Iowa Republican Result Muddled as Fractured Party Fails to Unite
January 04, 2012, 2:17 AM EST
By Michael Tackett
Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- ...
Iowa Republicans delivered a muddied result, giving almost equal votes to candidates who represent different poles of the party in Rick Santorum and Romney, and providing a respectable third-place showing to Texas Representative Ron Paul, a libertarian seen as having no chance of winning the party’s nomination ...
“Now the story is going to be ‘who in the hell is Rick Santorum’ and will he be the lead challenger to Romney?” said Mike Murphy, a Republican consultant who isn’t affiliated with a campaign. “Let’s have a rematch in New Hampshire and see where we are. Now, winning in New Hampshire means something to Romney” ...
J. Ann Selzer, who conducts the Iowa Poll in the Des Moines Register that detected Santorum’s late rise, said the former senator and Romney are “very different candidates and have very different constituencies” ...
Tea Party activists, who have been the animating force within the Republican Party since delivering historic victories in the 2010 election that changed the balance of power in Congress, were split between Santorum and Paul, entrance polls showed. Romney trailed badly among those voters ...
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-04/iowa-republican-result-muddled-as-fractured-party-fails-to-unite.html