Rudy Giuliani and Duncan Hunter are the big losers in Iowa receiving no delegates at all from the caucus (at the time of this writing 95% of the precincts had reported in).  Paul, McCain and Thompson scored a virtual three way tie with Paul getting 2 delegates while the others received 3.  Romney and Huckabee take the most with 12 and 17 respectively.  Since the candidates need a majority of 2380 delegates to win, the race has only just begun.  The two biggest surprises of the day were Ron Paul getting a total of 10% of the vote, not bad for a candidate that most have said is only polling around 3% and Rudy Giuliani who has been polling in the high thirties getting only 4% of the vote.  I guess that shows how much polls tell you.

 

One wonders if these results will have any effect on Fox News' decision not to allow Ron Paul into its special forum open only to pro-war Republican candidates.  Fox will be holding this closed forum on January 6, 2008 in NH just two days before the New Hampshire primary.  Fox claimed that they were not allowing Ron Paul onto their bus where they are holding the forum because they only have a tiny amount of room and Ron Paul wasn't polling in double digits.  Well, Ron Paul did better than polling double digits, he actually obtained double digits of the vote at the Iowa caucus.  Since Mr. Giuliani didn't get a single delegate from Iowa, you don't suppose there is any chance that Fox will let Rudy and Ron switch places?  In fact, since it was nearly a tie with McCain, Thompson and Paul all receiving within one delegate of each other, perhaps the forum should be really small and they should only allow Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney in.  That way Fox could claim it was only allowing in Republican candidates with four letter first names starting with the letter M.   At least that would be a consistent position for the supposed fair and balanced news network.  Fox, why are you so afraid of Dr. Ron Paul? 

 

The next big stop for the candidates is New Hampshire.  The New Hampshire primary will be held on Tuesday, January 8, 2008.  In New Hampshire, Independents (called undeclareds) as well as Republicans will be allowed to vote for the Republican candidates.  (Technically, undeclareds have to register as Republicans at the door to be let in, but they can revert back to an undeclared status as soon as they are done voting.)  New Hampshire, while retaining its position to be the first primary in the nation had to pay a heavy price to keep that position.  The Republican National Committee voted to impose a penalty of losing half of their delegates to Florida, Michigan, South Carolina, Wyoming and New Hampshire because all five states decided to hold their nominating contests before February 5. 

 

In actuality, the next caucus to be held will be Wyoming which is holding its contest this Saturday, January 5, 2008.  The candidates paid very little attention to the state even though it tried to gain importance by pushing up its contest to be ahead of New Hampshire's primary.  Since they lost half of their delegates as well, Wyoming will only have 12 delegates to spread among the candidates. 

 

The decision to move these five contests up this early really hurt the later blooming candidates such as Ron Paul.  In fact, his campaign has been on a roll lately and just a few weeks ago his supporters sent him six million dollars in one day online - the largest haul ever recorded in history by a candidate.  Those were real donations too, not just pledges.  The average donation on that day was around fifty dollars.  So much for Ron Paul not having any real supporters.  Indeed, his excellent showing in Iowa will surprise a lot of pundits who have been sticking to their story all year that Ron Paul cannot do any better than to get 2 or 3 per cent of the vote.  Given just a few more weeks, who knows what would have happened.  It takes time for a candidate to gain supporters, especially the lesser known names.  It is a sad day when five states get to change all of the rules and possibly the outcome of the nation.  These states have lent help to the candidates who already have the support of the media and have hurt the candidates who are gaining the support of the people. 

 

Perhaps that is why Ron Paul is gaining ground so fast: He wants to bring America back to Americans and is the only Republican who wants to end the war thereby saving this country billions or even a trillion dollars.  At the beginning of this war oil was $27 a barrel and today it is nearly $97 a barrel.  So much for the cheaper fuel reason for the war.  For an in-depth look at Ron Paul's views see www.ronpaullibrary.org or go to www.LewRockwell.com and look for Ron Paul's picture in the upper left hand corner. 

Ron Paul Gets 14 Percent in Eastern Iowa

All The New Hampshire Primaries Coverage from Gambling911.com Here

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Jennifer Reynolds, Gambling911.com

Originally published January 4, 2008 1:40 pm EST