Photo: Young people rally for Mitt Romney during the Iowa Caucus (Getty Images)
It's been real, Iowa. If the 2012 candidates aren't all already gone from Iowa and onto New Hampshire or South Carolina, the next states to hold presidential primaries, they will be by the time you read this. Last night former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney won the Iowa Caucus, the first-in-the-nation vote for the Republican presidential nomination.
Finishing second was former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (who? hang tight and we'll tell you.) and third was Texas Rep. Ron Paul. The saying goes there are "three tickets out of Iowa," so you'll be hearing a lot more about these three dudes as the Republicans now duke it out to figure out who is going to face President Obama in the general election next November. Here's what you need to know from last night's night party Iowa caucuses:
+ Every vote DOES count
Mitt Romney "won" the Iowa Caucus by 8 votes. Out of 122,255 people who showed up, Romney edged Santorum by EIGHT VOTES. EIGHT VOTES! Last night 54 people voted for Herman Cain, who had dropped out of the race. So more people voted for a dude who had already dropped out than the difference between the top 2 vote getters -- Romney and Santorum. So this race really could have gone either way.
+ Time to get to know, if not Google, Rick Santorum
Rick who? I'll tell you a little bit about him, because he definitely doesn't want you to Google his name. Santorum is the only guy in the race who hasn't yet been a frontrunner. Until now. He campaigned for months in every one of Iowa's 99 counties and held almost 400 town halls. Love him or hate him (he's super divisive because of his uber-conservative position on LGBT issues), that's some old-school politicking. When I caught up with him in Iowa a few weeks ago there were maybe 30 people at his campaign event. Today he's got the momentum everyone wants coming out of Iowa. The big question is whether or not he'll be able to put together the campaign that will allow him to fight in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and all of the other states that will be voting in the weeks ahead. Because you can't visit every county in the United States of America when you're running for President.
+ Young voters kicked ass and liked Ron Paul
Young voters are fueling Ron Paul's campaign, and they showed up in bigger numbers for the GOP caucus last night than the 2008 GOP Iowa caucus -- 18,000+ strong. In 2008 the percentage of young people who showed up at the Republican Iowa Caucus was 11% of all voters. This time around it was 15% -- and just about half of those voters caucused for Ron Paul and gave him the boost he needs to stay in the race. Put it this way: according to CIRCLE, The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, more young voters caucused for Ron Paul than ALL the votes Michele Bachmann received. One also can't help but wonder, if young folks didn't come out to vote for Ron, where would he rank in the Iowa caucuses?
+ The caucus isn't the most convenient
If you think sitting around for hours waiting for caucus results was whack, try actually showing up to cast your vote. Have a night shift? Yeah, well, sorry. You have to be at the caucus before the doors close and you have to sit around through speeches and party business to cast your ballot. Only a TINY fraction (around 6-7% of the total eligible voting population in Iowa) of the over 2-million eligible Iowan voters participated in the caucus, and it isn't because they aren't stoked on politics. Even without a competitive democratic caucus, 25,000 people showed up to caucus for President Obama, a show of organizational strength in the state. CIRCLE said only 4% of eligible young voters showed up to caucus last night. Young voters may have propelled Ron Paul, but 4% of all eligible young voters is weak. And we can't blame them: the system is a difficult one to use, and should be made more convenient.
+ Don't Believe The Front Runner Hype
In August, as many young people were wrapping up their summers and getting ready to head back to school or off to college, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa with 4,823 votes. It was a ceremonial vote but gave her a big boost of momentum... at least for a minute. Last night she finished almost-last, with 6,073 votes, only ahead of John Huntsman who didn't even campaign in Iowa. In between Ames and the Caucus yesterday, just about every presidential candidate had been declared the "front runner" -- whether it was Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, or Ron Paul -- and none of them finished first.
Jacob Soboroff (@jacobsoboroff) is MTV's Power of 12 correspondent and the Executive Director of Why Tuesday.
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