Remember when Rick Santorum won the Iowa Caucus? Or when Michele Bachmann won the state’s straw poll just weeks earlier?
Neither can most Americans.
The nation heads to the poll this week to determine whether Mitt Romney will keep President Obama from a second term, but 2012 started with an entirely different set of presidential candidates.
Back then, a broader palette of Republicans hoping to secure their party’s nomination brought out barbs and vitriol now reserved for the Romney and Obama campaigns.
Watch video: Candidates wrap up campaign marathon sprint
In addition to Santorum and Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry also took turns swiftly rotating through “front-runner” status — and losing the title just as fast.
The fact that all this took place during the current election, within a single calendar year, illustrates how long this election has dragged on.
The momentum has repeatedly shifted back and forth between candidates from the start.
Cain, the former chief executive of a national chain, rose to fame with a tax reform program he called the “9-9-9 plan,” that would replace the current tax system with a 9 percent personal, corporate and national sales tax. But Cain dropped out of the race after being accused of having a 13-year extramarital affair.
Similar character issues dogged Gingrich after an ex-wife revealed in an interview that the former House Speaker had pressed for “an open marriage.”
Watch video: Tom Brokaw: The election process is too long
For Perry, the Texas governor found his momentum suspended after experiencing a brain freeze during a Republican presidential debate. He had failed to remember the third federal agency he would eliminate if elected.
“Commerce, Education and the — what’s the third one there? Let’s see…” he said, before ending with a now-famous, “oops.”
But Romney didn’t escape snag-free. Long before his “47 percent” comment became a campaign staple for Obama, Romney was remembered for laying down a hefty wager to settle a disagreement with Perry over health care policy. The moment sealed Romney’s image as a wealthy candidate unable to relate to the average voter.
"Rick, I’ll tell you what, 10,000 bucks?” said Romney with an extended hand. “$10,000 bet?”
“I’m not in the betting business,” Perry retorted.
And neither are national pundits. Flash forward to months later, Romney is in a statistical dead heat with Obama, with Tuesday's election ending a presidential campaign as suspenseful and dramatic as it began.
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