The Issue: Mitt Romney’s eight-vote margin of victory over Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucuses last Tuesday.
***
Now everyone thinks there’s going to be a real race to the Republican nomination (“Rick’s Ready To Rumble,” Jan. 5).
But Iowa has never been a bellwether for deciding the Republican nominee — it’s just the first test, and a small one, at that.
Rick Santorum is a fine man and a good American. But America is no longer a deeply conservative country.
Santorum’s anti-gay-marriage and anti-abortion stances may sit well with many, but they won’t sit well with enough voters.
Mitt Romney is also a fine man and a good American. But he is a more liberal-leaning Republican whose policies are more acceptable to the general electorate.
We should be wise and vote for the man who can defeat President Obama and rid us of his cursed administration.
That man is Romney.
Tom Cahill
Manhattan
***
Santorum’s near-victory in Iowa signals a huge victory for America. It indicates that we are on the road to moral recovery.
The United States lacks strong political and moral leadership. The only candidate seriously capable of altering this sad state of affairs and re-establishing America as a nation in touch with its democratic roots and moral foundation is Santorum.
He is militantly pro-life, morally consistent and politically courageous.
Santorum once stated, “America is first and foremost a moral enterprise that will not remain free without a good strong moral compass.”
Obama promised Americans great things. He challenged the people to have “the audacity of hope” and to put their faith in his anti-life, anti-family policies. In return he brought despair to the people.
Paul Kokoski
Hamilton, Ontario
***
The state of Iowa does a disservice to America by both having caucuses and insisting on being the first contest every presidential-election year.
Why should this state always be the one that pre-screens candidates for the rest of us? And, if it is going to be the first state, why have an election system that is so dysfunctional that less than 4 percent of registered voters participate in it?
I don’t know how this came to be, but we can do better. Iowa should step aside out of a sense of basic fairness and let other states take turns at being first.
M. Perkel
Gilroy, Calif.
***
Even though it was by the skin of his teeth, Romney won Iowa.
One state down and 49 to go in taking back America one state at a time.
Tommy DeJulio
New Rochelle
***
The Republican Party is throwing a WWE-style, last-man-standing match as its candidates fight each other, depending on whose strength is rising in the polls.
All Obama has to do is watch and to prepare the right kind of extinguisher to squelch his opponent. They all seem to have too many glaring weaknesses.
If the economy straightens out and the Euro crisis eases, Obama is a shoo-in.
Ray Hackinson
Ozone Park
***
Santorum may surprise us.
We were surprised when Ronald Reagan became our top man; just like President Truman, he became one of our great leaders.
America needs a good shot in the arm.
Richard Homer Bucco
Bloomfield, NJ
***
Santorum is a handsome and articulate politician whose social conservatism appeals to bedrock Republican voters.
Unfortunately, this same hard-right stance on social issues repels most independents, the people who decide presidential elections.
We do not want to see federal tentacles extend into intensely personal decisions involving childbirth and marriage, areas where a President Santorum would tred with canonical certainty.
Santorum has a chance to defeat Romney for the GOP nomination but would be much weaker in the general election against Obama than the Massachusetts moderate.
Paul Bloustein
Cincinnati
