GOP candidates throw elbows to the end in Iowa

Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas speaks to students during a campaign stop at Valley High School, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012, in West Des Moines, Iowa. / AP Photo/Eric Gay

DES MOINES, Iowa - Throwing elbows to the end, Republican candidates jostled over their conservative credentials and appealed to Iowa residents who were casting the first votes of the 2012 presidential race on Tuesday for a strong send-off into the long campaign season ahead.

Mitt Romney, a confident-but-cautious front-runner for the GOP nomination, looked past his Republican rivals to President Barack Obama in his final pitch to voters.

"This has been a failed presidency," he told voters in a Des Moines ballroom. "I will go to work to get Americans back to work."

With large numbers of likely caucus-goers still undecided or willing to change their minds, the outcome in Iowa was uncertain right up to the finish line in a race that has elevated and then discarded a head-snapping assortment of front-runners.

The two who appeared most likely to challenge Romney for victory in Iowa were former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and libertarian Rep. Ron Paul of Texas -- neither of whom is likely to present as serious a challenge to Romney over the long haul as would former House speaker Newt Gingrich or Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

"It might come down to the speeches at the caucuses," said Phil Ubben, of Sioux City. "I want to support someone who can go all the way and defeat the Democrats in November."

The candidates pinned their final hopes on such voters.

In an interview with CBS' "The Early Show" Tuesday, CBS News correspondent Norah O'Donnell asked Gingrich: "You don't expect that you'll get first or second place, do you, Mr. Speaker?"

"Actually, I don't think anybody knows who is going to get what right now," he said

Referencing a Des Moines Register poll that said 41 percent of the voters were up for grabs, Gingrich said: "I think what you're seeing, and this has been our experience in all of our meetings over the last two - we have been in 24 towns by this afternoon when I go back to Waterloo - everywhere we go there are a large number of undecided people who walk in genuinely interested and tell you up front they haven't made their mind up. I think anybody could come in first."

Training their sights on the pack leader, Gingrich, Santorum and other GOP rivals questioned Romney's conservative convictions and predicted Obama would, to use Gingrich's words, "tear him apart."

Santorum, appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America," said Iowans are "looking for the candidate they can trust, and that's why we're moving up in the polls."

On Tuesday night, Republicans will gather in living rooms, high school gymnasiums and local libraries for caucuses that start the process of picking the GOP nominee. In each precinct caucus, voters will urge their friends and neighbors to support a preferred candidate. For all of the attention paid to the caucuses, they are essentially a nonbinding straw poll that awards no delegates. Republicans do that at county and district conventions later in the year.

Twenty-five delegates are at stake in Iowa, out of 1,144 needed to win the Republican nomination -- what Romney called "the whole enchilada."

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Obama isn't ceding the stage to the Republicans while they sort that out: The president, fresh off a 10-day Hawaiian vacation, made plans to host an evening web chat with supporters in Iowa as the caucuses were under way.

And Mitch Stewart, a top Obama campaign aide, said in a morning email to the president's supporters: "Most of us will watch what happens on TV -- but, as you do, remember that the end of this story is up to you."

For all the talk of trust and electability, candidates in both parties know the economy is sure to be the central issue this election year: Obama was traveling to Cleveland on Wednesday for an event focused on the economy. Romney, for his part, said he's running to get the country back on track after Obama's mistakes.

Most polls in recent days have put Romney and Paul atop the GOP field in Iowa, with Santorum in third and gaining ground. More than a third of all potential caucus-goers said they could yet change their minds. Perry, Gingrich and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann all trailed.

Romney faces the same challenge he did in 2008: winning over a conservative base that's uncomfortable with his moderate past. In 2008, socially conservative voters united behind former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, denying Romney a first-place finish and contributing to his eventual defeat.

Romney's 2012 rivals kept up their questions about his conservative convictions. Perry, speaking to Fox News Channel on Tuesday, dismissed Romney as a "conservative of convenience." Bachmann offered herself as the "one true conservative."

