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The first stop for any analysis of US polls and elections is Michael Barone. So what are you waiting for?
The full analysis is a must-read, but I think this is the most significant part: 1999 turnout: 23,685. 2007 turnout, 14,302, down 40 percent. Romney and his staff make the reasonable point that the heat may have held the turnout down; the temperature in 1999 was, as I remember, in the 80s. They add that George W. Bush then was running way ahead in national polls, while today Romney, far less well known, is running in single digits in most national polls, and the candidates who have been, at various times, leading the national polls—Giuliani, McCain, Thompson—weren't competing. A valid point: if they had been, they presumably would have brought out at least some people who weren't there. But how many? Another 10,000? One wonders. The Romney people make another probably valid point: if Giuliani, McCain and Thompson had thought they could have won, they would have entered. But evidently they concluded they couldn't match what turned out to be 4,516 votes.
Which is not all that much. Romney won 506 fewer votes than second-finisher Steve Forbes won in 1999. Huckabee won 832 fewer votes than third-finisher Elizabeth Dole won in 1999, and she dropped out too not long thereafter. Brownback won 78 more votes than Gary Bauer won in 1999; he ended up finishing behind Alan Keyes in the precinct caucuses.
My conclusion is that the sag in turnout is bad news for the Republican Party. It suggests a lack of enthusiasm and esprit. Romney makes the point that eight years ago Republicans were enthused at the prospect of the end of the Clinton administration and were optimistic about taking back the White House. Today, by contrast, they seem depressed or at least unenthusiastic by the record of the Bush administration and pessimistic about holding the White House. Romney began his speech in the hall by calling for change and in his victory statement said, "Change begins here today in Iowa." A man from Mars listening to his speech and those of other candidates might be forgiven for supposing that we have a Democratic administration in office now.
...Republican candidates seem to be trying to do what Nicolas Sarkozy did in France: run as the candidate of change to succeed a president of his own party.
I'm off to the US in a few days and will spending much of my time talking to insiders and shrewd analysts of US politics. I'll make sure to post here on what I find.