1. The turnout was down from last time and almost half the votes were cast by independents.
2. Romney won but nobody thought he really did well. I thought his speech was vacuous and inauthentic.
3. Most of the rest of the vote went to guys who aren’t really challengers to him for the nomination—Paul and Huntsman.
4. Paul did better than expected because turnout was down and almost half the votes were cast by independents. In his speech, he talked about the need to bring inflation down and getting over the errors of the last hundred years.
5. There’s nothing Huntsman can do with his slightly better than unimpressive showing.
6. Gingrich did badly but not enough to drop out and finished a few votes ahead of Santorum
7. Santorum lost much of his Iowa momentum and has lost his position, maybe, as the more credible challenger to Romney than Gingrich. Pete’s hope that he would finish ahead of Gingrich and push him aside is crushed. They both did a bit less well than predicted, but the Santorum showing is the bigger disappointing surprise.
8. There’s no reason to believe that Gingrich and Santorum won’t pretty evenly split the majority anti-Romney vote in South Carolina.
9. Romney gets nominated in the spirit of settling and without really being challenged by an actual nomination-plausible rival. Meanwhile, Newt has laid some significant baggage on him in the spirit of vengeance.