In the CBS interview, Gingrich called Romney a liar who would mislead the American people if elected as president -- yet he would still support Romney if the latter gets the GOP nomination.

"This is a man whose staff created the PAC," Gingrich said of Romney, "his millionaire friends fund the PAC, he pretends he has nothing to do with the PAC - it's baloney. He's not telling the American people the truth."

He added: "I just think he ought to be honest with the American people and try to win as the real Mitt Romney, not try to invent a poll-driven, consultant-guided version that goes around with talking points, and I think he ought to be candid. I don't think he's being candid and that will be a major issue. From here on out from the rest of this campaign, the country has to decide: Do you really want a Massachusetts moderate who won't level with you to run against Barack Obama who, frankly, will just tear him apart? He will not survive against the Obama machine."

Emotions -- and rhetoric -- were hot in the campaign's final hours.

Santorum, blaming the Paul campaign for recorded phone calls questioning his policies on guns and abortion, told reporters at Fox News that "Ron Paul is disgusting."

Romney said he can handle any criticism his Republican rivals heap on him, calling it only a warm-up to whatever will come from Obama's camp. "My shoulders are wide," he insisted on Fox.

This time, Romney's trying to win Iowa by arguing he's the most electable candidate against Obama -- a pitch that's winning over conservatives who desperately want to beat the president.

"I want to make sure I vote for and caucus for someone who is a winner. We cannot have another four years of Obama," said eyeglass salesman Paul Massey, 65.

How many people turn out to vote will help drive the results. In 2008, more than 120,000 Republicans showed up, a record. Weather could be a factor this year. Iowa hasn't had much snow this winter, and there were clear but cold forecasts across the state.

After Tuesday's vote, Romney, Gingrich and Santorum planned to depart immediately for New Hampshire. Romney holds a commanding lead in polls there, and will be in a strong position to win even if he doesn't pull out a victory in Iowa. Paul plans to join his rivals in New Hampshire later in the week. The primary is Jan. 10.

Perry and Bachmann, both short-lived front-runners, don't plan to compete in New Hampshire, instead heading straight from Iowa to the first-in-the-South primary, set for Jan. 21 in South Carolina. Bachmann pronounced herself ready to move on: "This election is far from over," she said. "This is the opening chapter. Tonight is the first vote. We've got a long road to go."

Perry tried to buck up disheartened supporters by comparing caucus day to historic military campaigns of yore: "This is Concord," he said. "This is Omaha Beach."

Romney also plans to visit South Carolina this week, with campaign stops Thursday and Friday.

[fedup12]

Think about it... Would RP have been a better president than Bush. I think you honestly have to say he11 YA.

Would the rest have been about the same as Bush. Probably so. Especially Bachman and Perry. Yuck...

[fedup12]

"The two who appeared most likely to challenge Romney for victory in Iowa were former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and libertarian Rep. Ron Paul of Texas -- neither of whom is likely to present as serious a challenge to Romney over the long haul as would former House speaker Newt Gingrich or Texas Gov. Rick Perry."
=====================================

WHAT Who writes this crud. Did they hear the OOPs heard around the world. Or the ethical Adulterer speak????

Stewart is right. The press needs to give RP some love. They dont even call him a Republican here.

It would absolutely serve them right if RP went independent. Or better yet won the Republican nod.

Help us Ron Paul Kenobi..... You are our only hope.

[unclebernies]

All these candidates together can't compare with President Obama. He is the only one i would trust on foriegn policy and the thought of having one of this misfits is a little troublesome.

[chonder2]

I'm violating the Repub rule about bringing up recent past history.

Tough *hit!!

Where were these candidates when the financial markets crashed??

Where were these candidates when 700 thousand plus jobs a month were being lost?

These were the meat-puppets working for Koch Brothers Inc who helped hold you and your family down over the kitchen table,with pants pulled down to your ankles.

These candidates will bring America crashing down again just after we are starting to recover from Bush/Cheezy.

