Iowa has basically left the status quo intact in the Republican race. The field is a muddle at the top, while the herd is thinned at the bottom. Romney may have "won" Iowa, but the margins are so close as to be virtually meaningless. Santorum provided the strongest performance of the night and has a chance to galvanize conservative voters that ditched Perry and Bachmann into a serious right-wing challenge of Romney's dominance. The split of the GOP is looming as a potential disaster for the party in November. http://www.sunstateactivist.org

Let's not forget the results of the 2008 Iowa Caucus. Huckabee won that year and John McCain came in FOURTH PLACE. So how much do we really want to put into the validity of the "Iowa Caucus". Unfortunately the GOP doesn't have one candidate that is for Equality for All. Oh they say they stand up for the constitution and they want to bring back Americal....well, you can't GOP, not until you wake up and realize that the majority of Americans don't want your racist and bigoted policies. We will not go back to the Dark Ages of women being less than men, and certainly won't allow you to make the LGBT Community less equal than we already are...

Looks like the re-districting by Republicans ruined one of their own members. Pretty sure this was intentional. All about who you know. Steve Austria is ticked at Boehner.. Mike Turner thanked him for dropping out.. It is a well known fact around here that Austria, and Turner (Republicans-OH) never got along..

http://www.tcnewsnet.com/main.asp?SectionID=3&SubSectionID=3&ArticleID=156643

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/ohio-republican-rep-steve-austria-retiring/2011/12/30/gIQAECkwQP_blog.html

The New Hampshire primary seems a foregone conclusion for Romney, so the right wing Republican candidates will be flooding in to South Carolina. The nasty Super Pac TV ads have greatly increased over the past few days. Newt Gingrich will paint Romney as a millionaire Harvard "elitist" and imply that a Mormon is not one of them. Santoram's "black people," pro-life, anti-gay, and keep women "barefoot and pregnant" remarks will enjoy wide appeal. Ron Paul's small government, pro-life policies and anti-Civil Rights Act remarks will fit right in, but Paul's a little too
"out there" for the Palmetto State conservative. South Carolinians are not happy that their increasingly disappointing and sleazy Republican governor, Nikki Haley, has endorsed Romney. In the end, the focus will be on defeating Obama. Comments from absolute strangers such as "we sure have succeeded in making Obama's life miserable" are not uncommon to this northern transplant. Ugh.

Now that he's being taken seriously, and in case you run out of other questions, try this:

Rick Santorum, do you belive masturbation should be illegal?

"Winning" by eight votes probably doesn't mean much. No candidate gathered even 25% of the vote (unless you round up, like Faux). It doesn't mean anything, but one guess is at www.thegreenpapers.com/P12/IA-R. From what I understand these delegates won't be allocated until after the Iowa State Convention in June, and the landscape could change radically before then. It's possible that Bachmann and Huntsman could walk away with nothing from Iowa; I could see Perry and Gingrich hanging in there for a few more dollars to gain some negotiating capital in the national convention.

Bachman has a press conference scheduled for 11ET today and has cancelled today's events in SC. I guess she has realized she is dead and has decided, finally, to lie down.

If you missed Bachmann/Santorum/Romney/Gingrich this week in Iowa, this should sum it up: http://youtu.be/MMz-wi50ACU

The Republican Tea Party as of 2010 has become even more splintered and crazy. Look at the candidates they put on the ballots across the nation in 2010 and yes they may have gained control of the House but what has the House really done since they took control, absolutely nothing for the American people. The beliefs of many of the Republican candidates now running for any office is so out of tune with America and so radical to trust them with any level of governing in America is insane. To defund or make it criminal for Contraception or Abortions in the case of rape is just ridiculous. To arrest judges because you don't agree with their decisions. To only grant Red Cards to undocumented workers rather than a fair and equatable path to citizenship for those already here and abiding the law is ridiculous. For those who say undocumented workers are taking American Jobs apparently don't know the facts, I don't see many Americans doing the manual labor jobs the undocumented workers do and for that matter for the pay and zero benefits the undocumented worker receives, Come on America we are a nation of Immigrants and Our Immigration system has been broken for decades. Deportation is not the answer. Just review each one of the Republican Tea Party candidates and a theme is behind each one, Deny equal rights for Americans, Promote and defend Corporations and the Wealthy elite, Destroy the Federal Government and it's oversight into Unfair and illegal practices. If we were able to sweep out the lobbyists in Washington DC and bring down the cost to run for public office candidates wouldn't have to resort to the Corporations and Wealthy to fund their campaigns and become beholden to their interests. The US Federal Reserve needs to be brought back into the US Governments control NOT private banks.

I'm waiting for someone to challenge all the Repub candidates with the hypocrisy of the social conservative positions on pro-life while a) supporting the death penalty; and b) wanting less Government in our lives. If you are FOR life from conception, then how can you NOT be AGAINST the death penalty because it ends life?? Consistency is desirable! But if you are FOR life from conception, how can you be AGAINST Government intrusion in private lives?? Once again, the old 'consistency is desirable' mantra is not being met.

