Retail Politics.
That's how Rick Santorum won the Iowa Caucus.
(Well, technically he didn't win, but he made it a statistical tie with front-runner Mitt Romney.)
Santorum spent months in Iowa, going to small gatherings and civic functions and giving speeches to small crowds.
My preferred candidate, Governor Rick Perry of Texas, tried to do a drive-by on Iowa. He tried to use his big money to win the election. He spent millions on TV ads. It didn't work.
In the end, the voters preferred the man they had seen in person repeatedly for months at various local social functions. A backyard barbeque. A softball game. Rick Santorum was there. Shaking hands. Smiling. Charming people face to face. And it worked.
Santorum is now one of the top three candidates for the GOP nomination. The winner of the nomination has a decent chance to defeat Barack Obama in 2012.
Rick Perry ended up spending over $4 million dollars in Iowa. It worked out to about $400 per vote. That is mind blowing.
We had a situation here in Los Angeles where a lady named Christine Essel was running for City Council. She had connections and money, as she was a former executive at Paramount Pictures. She ended up spending over a million dollars running for this city council seat, and she lost.
My friends and I have often theorized that if Christine had spent all her time knocking on doors and shaking hands, she would have won. She is a charming lady with a bubbly personality. She could have routed Paul Krekorian.
Instead, she listened to bad advice and sent 157 mailers to every household, which ended up pissing people off. She ended up spending about $80 per vote received. At the time I joked that she would have done better if she had just walked about Council District 2 handing out $100 bills.
Santorum spent about $30,000 of his own money in Iowa....working out to about $1 per vote.
He beat Rick Perry, who saturated the airwaves with TV ads.
Rick Perry could also have walked around Iowa handing out $100 bills and he would have done better in the election.
But both Rick Perry and Christine Essel could learn a lesson from Rick Santorum. Sometimes it is the personal touch that counts in politics.
