Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum will get a big boost from his showing in the Iowa Republican Party presidential caucus voting.

One Iowa voter told me he went to a Santorum rally months agoand less than five people showed up.  That was not the case when we went to see him shortly before the caucus vote where there was an overflow crowd of supporters waiting for him at a small restaurant in Polk City with an equally large media horde.

The problem for Santorum is he must avoid repeating what happened to former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee four years ago.  Huckabee won the caucus vote thanks to strong support from social conservatives but was unable to build on that momentum coming out of Iowa.

Santorum seems to have won the early contest to see who is the favored social conservative in the race, but unless he gets a lot more campaign funding and organization soon he may find it difficult to compete with Romney’s money and organization in upcoming contest states like South Carolina, Florida, Nevada and Michigan. At least Santorum will have one fewer conservative rival to worry about in the coming Republican primaries. Michele Bachmann dropped out of the race after her poor showing in Iowa.

Beyond Iowa For Romney

To some extent, mission accomplished for Mitt Romney in Iowa.

All along the Romney campaign, most feared challenges from Texas Governor Rick Perry and former House speaker Newt Gingrich.  Along the way both candidates suffered some self-inflicted wounds.  Perry unraveled in the debates and a lot of Republicans who saw him as the second coming of George W. Bush (or something like that) were sorely disappointed.

I talked to a Romney volunteer up from Florida over breakfast, and she said she and her husband really wanted to like Perry but basically abandoned him after they watched the first debate.  She settled on Romney as the best chance to actually beat President Obama.  Others liked Tim Pawlenty or Herman Cain before they left the race.  Now some of them are coming around to Romney.

Like But Not Love For Mitt Romney

Speaking of the former Massachusetts governor, I heard it from voters in Iowa over and over again, at least those looking to support other candidates.

With all due respect, they think he’s fake.  To them, he appears to lack a genuineness that a lot of these Iowa voters are searching for.  At times things seemed to veer into ‘Anybody But Romney’ territory.  They may like him.  They may think he has the best chance to beat Obama.  But I’m not finding a lot people here who love him like they did Ronald Reagan 30 years ago, though granted that would take some doing.

I also had an interesting conversation with Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, who was predicting a big night for both Romney and Rick Santorum.  When I asked him about voters telling me they thought Romney failed to project authenticity, he agreed it was a potential problem down the road.