Seems strange that the candidates supposedly chosen by God

aren't doing too well.

If anyone is interested in how Maddow now plays "softball" with all things Obama, take another look at her Jan 2 report on his signing of the NDAA bill containing "indefinite detention", and compare it with her report on this same issue on May 21, 2009. Both are available in the video archives of TRMS. Obama did not sign this bill reluctantly or with objections over the provision for "indefinite detention". Congress did not slip that in. That provision was included at his request. How do I know that? Well, he said that's what he wanted in May 2009, and Maddow reported on it, very clearly. It's there for anyone to see.

To claim Obama didn't really want "indefinite detention" powers is disingenuous, or worse. To not report on that accurately is shameful. This is the type of reporting you get when the reporter is a frequent guest at the White House. Obama has signed into law the single worst attack on our constitution since the McCarthy era, and Maddow is offering up excuses for him and soft-pedaling it for him. This is not some little policy issue disagreement. This is a direct attack on our rights and freedoms. This one counts.

Just a shout-out to Rachel: the smart and fun energy you brought to moderating the coverage of the rather cock-eyed caucus was more fun than new year's eve! Found myself watching until the not-terribly-surprising-but-still-pretty-bitter end. Here's hoping you continue to moderate coverage during the entire 2012 election "season..."

Your hosting last night was top notch. And, you and your guests made it fun even when nothing was really going on. I think more should have been made about how Iowa is a media event...it certainly is not representative of the US. Ignore it in 2016.

Only 1% of Iowans preferred their candidate to me.

Check it out- play the Romney congratulation speech backwards and half way through you will hear a voice say Paul is dead.

Look at the field now. What do you have: A big government neocon George W Bush multimillionaire versus a big government neocon George W Bush right wing Christian.

There has been much hand wringing over who is the anti-Romney. There is the elephant in the room that no one is talking about. It's, who is the anti-George Bush? Republicans blame Bush for the mess we are in, and what Obama will run against is where the direction GOP has been taking the country since Reagan. In 2012, the GOP will try to sink Obama on the last 3 years. Obama will sink the GOP on the last 25 years of growing income disparity [W. millionaires], growing partisanship, thoughtless belligerence in the middle east [W. neocons], growing privilege for monied interests [W. big gubmint] at the expense of the middle class and small businesses.

With the rise of Santorum, is the Anti-W surge spent? The only way they can go now is into the impotent Ron Paul camp. Like Rachel, I am convinced Ron Paul is not going to go the distance in order to get some policy plank or other concession at the GOP convention. His son Rand Paul is a hostage of the GOP, so Ron Paul is not going to mount a 3rd party campaign, the predictable result of which would ruin any hopes for his son's political future. No- I think he is a reformer and is content to stay pure and his son will pick up the flag and be the perennial libertarian saying "See- my father provided a real alternative to Obamney but you decided against us. Now look where we are....," and the pitch will perennially be the same filling in the Dem and GOP slots with whomever the 2016 candidates will have been.

If so, it is good news while this ideological puritanism burns strong in the GOP. On the Christian Right leg of the stool, Santorum baffled pundits when he released his highly ideological book when he was already 11 points down against Casey. Why did he do it? What was he trying to achieve? He was emphasizing precisely the themes that were driving the electorate against him. I think like Ron Paul, he thinks he is fighting the good fight and that he is honestly displaying his integrity.

George C. Scott opens his performance of Patton with these words: "Nobody ever won a war by dieing for his country. He won it, by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

The grandson of a soldier in Patton's army will do just that.

What we , the generally ignored American public misses in this race is the extra-ordinary influence of Israel's extreme Right Wing Likud party over Republicans & our Congress.

And the extra-ordinary pressure they are exerting over them to get us embroiled in a potentially disastrous war with Iran.

So folks, are we willing & prepared to go their way & suffer the consequences of a third war?

How do you run a campaign that you (yourself) don't invest in. Gingrich is HOT with Mitt Romney for doing what most politicians do. Granted I see his point, "Be a MAN and own your trash"; but how do you win a campaign, if in deed you are running one, without putting your money--or at least your friends money-- into it. When someone comes to you and says they want to support you and asks if they can "get a button", you don't tell them to go to your website and "buy one for $4". Newt Gingrich was not campaigning for the Presidency, like Herman Cain, he was 'on tour'. He is and has been missing the real point about a campaign for a long time. I really believe this man has a measure of savant in him; his emotion is disconnected from the reality of the nation and the role he says he wants to play.

Now that the seriousness of this process and serious people are doing what they are expected do, he gets angry, swells up and turns green, busts out of his clothes and declares "thems fighting words!!". Were you not listening Newt? This was a fight from the start.

I am not a Republican, nor a orthodox liberal, but I do care about what happens to our people, who truly have need; and about our republic. The problem in politics in general is INTEGRITY.