[umpireplb]

If republicans, conservatives, neocons, evangelical christians and roman catholics were paying the least bit of attention to what their so-called good book says, they wouldn't persist in equating abortion with murder. Leviticus 17:13 states: "The life of every creature is in the blood." Fetal blood vessels form during the second week of gestation in humans, well after fertilization and implantation of the embryo into the uterus, and blood begins to form and "flow," in a limited sense of the word, between the second and third weeks of pregnancy. So technically it should not be considered murder to terminate a pregnancy before the fourteenth or fifteenth day after fertilization. But of course in their zeal to do exactly the opposite of what they say they want to do (e.g. limit the size and scope of the federal government's intrusiveness into our lives and business practices) these self-appointed arbiters of morality and righteousness never seem to grok how transparently hypocritical and incoherent their stances against abortion and same sex marriage are, or how shallow, ignorant, and heretical to the actual teachings of the church their justifications for them.

Ron Paul is the only candidate other than Gary Johnson (who has been unfortunately marginalized by the media much like Dennis Kucinich was in 2008) who will shift the American paradigm back to where it should be. No other candidate talks about ending our imperialistic wars of aggression in multiple theaters all over the globe, or about ending our transparently racist war on drugs that has spawned the world's most massive and Orwellian prison system in which close to twelve percent of the African-American male population in their late twenties - that's more than one out of every ten black men aged 25 to 29 in America - is currently incarcerated, with more being funneled in every day as our surveillance state becomes increasingly intrusive and young black and latino men are criminalized for minor infractions, sometimes for nothing at all, and thrown away for decades like so much garbage. It's refreshing to hear a candidate speak openly about these issues without fearing what his comments will cost him at the polls or how maliciously he is portrayed by the mainstream media; if there's one thing Ron Paul doesn't do, it's "pander to his base" the way all the others do. Some of his views are anathema to me, although I accept that those views have evolved over time; nevertheless, for all his alleged flaws and shortcomings, Dr. Paul is infinitely preferable to the alternative of a United States coming not just untied but unglued under the weight of our obsessive need to keep waging endless war, casually destroying entire cultures and civilizations in the process, and constantly toppling democratically-elected foreign leaders we don't like in order to replace them with supposed allies who almost always turn out to be far worse than the ones we got rid of. And all this in the name of "spreading freedom" and "protecting America," twin strategies Ron Paul rightfully recognizes as destructive hogwash. I've never voted republican in my life, but I'm definitely considering it right now.

[skyk801]

I'm sorry but this ENTIRE Party has flat gone OFF the tracks. Instead of talking about how we turn this nation AROUND.. how we get it back to the point we were at when the Greatest Generation turned things over to us, THEY are fighting about MORE control over people's LIVES. We were ONCE NUMBER ONE in this entire world. We ONCE had a Middle Class that was beyond any in the ENTIRE World. These PEOPLE, every last one of them, are proposing the SAME Economic Policy used by GEORGE W. Bush.. the EXACT same STUPIDITY he used to turn a Balanced Budget into MASSIVE Deficits and THEY are concerned about IF a Woman decides to have an ABORTION? There's something VERY VERY SICK in this Party and I want NONE of it.

[OHTHEHYPOCRISY]

C'mon...really? Name ANY mainstream (L or R) politician that is not just more of the same. We have NO CHOICE, they are all sell-outs and absolutely count on the sheeple to do just what they are doing...fighting among each other while the politicians and lobbyists steal us and the US blind. I suppose there are actually those mindless fools that believe one party controls Wall street and the other party has absolutely nothing to do with it, yeah, right.

[fedup12]

I would like to be an America First nation for once in my life. I would like to see that happen.

[X2670]

As a Democrat, I hope Ron Paul wins so the old guard corporate/oil company owned Republican Party will go bonkers. It'll be fun to watch. :)

[retiredgustav]

I am with you on that. Ron Paul is the GOP version of George McGovern. A nice guy but too extreme for mainstream America.

[retm-w]

perish1

Social entitlements but no corporate entitlements, so paul is no different then any of the others.