What's the skinny on the candidates in the Iowa caucuses?

[Mr. Kobayashi]

I'm an ignorant foreigner - looking down a list of six names - one of whom could be the next president of the United States - I realise I know next to nothing about them. Why am I bothered? Because when America sneezes, the world gets a cold. I need a rundown on the candidates from more informed American dopers - Who is most likely to win? Who are the no-hopers? Who would be best for America (best relatively - I know there is not that much support for the Republicans on the board), and who the worst?

To sum up what very little I know from across the big pond the call the Atlantic Ocean:
Mitt Romney: Mormon. That's it.
Rick Perry: No idea.
Ron Paul: Has run previously as an independent (?).
Rick Santorum: His last name is slang for a fluid which is a byproduct of anal sex.
Newt Gingrich: Used to be speaker, named after a lizard, shut down the U.S. government for a time in the '90s.
Michele Bachmann: No idea.

[Euphonious Polemic]

nitpick: A newt is an amphibian, which is in an entirely different class than reptiles.

[Simplicio]

Barring an upset, Romney pretty much has the nomination. The rest of the field was unusually weak and a strong challenger to Romney's front-runner status hasn't really emerged, so I'm not sure its really worth your time to read up on the non-Romneys at this point.

Romney's from a powerful Mormon political family, got his start in business and rose to run a successful firm that specialized in leveraged buy-outs of other companys ("corporate raider" is the term, I think?). He then moved to politics and eventually became the Governor of Massachucettes, a State considered fairly liberal compared to the US average, which has a Democratically controlled legislature.

He was a pretty successful governor, whose signature accomplishment was enacting a healthcare plan at the State level that was similar to Obama's later national healthcare legislation. Since leaving the Governorship, he's pretty much made a full time job of trying to get the GOP nominee (he announced he was stepping down as Governor in 2005, so he's been at this more or less continuously for six years!). He quickly "evolved" his stances on a wide variety of issues to be more in line with the national GOP, leading to charges he was a "flip-flopper", and then helped by having a lot of personal wealth to fund his own campaign, made a run in 2008 but lost to McCain. Since then, he's continued to "evolve" his views as the party has moved even more to the right of the stances he took as Governor, and has been pretty focused on running for the 2012 nomination.

He's probably the GOP challenger with the best chance to beat Obama. He was pretty vulnerable to attacks of not being rightwing enough in the primary, but the rest of the field was such a mess that no one really ended up being a serious alternative, so even though the GOP base isn't thrilled with nominating a man who was a moderate until recently, I'm pretty sure they're stuck with him.

[Grumman]

As a non-American, I'd give a thumbs up to Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, and a thumbs down to Newt Gingrich.

Ron Paul: He's a libertarian. He's against the War on Terror, War on Drugs, torture, suspension of habeas corpus and all that horrible stuff. He's also against other expansions of federal power that aren't so black and white. He'd make a terrible "benevolent dictator", but as President I think his worst ideas would be kept in check.

Jon Huntsman: He doesn't have much chance of winning the nomination, but I like him. I might not agree with him on all his positions, but he seems like a nice, well informed guy.

Newt Gingrich: A would-be dictator, in the Ancient Roman sense. He has no respect for the separation of powers that are supposed to keep a bad President in check. And as the only House Speaker to ever be rebuked for ethics violations, I don't trust him not to be a bad President.

[Lamar Mundane]

Originally Posted by Mr. Kobayashi

I'm an ignorant foreigner - looking down a list of six names - one of whom could be the next president of the United States - I realise I know next to nothing about them. Why am I bothered? Because when America sneezes, the world gets a cold. I need a rundown on the candidates from more informed American dopers - Who is most likely to win? Who are the no-hopers? Who would be best for America (best relatively - I know there is not that much support for the Republicans on the board), and who the worst?

To sum up what very little I know from across the big pond the call the Atlantic Ocean:
Mitt Romney: Mormon. That's it.
Rick Perry: No idea.
Ron Paul: Has run previously as an independent (?).
Rick Santorum: His last name is slang for a fluid which is a byproduct of anal sex.
Newt Gingrich: Used to be speaker, named after a lizard, shut down the U.S. government for a time in the '90s.
Michele Bachmann: No idea.

Your last three aren't really running, they're in it just to promote their pet causes, which are:

Bachmann - Against abortion and gays.
Santorum - Hard-core right wing Catholic. Against abortion and gays.
Gingrich - His pet cause is himself. He's just trying to sell books and raise his speaking fees.

