You are basically saying the same thing I’m saying. I wrote that Paul will not get the nomination, not that he’s done. Paul will stay in as this is a message campaign–but he will not get the nomination.

As for Paul, I don’t think he did bad at all. He won’t win the nomination for the simple fact that the GOP is a warmongering party, and he is anti-war. That being said, if Thompson drops out (Tommy, not Fred), I can see a lot of his supporters gravitating to Paul. He’s not done by any stretch. I think if he can somehow climb up to 15% or so in the early primary states, he could set himself up for a second Libertarian Party run.

Time will tell. Thanks for the good discussion.

That’s already been discussed. The absense of three of the major candidates and the reduced turn out gave minor candidates a higher percentage than they would receive in an actual caucus. There was a tremendous effort made in Iowa in the hopes that he would bet a bounce out of beating expectation and instead he failed to meet expectations. There’s the problem of his views being unacceptable to the majority of Republicans.

Even if somehow Paul could move into first place (which is far fetched) he still wouldn’t necessarily win the nomination in a race with multiple candidates as the party would unite behind someone else. Paul needs to actually get to around 50% to win. Even if I’m wrong that 9% is an upper ceiling for him, he is not going to increase his support by over five times his current level. Thompson, Romney, and Giluliani will remain ahead of him. Most likey McCain, if he remains in the race, Huckabee, and possibly some of the others will remain ahead of Paul.

I think the number of days spent in Iowa is very important; Iowa is known as a “retail politics” state where voters expect to meet candidates in person. The discrepancies between Paul’s days in Iowa and the others’ were huge.

That’s my evidence for Paul having room to grow north of 9% in Iowa; what is your support for your competing theory, that Paul’s 9% is a ceiling?

Rationalizations don’t win elections. Only votes, not calculations based upon number of days spent in the state matter. Besides, there are many other factors beyond how much time the candidate spends in the state. Supporters were being bussed in. All along Paul supporters have claimed that their greater intensity of support would allow Paul to do better than expected. In the end, he not only did poorly vote wise, he failed to meet expectations.

I doubt that the majority of Tancredo supporters will go over to Paul, but even if every one of them does it won’t be enough to make him competitive. Only a small percentage of Republicans would support either Paul or Tancredo.

If Paul can’t exceed 9% under the conditions of this straw poll, he will have real difficulty topping 6% in the actual caucuses. Even if he doubles this he remains far behind.

Remains to be seen. Tancredo supporters, I would argue, will be more likely to support Paul if Tanc dropped out than any other candidate.

The two (Paul and Tancredo) are close friends and serve on several House caucuses together. Ideologically, Tancredo is the closest candidate to Paul.

Ron,

I think you’re underestimating the importance of the “time spent in Iowa” factor in evaluating Paul’s result.

Here is the number of days each candidate in the top half at Ames has spent in Iowa this year:

Sam Brownback 115 Days
Mitt Romney 89 days
Mike Huckabee 70 days
Tom Tancredo 66 days
Ron Paul 17 days

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blo.....14637.html

As the link shows, Paul had by far the highest Straw Poll Votes-to-Days in Iowa ratio, indicating not the ceiling you describe, but rather room for growth north of that 9%.

9% and fifth place is quite poor, especially when Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain didn’t even compete. Comparing this year’s turn out to previous years suggests that lots of Republicans who support those candidates didn’t show up, allowing the second tier candidates to get a higher percentage of the vote.

Everyone expected him to do better than his 2-3% polling numbers under such a situation. Tripling this is far from enough to be competitive, especially as the nine percent is probably a ceiling and he’s likely to fall below that in the actual caucus.

It also hurts Paul that he failed to meet his campaign’s expectation of coming in third. Another problem for Paul is that Republicans either support him or they don’t. In contrast they have multiple traditional Republicans that they can support. Supporters of the candidates who did poorly will shift their votes to other candidates besides Paul as they drop out of the race, placing Paul even further behind the candidates with a real chance to win.

I don’t see how 9% is a “serious loss” for Ron Paul. I view it as a good sign of progress for Paul.

OK, I was hoping for a top 3 finish or even a win and we didn’t get it, so it’s a disappointment in that sense.

But objectively, Paul has been polling at 2-3% in telephone polls, so his 9% in real-life Ames is an affirmation that his online support can translate.

Besides, the top 4 finishers in the straw poll (Romney, Huckabee, Brownback, Tancredo) have been camped out in Iowa for the past two months, while Paul had spent much less time there.

So I do view his 9% as a success, and would be curious to know why you term it a “serious loss.”