Bachmann’s poor showing

It is hard to understand why Bachmann did so poorly in Iowa. Her conservative message, her appealing personality, her admirable personal life, all indicated that she should have at least had a respectable showing. It would be an understatement to say that she did not. Yet the mainstream media, notwithstanding their nauseating “flood the zone” Iowa coverage, did not readily supply the actual Iowa numbers (which is typical of the media: they are into pretentious commentary and prognosis, not facts, which is why I don’t both watching TV on election night), so I went to Wikipedia to get them.

Here are the candidates’ respective percentages of the votes, out of about 120,000 cast:

Romney 24.62
Santorum 24.61
Paul 21.51
Gingrich 13.33
Perry 10.34
Bachmann 4.98 (6,073 votes)

There’s no denying it, Bachmann’s performance was humiliating. Not only did she come in a distant sixth, but she had less than half the votes of the fifth placing candidate, Perry.

In a state where she was a natural fit, where she was born and raised, a state with many Christian conservative Republicans, a state that is a neighbor to her state of Minnesota, why did she do, not just poorly, but horribly?

Part of the answer is that Independents were allowed to vote in the Republican caucuses, and one quarter of the caucus-goers last night were Independents. This explains in large part Ron Paul’s good showing. Remove the Independents from the equation, and he probably would have had less than 10 percent of the total.

But that still doesn’t explain Bachmann’s poor showing in relation to other conservative Republicans. Irv P. has said in an e-mail that Santorum’s fortunes started to rise when he was endorsed last month by Bob Vander Platz, influential head of an evangelical group called the Family Leader. If Bachmann had received that endorsement, perhaps she would have been the big surprise last night.

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Randy writes:

It is not surprising to me. The so called evangelical movement is devoid of any substance. There is no preservative (salt of the earth) affect. It is all based on emotion and self improvement. In order to understand the conservative position, one must understand man’s inherent nature delineated in scripture. Without this understanding, there is no way to recognize, for example, the danger presented by open borders with a failed Mexican culture, or by Islam.

Recent conversations I have had with people provide a glimpse of just how absurd this society has become. What is their big concern? “Obscene profits” by all those “rich corporations” and the fact that Cheney took us into Iraq so that he could make “millions” on his Haliburton investments. This is how people think today. They are arrogant and completely divorced from reality. It is the same to a lesser degree with Republican voters.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 04, 2012 12:48 PM | Send