The lesson for the GOP establishment from Iowa: It’s the principles, stupid.

The Iowa results, with a victory for a populist social conservative deeply mistrusted by many people in the Republican establishment, also virtually guarantee that the nomination contest will not simply be a battle over personalities and credentials. Instead, the race will now be a deep and probably intensely negative fight for the direction of the party in the post-Bush era.

The GOP rank and file broke ranks with the party leadership, throwing down a gauntlet indicating a fight for a new direction in the Republican party. And it has the fiscal conservatives all a flutter. The party leadership put all their marbles on the candidate ‘most likely to succeed,” going for pragmatism over principle. In the end Romney’s rhetoric on abortion and gay marriage could not overcome his record. The GOP caucus goers in Iowa declared principles trump pragmatism, and that left Romney out in the cold with only the hot air of his most ardent supporters to keep him warm.