None of these three have any organization past Iowa, and will likely drop out soon.

Mitt Romney - Former Governor of Massachusetts which he governed as a moderate. Was tolerant of gays, enacted statewide heathcare, was pro-choice, believed in antropogenic climate change. He's now disavowing all of these things. Most Republicans hate him.

Perry - Governor of Texas. Very unintelligent, He has lots of money and an organization, but his dismal and embarrassing debate performances have likely killed him.

Paul - Libertarian. Opposes getting involved in foreign wars, hates government. He has a deeply loyal group of supporters who will keep him going for a while, but few people like his kooky ideas.

[Jackmannii]

Originally Posted by Mr. Kobayashi

I'm an ignorant foreigner - looking down a list of six names - one of whom could be the next president of the United States - I realise I know next to nothing about them. Why am I bothered? Because when America sneezes, the world gets a cold.

The world needs to wear its jacket, eat right and get a good night's sleep.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by Lamar Mundane

Bachmann - Against abortion and gays.
Santorum - Hard-core right wing Catholic. Against abortion and gays.

Welcome to the caucus. Would you like the Protestant against abortion and gays or the Catholic against abortion and gays?

Gingrich - His pet cause is himself. He's just trying to sell books and raise his speaking fees.

Not so sure about that. Maybe it stated out that way, but he's got a whiff of possible success, and it's got him drunk on the thought. If he could, he would.

Mitt Romney - Former Governor of Massachusetts which he governed as a moderate. Was tolerant of gays, enacted statewide heathcare, was pro-choice, believed in antropogenic climate change. He's now disavowing all of these things. Most Republicans hate him.

Perry - Governor of Texas. Very unintelligent, He has lots of money and an organization, but his dismal and embarrassing debate performances have likely killed him.

Paul - Libertarian. Opposes getting involved in foreign wars, hates government. He has a deeply loyal group of supporters who will keep him going for a while, but few people like his kooky ideas.

Paul has a very dedicate group of supporters but he tops out at too few to get a win. He adds the only spice there is to the debates, other than when Perry has a brain fart.

Romney has to be banging his head against the wall that he can't get a significant lead over these guys. He'll probably win, and could probably beat Obama if he could generate some passion to get the base out to vote. But they just don't care for him much.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Mr. Kobayashi

Rick Santorum: His last name is slang for a fluid which is a byproduct of anal sex.

I know, I was thinking the same thing when I heard: That stuff didn't already have a name?!

[alphaboi867]

Bachmann's husband runs a Christian "counseling" practice that aims change people's sexual orientations (from gay/bi to straight) through the power of prayer and "therapy". Mrs Bachmann has also gone on record as saying that she believes the Bible instructs women to obey their husbands, and that she only became a tax attorney (her profession prior to public office) because her husband told her too.

[zamboniracer]

According to CNN, Romney, Santorum and Paul each won 7 delegates to the GOP convention. Link.

That being the case, wasn't the Iowa Caucus really a three-way tie, rather than an 8-vote win for Romney? Why isn't that being reported that way? All I heard on the news (NPR) was that Romney won by 8 votes? WTF

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by zamboniracer

That being the case, wasn't the Iowa Caucus really a three-way tie, rather than an 8-vote win for Romney? Why isn't that being reported that way?

Because a three-way with Santorum involved is not a matter to be described on broadcast television.

Yea, verily, may "Bob" everlastingly bless Dan Savage! And may his Santorum ever flow in Slack!

(Or in Tight, Tight's good too . . .)

[Lord Feldon]

Originally Posted by zamboniracer

According to CNN, Romney, Santorum and Paul each won 7 delegates to the GOP convention. Link.

Iowa's delegates to the Republican national convention haven't been elected yet. The part of the caucus where they vote for presidential candidates is non-binding. The Ron Paul campaign thinks it might be able to grab a majority of Iowa's delegate seats in the upcoming chain of local and state conventions.

[Chronos]

Correction: Ron Paul claims to be a libertarian. Really, he just likes drugs and isolationism, and is otherwise as hard-right as it's possible to get on every other topic.

And since nobody else has mentioned it yet, both Paul and Bachmann are members of the House of Representatives, which is in itself something of a strike against them: Serious presidential candidates are more likely to be senators or governors. The Senate and the House as a whole have approximately equal power, but there are fewer senators than reps, so each individual one wields more power, and it's generally regarded as a higher office.