COMMENTARY | The biggest winner from Iowa's Republican caucus might not be Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney, the candidates who topped the field with a virtual dead heat for first place. The super-thin margin between candidates atop the field -- just eight votes separated Romney and Santorum -- reflects a dangerous reality for Republicans. In short, Republicans are not sold on Romney. And if Romney's not careful, they might take their business elsewhere.
Romney's first-place Iowa finish cements his front-runner status. The win -- along with an expected endorsement from John McCain (according to a National Journal report) -- positions Romney to begin taking the party's mantle and clarifying Republican appeal for the general election.
Surely the Republican Party will survive Romney, whose moderate views make him more electable than the rest of the field. But that same moderation drives dissatisfaction among deep economic and moral conservatives. Santorum's success in capturing the votes of moral conservatives underscores the depth of this dissatisfaction.
Ron Paul's caucus third-place performance represents another divide among Republicans. Paul's isolationist views and fierce anti-tax rhetoric found support among younger caucus-goers. The libertarian appeal of Paul's platform seems unlikely to play well enough among Republican voters for him to vault from his third-place Iowa finish into a realistic threat to Romney's march to the nomination.
Santorum and Paul represent alternatives for Republicans who don't see Romney as representative of their views. Romney may win the party's nomination, but he's unlikely to win the support of all voters who would rather support Santorum or Paul. Santorum and Paul offer a more extreme conservatism than Romney. And their success just might spur a well-funded third-party candidate.
President Barack Obama's re-election campaign must be licking its chops. Romney's moderate Republicanism could threaten Obama's support among independent voters, but only if independent voters don't see a third-party candidate who reflects their views. Romney's general election hopes could hinge on whether Paul, Santorum, Gingrich, Bachmann or another politician mounts an independent candidacy.
Paul may be the most viable third-party candidate. Paul doesn't have the personal fortune of H. Ross Perot, the businessman whose third-party candidacy drained crucial votes from George H.W. Bush in Clinton's election to his first term. But Paul's robust social network (Business Wire reports Paul has the top social network among candidates), experience harnessing grassroots support, and fundraising database could help him sustain a general election campaign.
Most importantly, Paul's libertarian-style politics offer new, if dangerous, solutions to deep-rooted problems that Republicans and Democrats have been unable to solve, such as our national debt. For voters who have grown weary of the same old rhetoric and the same old choices, Paul has proven that he will maintain fidelity to deeply conservative principles, even at the expense of his candidacy's viability within the Republican Party. Freed from party strictures, Paul might be even more dangerous.
Of course, Paul isn't the only potential third-party candidate. Most dangerous to Romney would be the synthesis that would result from a pairing of a deep conservative such as Gingrich or Santorum, and a defense expert such as Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice. Neither Powell nor Rice are likely current candidates, but both represent the sort of independent-minded, experienced professionals who would bring immediate credibility to a third-party campaign.
If Paul, Santorum, Gingrich, Bachmann or another marginalized Republican can arrange such a third-party political union, Romney's political future may be bleak. And third-party politics would take another important step toward viability.
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