This is why Iowa was so important - it would have built the momentum he needed to keep going. That's also why Maine was important to him - it would have made him more viable in the minds of voters.
I agree, the numbers in Iowa were extremely important. You sure as hell didn't hear the campaign and grassroots supporters on this forum talking about Iowa being a meaningless beauty contest in the run up to Iowa! LMAO! I mean seriously, we wanted to WIN the popular vote. We didn't spend all that ad money leading up to Iowa in order to win a "plurality" of delegates in a non-binding process! LOL! And THOUSANDS of volunteers did not go to that state canvassing and door knocking for the sake of reminding people to become a delegate at a later date because that is how we win! WOW!
I think even more important than the results coming out of the Iowa caucus was the campaigns REACTION to the results. It seemed like the campaign IMMEDIATELY went in to panic mode and started talking about the delegate selection formalities. I think this was totally premature. I know hindsight is 20/20, but the big buzz around these forums was how Romney LOST votes from 2008 and Ron Paul CRUSHED the 2008 totals. This was a CLEAR sign that the message and the campaign were the absolute most popular thing in the last 4 years! But damn, the first thing the campaign did was claim victory based on phantom delegates, claim a 2 man race, claim national fundraising status, claim the ability to compete in ALL states.
Of course, the campaign in the same breath started talking about skipping state due to lack of money, lack of ability to get phantom delegates (even though they could have challenged and competed for those delegates), attacked other candidates in ads that were not part of the 2 man race, and blatantly and openly decided to only campaign in caucus states because that is where "organization and enthusiasm" would pay off.
So the alarm bells started going off right after Iowa. For some, including those inside the campaign, it still has not sunk in yet that changes need to be made RIGHT NOW in order to make sure that the trajectory of the campaign is going OVER the delegate wall and not UNDER it!
No Ron Paul is not in first place for anything, because we don't elect candidates based on enthusiasm of their support, organization abilities of their grassroots, rightness and truthfulness of their message, their ability to work inside the system to change the system, or any other reason.
We elect candidates based on the popularity of their message and the acceptance of that message by the majority of voters. Once everyone involved realizes that, as we did in the time after the ALT-GOP convention in 2008 and the lead up to Iowa 2012, once we get back to what was successful, that is, making the message popular, THEN we will get back to a winning strategy.