Rick Santorum may have lost the Iowa caucus by a hair’s breadth. But he clearly won the battle for sound bite of the night, his battle-cry of “game on” crisply defined the idea he wants to convey: the Republican race is still wide open – and it is now Santorum who is the major challenger to Mitt Romney.

Many commentators argue that this is a discouraging result for Romney, since it shows that the majority of the Republican Party still don’t like him much. Ed Luce makes this case persuasively. But I’m inclined to the opposite view. My guess is that Santorum will not prove to be a very strong rival to Romney, who will continue to roll relentlessly towards the nomination.

With just days to go before the Republican Party caucus in Iowa, Ron Paul, a 74-year-old libertarian, is now in the lead. Up until now the MSM (that includes me) have written Paul off as just too kooky to win. But maybe he really will emerge on top, when Iowans vote next week.

I wouldn’t count on it, however. Not for nothing has the Republican race been compared to a circular firing squad. The pattern is now well-established. A candidate briefly emerges from the pack, and is then subjected to withering fire from all the other hopefuls. Once the new front-runner is mown down, Mitt Romney bobs up again as the leader. So we have had the Rick Perry boomlet, followed by the backlash. Then Herman Cain led and was destroyed by stories of sexual harassment and adultery. Then Newt Gingrich rose to the top – before being dragged back by stories of adultery, lobbying, hypocrisy etc etc. Now it is Ron Paul’s turn to lead – and to be subjected to a fusillade of criticism in his turn. This long piece from the New York Times details his appeal to unsavoury groups like the Montana militia.

The latest polls in the race for the Republican Party nomination are pretty stunning. One puts Newt Gingrich no less than 17 points ahead of his nearest rival. If Gingrich does indeed win the nomination, it will be striking proof that political commentators are not nearly as powerful as some people reckon. In recent days, Gingrich has been the subject of some devastating attacks. Strikingly, the most withering articles have actually come from the ranks of his fellow conservatives.

My favourite recent cartoon came in the New Yorker. While watching television the husband says to the wife: “He could be psychotic or he could be appealing to the base.” Already ten debates into the Republican season – and another sixteen to go before the Iowa caucus on 3 January – viewers could be forgiven for having forgotten there is another candidate in the race: Barack Obama.

The gloom in America is palpable. A recent poll suggested that only 16% of Americans now think the country is going in the “right direction”, as opposed to 77% who think it is on the wrong track. But who do Americans blame for this dire situation? The 2012 presidential election could turn on the answer to that question.