Your panel discussion last night about the scourge of unlimited "Super PAC" sponsored attack adds and the moral arms-length the benefiting candidate can keep from them is as Mr Mathews suggests, "putrefying" our Democracy. This was as true in 2010 but no one paid attention...PAC-bought negative adds were a large part of what gave Republicans the House. I said it in 2010 and no one would listen...I'll say it again now:

Saving Our Democracy from Plutocracy

Much of the initial angst over the Supreme Court's Citizens United Ruling was dismissed as hyperbole, most notably by Justice Alito during President Obama’s State of the Union Address. But the resulting threat posed by corporate and foreign interference in our political system is proving real with hundreds of millions spent by a toxic combination of undisclosed uber-rich, greedy international corporations, and perhaps even foreign governments. The court's majority was clearly wrong for erasing the limited checks on special interest political speech. The conservative Justices did so as if these monoliths of political power were somehow underrepresented victims, any limit upon them equivalent to full censure of an individual's right to free speech. That was the idealistic rationale behind their decision and it is perfectly sound if applied in a vacuum. But this reasoning has not survived first contact with reality.

With this ruling, the court wiped away the country's common wisdom held since President Theodore Roosevelt whilst completely ignoring the equity-swallowing whale in the room. Addressed nowhere in the majority opinion was the unique ability of these entities to drown out individuals' free speech or bury plain truth with unlimited and indomitable advertisement purchasing power. Yes, voters must, as Justice Kennedy put it, "...be free to obtain information from diverse sources in order to determine how to cast their votes." Indeed, a constituent can fairly make up his or her own mind through critical thinking, but not under a media-barrage consisting of only a single point of view, the one most disproportionately well-funded side of the argument. Because of this ruling, corporations and PACs are now oddly to be treated as citizens with free speech rights equal to any. It follows then that our kids should not be protected, but deliberately exposed to Joe Camel's triumphant return as corporate sponsor of Sponge Bob Theater - with special guest, the Marlboro Man. There's nothing to fear; after all, it's just a harmless pro-tobacco point of view.

Political views presented via attack ads are simultaneously the most abhorrent and most effective tactic of modern political warfare, and their numbers are growing exponentially as a direct result of this ruling. With dramatic style and sheen of authority or folksy authenticity, attack ads often impart the most blatant lies without engendering even a modicum of accountability. Sure, political wonks keep score with thoroughly-researched "pants on fire" truthiness ratings. But the greater voting public has neither the time nor the inclination to check the facts or properly attribute the lies. Through sheer repetition and absence of counterargument, the subconscious adopts the mass-marketer's focus-group-tested version of reality. With no way to pay for the equivalent airtime to counter such attacks, the citizen politician succumbs to the special interests' hand-picked, pro-business ideologue. Any incumbent will know they too will suffer a similar fate if the corporate bidding isn't done, and so they will do it. Given the political power soon to be unashamedly purchased in this election, legislative opportunities to hold back our Nation's growing plutocracy will soon evaporate. Power may soon be concentrated and wielded by a relative handful of self-allegiant board chairmen and oil-pushing dictators. With the scales being so grossly tipped towards the rich, what, if anything, can be done?

While no solution is yet in the offing, this soon-to-be lame duck Congress could and should act to return our political discourse to a competition over who has the better ideas, not the most money. The best and simplest solution is to level the playing field by eliminating unanswerable attacks via a mandate of equal-time. Congress should enact a Federal law that injects and directs what is so unmistakably absent: debate. If the money corporations and other special interests spend on political airtime can't be limited, perhaps they can at least be made to share. If a conglomerate wants to support their store-bought candidate by buying ads to attack his opponent, is there not sweet, poetic justice in forcing the wealthy attacker to fund equal time for an immediate response? Corporations or political machines and their well-groomed candidates would still be free to buy unlimited airtime to slime their target with the most slanderous of accusations. But in so doing, they would be forced to cede the second half of the same ad for a rebuttal and last word by their opponent. Presto - debate! The wicked beast checked by its own teeth and claws. Under such rules, attack messages would only prove effective if the far-slung accusations could withstand an immediate and uninterrupted refutation or counterattack. There is no Unconstitutional FEC censorship in this; it’s the First Amendment on steroids. It would also be upheld, ironically, by the Citizens United ruling, fully realizing Justice Kennedy's all-sides-be-known vision. To make the Supreme Court's lemon into lemonade while our besieged democracy still has a fighting chance, this equal time solution is precisely what we need to push the US Congress and the President to pursue. In the meantime, please fulfill your civic duty by independently educating yourselves on the issues and candidates; then vote.

The Iowa caucus makes about as much sense as that jabber-wocky conservative morning show on MSNBC. That's all everyone needs to hear to make their day, is watching a couple of nutcases joking in roaring laughter about shutting down the government. I'm anxious for morning Joe to take his vacation so Sean Hannity can fill in for him.