Republican Primary

In many respects Jim Stickney is representative of many Grand Old Party supporters this year.

On Monday Stickney, who runs a consulting company, headed for the town of Walford in Northern Iowa to listen to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich try to win some last-minute support. Stickney said he himself was unsure about whether he would be casting his ballot for Gingrich or former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

"I feel that the Speaker is a very qualified candidate, and I think he would make a wonderful president," Stickney told Deutsche Welle. "I'm just concerned that the American people will pick up on this negative advertising and believe it."

As recently as mid-December, Gingrich was leading in polls of Iowa Republicans. But he became the subject of millions of dollars worth of attack broadcasts by his rivals, tailing off to third or fourth after what the influential Huffington Post website termed an "unprecedented wave of negative advertising."

Gingrich's fall from grace in Iowa reflects a general decline in support for him throughout the United States. But it also illustrates the extreme volatility of this year's Republican primaries.

A poll carried out by the Des Moines Register newspaper in the run-up to the caucuses suggested that as many as 41 percent of Iowa Republicans were either undecided or could imagine changing their minds in the voting booth.

Republicans, it seems, have yet to settle on who they want to be President. The only consensus is who they don't want - incumbent Democrat Barack Obama.

Experience versus electability

Mary Anne, who declined to give her last name, is another Iowan who travelled to hear Gingrich speak. A life-long Democrat, she voted Republican for the first time four years ago.

She is clearly no fan of Obama, saying he hasn't done enough to get the stagnant US economy moving again.

"He's on vacation in Hawaii," Mary Anne said. "Do want to know what's the last time I've had a vacation?"

She says that, despite financial and personal controversies in Gingrich's past, the former Speaker would have a realistic chance of unseating the incumbent.

"We need someone to get us out of the situation we're in," Mary Anne said. "And I really believe that Newt Gingrich is the most experienced."

But experience isn't everything. Topping the polls on the eve of the caucuses was Romney, who benefitted from pre-existing campaign structures left over from his unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination in 2008.

At a campaign event on Monday evening, the former Massachusetts governor attracted a large audience. One of person in attendance was Mary Anne Rosonke, from Western Des Moines.

She says her choice will be made on who she feels can do the most for the economy.

"He's done a lot of good things like turning around the Olympics, which I don't think would be a small task at all," Rosonke told DW. "And with his business background…I just like his whole package."

True conservatism

Romney, though, is anything but a typical GOP candidate. He's a Mormon from a traditional liberal state and is considered a moderate on moral issues close to the hearts of many on the American right.

For Rosonke, that's not a problem.

"I'm not as concerned about a lot of the social issues that a lot of our candidates are bringing to the top," she said. "Those are things that I feel the government should put on the back burner."

But Republican ranks are split, and for others, topics like abortion and traditional values do represent the key issues.

In the days immediately before the campus, that camp drifted toward former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. The father of seven has built his campaign around social conservatism and rose as high as third in the pre-caucuses pools, attracting supporters like Joanne and Lowell Whisler.

"We've always felt good about him and felt that he represented a lot of our values," Lowell Whisler told DW. "When he finally started to rise in the polls, at the point we felt he could actually win it. I don't know how far he'll go in the future, but I think he'll really improve the level of the debate."

Libertarian wildcard

But the candidate who most set the tone for the pre-caucuses debates was Ron Paul, who represents a third faction within the Republican Party: libertarians.

The Texas Congressman - who advocates radically small government and whose views on everything from foreign policy to the legalization of marijuana dramatically deviate from usual GOP stances - put together a fiercely loyal following and was polling second or even first just before the caucus.

William Dahlsten, a customer-service agent for a local paint manufacturer, was one of the people who turned out to here Paul speak in Monday in the town of Cedar Rapids. He's a long-time fan.

"[Paul] has been a voice as far as restricting the growth of government and this ungodly debt we're facing," Dahlsten told DW. "And I want to get his voice heard longer, coming out of Iowa."

Dahlsten said he felt it was important to get certain topics on the agenda, even if Paul is not a favorite to win the Republican nomination. But others said people shouldn't underestimate Paul's mass appeal.

"It's a legend that he doesn't have a chance to beat Obama," another Paul supporter told DW. "Actually Ron Paul gets more support from independents and Democrats that are disenfranchised with Obama than any other candidate and that doesn't get often reported."

Whichever aspirant does win Iowa, he or she shouldn't be too confident. In 2008, former Arkansas governor and Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee won the caucuses with 34 percent of the vote, only for John McCain to go on and seal the GOP nomination with relative ease.

Author: Christine Bergmann/Jefferson Chase
Editor: Rob Mudge