The Loneliness of the Long Distance Governor
Here’s the thing about the Iowa caucuses. It’s kind of a crap shoot. For every story of a Pete Buttigieg or Barack Obama or even a Vivek Ramaswamy that came out of nowhere, there are also plenty of stories where things didn’t go that way. There’s Joe Sestak in the 2020 election cycle who moved to a Des Moines hotel but never broke one percent in polling. Or in the same cycle, New York City mayor Bill DeBlasio who famously had a rally reported with only 15 attendees (and would recieve zero votes in the statewide Des Moines Register poll). No one can always guess what makes one candidate catch fire and another strike out. It might be Rick Santorum’s fault for this kind of hopeless optimism. Santorum was polling at around 10% only two months before the 2012 Iowa Caucus- but he campaigned furiously and ultimately won the state. The 2024 Caucus was no different. Candidates like Tim Scott and Mike Pence dropped out even though they occasionally broke ten ...