If Paul wins Iowa, that stops. The conservative press, which has been bored but hostile to Paul all year (just see the National Review‘s cover story), will remind its readers that Paul wants to legalize prostitution and narcotics, end aid to Israel (as part of a general no-aid-for-anyone policy), and end unconstitutional programs like Medicare and social security. The liberal press will discover that he’s a John Birch Society supporter who for years published lucrative newsletters studded with racist gunk. In 2008, when the media didn’t take him seriously, Paul was able to get past the newsletter story with a soft-gummed Wolf Blitzer interview. (“Certainly didn’t sound like the Ron Paul that I’ve come to know and our viewers have come to know all this time,” said Blitzer.) This was when Paul was on track to lose every primary. It’ll be different if the man wins IAllowa.

Or, as I put it earlier this week, Ron Paul’s past will catch up with him.

But that’s Ron Paul, what about the caucuses themselves? Would a Ron Paul victory in two weeks be a fatal, or even near fatal, blow to the credibility of the Iowa Caucuses such that we might actually see other states challenge the Hawkeye State for first-in-the-nation supremacy in four or eight years? Allahpundit says yes:

A Paul win presents a particular issue for Iowa. They fought this year to keep their prized position in the primaries, and the RNC went to bat for them to keep it. If the caucuses end up producing Ron Paul — the publisher of a newsletter that for years featured racist statements and lunatic conspiracy theories — as their preferred candidate, it will spell the end of the line for Iowa as the first testing ground of Republican presidential hopefuls. It will also likely rally the GOP around Mitt Romney as the nominee, being the safest choice and the easiest to rally around in defense of a Paul nomination, especially with Gingrich unable to close the deal in Iowa after bouncing so high up in the polls.

As does Steve Benen:

Iowa, for reasons I’ve never been fully comfortable with, believes it is blessed by God to have first-in-the-nation status, and fiercely treasures this role. Candidates, or even possible candidates, have been reluctant to even suggest changes to the existing structure. But a Paul victory would set a precedent that could change how Republicans perceive the caucuses themselves. It wouldn’t necessarily lead to a de jure change, but rather a de facto change — GOP presidential contenders would simply conclude, “Let’s focus our attention on New Hampshire on South Carolina, because those Iowans appear to be nuts.”

,

A party county chair in Iowa told Politico, “My biggest fear is that the Republican Party nationally and a lot of states that want to be number one [in the nominating process] will simply point to his winning and say, ‘Iowa’s irrelevant.'” And that seems pretty likely.

Quite honestly, if a Ron Paul victory ends up being the hammer that finally drives a wooden stake through the heart of the absurd idea that Iowa should be the state that goes first in our Presidential selection process, I would not be disappointed at all. Iowa is not representative of the country at all, either demographically or ideologically, and even its Republican selectorate is out-of-step with Republicans nationally. Moreover, caucuses are hardly the most representative manner in which to choose a candidate. They’re better than Party Conventions, where a few thousand people can end up tossing a a popular incumbent (Exhibit A: Robert Bennett in Utah in 2010), but they’re far less of a reflection of what the voters of Iowa believe than an actual primary would be. For example, there were 1,537,123 votes cast in Iowa in the 2008 General Election. In the Republican Caucus, there were 119,188 participants. The Iowa Democratic Party does not release raw vote totals for its caucus, but I think we can be certain that there likely at most 200,000 participants, perhaps more perhaps less. In other words, the “winners” out of Iowa last time around were selected by something approaching 20% of the electorate that voted the following November. That’s why it’s so easy for candidates like Huckabee, Pat Robertson, or Ron Paul to pull off strong showings there. If Iowa were a primary, it’s unlikely Paul would be polling nearly as well as he is right now. So, diminishing the importance of an event that gets far more attention than it deserves may actually be Ron Paul’s greatest contribution to American politics.

If only I believed that it actually could happen.

If the Iowa Caucuses can survive Pat Robertson, the “Dean Scream,” and Mike Huckabee, they’ll survive Ron Paul. The New Hampshire Primaries were in a similar situation after Pat Buchanan’s surprisingly strong second place showing in 1992, and his victory, albeit by a single percentage point, in 1996, and they’ve survived just fine. As I’ve noted before, it seems pretty clear to me that Ron Paul would have a very difficult time capitalizing on an Iowa victory very far beyond New Hampshire. He is in single digits in the polls in both South Carolina and Florida and, notwithstanding his seemingly endless fundraising abilities, it’s going to be difficult for him to compete against candidates like Romney as we get deeper into the primaries. Moreover, as the number of states with closed primaries increases, Paul will be unable to capitalize on his biggest strength, his ability to attract support from younger independent voters who either have not voted in the past, or may have voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Much like other Iowa winners in the past, then, Paul will fade in importance, although his victory in Iowa would probably be the best thing that could possibly happen to Mitt Romney at this stage of the race.

So, no, a Ron Paul win will not kill the Iowa Caucuses. It would be nice if it did, though.