The Iowa Crowning
Well Iowa is past us and other then the obvious fact that Mitt Romney is out of the Republican Race (Please someone let him know!) nothing is set in stone. Well not of course if you ask the pundits. For the last couple of days I have read upwards of 30 stories on the Democratic Race. One out of those 30 dealt with who will actually win; the other 29 were about Barack Obama. Comparison's range from J.F.K. to Ronald Reagan.
Andrew Sullivan of the Australian alleges that Obama, like Reagan before him, would woo Republicans disenfranchised with George W. Bush's brand of Conservatism (Aka Socialism Lite). Lets be real people. The conservatives who hate Bush, do so because hes liberal! Why would those very same conservatives pick a straight out liberal in reaction to this hatred. The idea is plain stupid. Now what Obama could and might do is recapture the Reagan-Democrats and the Independents while a bad Republican suppress GOP turnout; Yet to assume Conservatives angry with the President will choose liberalism is insanity. It would be like suggesting that a Democrat fed up with their parties inability to end the war would vote for John McCain.
We need to all realize that Iowa is not that big an event. Let us take a stroll down memory lane and maybe we would notice that, as stated by Susan Estrich of Fox News, in the last 40 years only two people have won Iowa and become their parties nominee; Clinton in 1996 (Running Unopposed) and George W. Bush in 2000. That's it! The fact is that Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama have a long rode ahead. Huckabee faces slicing ads criticizing his conservative credentials and experience that have already halted his march in the National Polls. Obama is subject to the very same attack ads considering his experience on the national level is a couple of years in the Senate where he has spearheaded...oh that's right nothing. I am not alleging that their victories in Iowa are meaningless, however, it might be smart to put away the crown because this race is far from over.
posted by Christopher Cerami at
10:06 PM
4 Comments:
Chris, I'll start with the smallest thing. Andrew Sullivan writes for the Atlantic, not the Australian. (On a side note, he's a gay conservative, sort of libertarian, who's endorsed Obama for the Democrats, and McCain and Ron Paul for the Republicans. He has a cool blog too, even if neither of us would always agree with it.)
err...Bush is liberal? Last time I checked, liberals and progressives opposed neocon military policies, tax cuts for the wealthy, and restrictions on civil liberties. Bush is a neocon. Sorry.
But let's get to your actual point. Unfortunately for your party, Obama can get conservatives (in addition to the Reagan-Dems) because he already has been. Polls consistently show that he's the most-liked Democratic candidate among Republican voters, and at the Iowa caucus many Republicans switched their party affiliations to vote for him. (This makes sense, as the top Republicans in Iowa were Romney and Huckabee...) There's a popular t-shirt that says "I'm the Republican Obama warned you about."
Finally, Iowa was huge. You're a Republican, so it matters less from your perspective, as none of your candidates are campaigning on a national level. But the top three Democrats (with the arguable exception of Edwards) have been competitive nationally, and all of them took a bet on Iowa because it's early. Obama's win (and Hillary's 3rd place) was huge, a rejection of triangulation--that's why he got so many news stories.
But more on Iowa. You have to be mis-quoting your sources here. John Kerry (2004), Al Gore (2000), and Bob Dole (1996) also won Iowa and became their party's nominees. Note also that these, and the elections you pointed out, are fairly recent (in comparison to Dole in 88, who won Iowa but not the nomination), which means that the trends show Iowa to be increasingly important. After all, Hillary's national lead has dropped since her loss in Iowa.
Finally, I know you're not saying that Iowa's meaningless. But I don't think that Huckabee or Obama have been crowned yet, either. Obama still has to win in New Hampshire (my prediction is that if he gets that, he has the nomination, but I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basket either), as well as fight for super Tuesday. Huckabee too is getting challenges from everywhere, as it seems that each Republican is banking on a certain state--it's possible that the Republicans are so torn they'll still be deciding their candidate come the convention. But to say that Obama's front-runner status (or even Huckabee's) did not depend on Iowa is an ambitious task.
KD,
I Apologize for the Iowa Victories issue apparently the source in question was incorrect, however my point is still the same Iowa is not Kingmaker. As far as Andrew Sullivan he wrote this piece for the Australian. Please check the following link.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23013962-7583,00.html
whoops...sorry about that!
man you guys suck
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