Is This Heaven? No, It's Iowa

January 3rd, note even long enough into the new year that you remember not to write 2011 for the date. But today, we officially begin counting votes that kind of count toward determining the Republican nominee for President in 2012.

Everything up to this point has been noise and there has been a lot of it. The jostling back and forth in the polls has seemed a lot like a horse race and the folks at Slate have helped us visualize the lead-up to the Iowa Caucuses:

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But the entire race until this point is essentially meaningless. Today, at various places around Iowa, people will stand up and talk about the candidate they support and then folks will go to vote. Unlike the Democratic caucuses in Iowa, there are not several rounds of voting with candidates receiving less than a threshold of votes being removed and their supporters being coaxed by others to join their group. However, candidates who spent a lot of time in the state and have a good ground game (Santorum and Paul), may wind up with a higher percentage of total votes as their supporters stand up and speak on their behalf.

The actual results today don't even necessarily wind up determining the distribution of Iowa's delegates at the Republican National Convention. As Electoral-Vote.com clarifies:

"Note that this is only a preference for delegates to the 99 county conventions in March. The people who go there elect the delegates to the congressional-district conventions and so on up the tree to the RNC. These people can change their mind as time goes on. In 2008, for example, John McCain came in fourth in the first round but ended up getting all the delegates to the RNC in the end."

So, why do we care what folks in Iowa do today? Good question. But the answer is that for better or worse, this is the first truly defining moment in the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary race. Financial supporters and local organizers are the life-blood of a campaign. Until now, every candidate has a chance to be the nominee. After the reality of today, for some, not so much. Michele Bachmann's campaign is on life-support and as a native Iowan who won the earlier Iowa Straw Poll, a 4th or lower finish today is probably the punctuation mark at the end of her campaign. Rick Santorum is also very light on money and support, but at least in recent polls, he has been the anti-Romney flavor of the month and a strong showing today could give him the influx of dollars that can keep him going at least through the South Carolina primary on January 21st. Stan Hunstman and Rick Perry are unlikely to place near the top in Iowa, but they both have a good amount of cash for the moment and will stay in for a while. Hunstman is counting on a good showing next Tuesday on January 10th in New Hampshire and will decide whether or not to continue at that time.

Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are likely to be among the top 3 in today's Iowa Caucus and despite occasional media comments to the contrary, are likely to continue even if they had a bad showing. However, a win would be very big for either candidate, regardless of how small the margin.

That leaves us with Newt Gingrich. Newt, Newt, Newt. I could write an entire year of blog posts recalling the path that took Newt Gingrich to arrive at this point in his political career, but that would be a waste of electrons. Newt could eek out a top 3 finish in Iowa, but its not clear that even that would do much to fortify his coffers. Only a few weeks ago, Gingrich soared in polls both in Iowa and nationally and led Mitt Romney by double-digits. Newt's fast rise and flame-out will make the others (Trump, Bachmann, Perry, Cain) seem prolonged by comparison.

So we'll see what the citizens of Iowa communicate to the rest of the country and we'll report back on it during the week.

In case you were wondering, the title of today's post comes from "Field of Dreams".