among Republicans there is a fierce and expensive contest that’s been going on for months. According to election history, the winner of Iowa’s caucus has a 50/50 chance of becoming the next U.S. president.

Between 120,000 and 150,000 caucus attendees will determine Iowa’s choice. In a multi-candidate race, the needed majority could be less than 20 percent, as little as 25,000 votes.

The top seven candidates qualifying for Iowans’ consideration are former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman.

All of them support the Republican Party’s national social issues platform to some degree or another. They all are fiscal conservatives and uphold capitalism over socialism. They each have unique idiosyncrasies, but they are alike in one aspect: They offer American voters a contrast to the current administration.

So, with the growing interest in the GOP primary race, the question ultimately comes around to those of us that live outside of Iowa. Who would we support if we were Republicans in Iowa?

That final decision comes down to an emotional response, marketing experts tell us. We vote for those candidates with whom we’ve bonded emotionally.

And that factor may end up being the determining one in Iowa next week and in the following New Hampshire GOP primary.

What exactly is taken into consideration in determining those emotional links?

APCO Insight, the opinion research division of APCO Worldwide, conducted the emotional linking study on the 2012 GOP presidential candidates among a random sample of 1,036 likely voters in Republican primaries/caucuses between Dec. 17 to 22, 2012.

In its survey questions, APCO considered the following: affection, alignment, approachability, curiosity, empowerment, identification, pride and understanding. Each quality was considered, and the stronger the bond, the most likely the vote would go to that candidate.

Emotional connections are more predictive of how voters say they will vote than how voters assess the candidates on the issues, APCO said in its report.

So guess which candidates Republican voters are bonding with?

Today, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are tied for having the strongest emotional connection with national likely GOP primary voters. Ron Paul is close behind with 49.3. Michele Bachmann is statistically tied with Ron Paul, with an Emotional Linking Index of 49.0.

GOP voters are emotionally linking to cold fish Mitt Romney? That seemed unbelievable, but APCO explained:

Romney is building stronger emotional connections than the other candidates on almost all dimensions. His biggest emotional strength is in building a sense of pride among GOP voters. GOP voters are more likely to feel proud of supporting Romney than all of the other candidates. His vulnerabilities are on trust and approachability. Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann are seen as more approachable and have built a stronger sense of trust among GOP voters.

Ah ha. That made sense. Everyone knows that pride in a candidate is a key factor. A voter wants to be proud of the choice he makes — especially in choosing the person who is charged with leading the nation out of difficult times.

But if you’ve ever been pulled into a discussion with a Ron Paul fan, you’ll understand that Paul supporters are touchy, cranky and sensitive about their choice. They are loyal to their candidate to a fault and will defend his outlandish, out-of-the-mainstream comments with blind devotion. They will call you a neo-conservative, a traitor to the Constitution and dub you paranoid and fearful if you disagree with his positions.

So what’s that all about?

Trust is Ron Paul’s biggest asset, APCO concluded. National GOP voters are more likely to feel like Ron Paul is someone they can count on to deliver on his promises than any other candidate.

But Paul’s avid supporters aren’t typical Republicans. Pollster Scott Rasmussen found that in Iowa Romney leads, with Gingrich in second, among those who consider themselves Republicans. He also found that Paul has a wide lead among non-Republicans that are likely to participate in the caucus.

Why is that? APCO concluded it’s because Paul isn’t as good a “fit” for GOP voters and what they believe.

Paul’s strong isolationist-based foreign policy, his outrage at the Patriot Act’s implementation, his advocacy of legalizing heroin and marijuana as well as his intimation that the United States brought on 9/11 is all out of the GOP’s mainstream and definitely more acceptable among classic Libertarians.

Still, with the emotional bond between Paul supporters and their candidate, they’ll “crawl through broken glass” former GOP Governor Mike Huckabee says, to get to the caucuses.

None of the other GOP candidates have earned such devotion from their supporters, and those that could meld together to form a winning coalition in support of one candidate refuse to do so. Paul could emerge as Iowa’s GOP victor.

By this time next week, we’ll know what Iowa voters have decided. But we’ll still have the rest of the country to hear from over the next several months, including those emotionally-drained GOP voters here in Illinois on March 20.

Fran Eaton is a Southland resident who co-founded and edits the conservative political blog, illinoisreview.com