Many, though not all, see Paul as unelectable. However, the same was true of Huckabee, and his Iowa win hardly ended the importance of the caucuses. If someone like Bachmann wins Iowa, I expect it will be much as it was in 2008.
However, Paul might actually be *strong* enough that if he wins Iowa it could damage Iowa's prestige. A Paul win in Iowa could start a long and battering primary season that saddles the GOP with a weakened nominee. If so, Iowa could be seen not as irrelevant but as dangerous. If that were the case Iowa might be weakened, perhaps by pushing more primaries much closer to the caucuses, as was done with South Caroline and Nevada earlier. This would be complicated by the fact that Democrats probably wouldn't be as motivated to change the schedule, and most states try to keep the Democratic and GOP primaries on the same night.
Also, a point of clarification:
Iowa caucuses - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Iowa doesn't allow Democrats to caucus for Republicans, it just allows people to switch their party identification the same night. So it would be newly-minted Republicans, not registered Democrats, caucusing with Republicans. I'm sure though that many of them do still consider themselves Democrats (and Republicans, when the reverse occurs).
