In Iowa, Obama definitely is doing the best; I don’t believe this will translate into a nomination or even equally good results for Obama (which are expected in Iowa) elsewhere. It’s not necessarily an anti-Iowa, anti-New-Hampshire sentiment in the larger states, but rather voters’ strategy as well as preferences, wanting to go with Hillary Clinton as the obvious leader this year among the Dems, to best ensure a Democratic White House in 2009, or on the GOP side, to pile on as many votes for whoever is chosen, to try to defeat Hillary Clinton rather than to desire the Presidency for the GOP candidate, in a positive sense.

To date there is nothing to dissuade me from my belief that Hillary Clinton is going to be our next President. That’s despite my currently being posted here in Iowa and seeing plenty of support for Obama. (There is support for many of the Dem candidates, but how much longer will that continue?)
The GOP leaders are not appealing (it has nothing to do with Mormonism in Romney’s case, but rather his earlier more-liberal record and that he’s from Massachusetts, a place with a reputation for being alien to the American mainstream) and they could lead not only swing voters, or non-committal voters to choose — to prefer — Clinton, but also from many non-liberal voters. (Consider the 2006 vote.)

Renown economist, Dr. Laurence Kotlikoff, has stated (9/26/2006),

“Yes I think [the U.S. is bankrupt] because if you look at our long term fiscal obligations and compare them with our tax receipts that are projected to come in, you end up finding the difference in present value is equal to $63 trillion. This is according to an update of a U.S Treasury study. So it is not an academic study but rather a government study.

Kotlikoff sees passing Huck’s FairTax as the vehicle to prevent economic meltdown.

And Kotlikoff is in good company.

As far as Hillary getting booed in Iowa… from what I’ve read, she got booed TWICE on the same question (immigration). The audience was looking for a specific answer and Hillary did her little avoidy dance and got booed, so she tried again and gave it her best little avoidy dance and got booed even more. When I read that I wanted to stand up and cheer for those smart Iowans who weren’t going to let Hillary (and hopefully their attitude will extend to all politicians who try the same) pull one over on them by giving a non-answer when a specific answer was necessary. In the polls, Obama was not too far behind Hillary and now he’ not that far ahead. He can still slip up and give Hillary back her supporters. Being an Obama man myself, I’m mostly concerned about the stuff I’ve been reading lately about Obama’s healthcare proposal. I think that’s his current weakness right now. I hope he is able to show that he can change course- granted Obama’s plan is only a proposal, but he can still amend it based on all the negative feedback he’s getting.

Whatever one thinks about the early states, one has to admit that they are important simply because they get things rolling. The “winning” campaigns pick up speed and suddenly everyone wants to be with the winner. No guarantees, of course…

I’m still not convinced the Dems. will take back the WH in Nov. but right now it appears they will. What’s interesting is that people think of Hillary as “polarizing” but think of Obama as someone who can unite people. To me there seems to be something off about this… not the characterizations, but that more Dem. voters support a polarizing person than someone seen as more conciliatory.

The Iowa caucuses are so idiosyncratic that if any conclusions about the the larger race are drawn from them the real victors are the press commentators.

So idiosyncratic that the Iowa voters proved the “elite pundits” wrong on Dean in

Huckabee faces a New Hampshire primary, too, and New Hampshire Republicans haven’t traditionally cozied up to southern social conservatives. IMO the most likely outcome of an Iowa victory for Huckabee is to might a Giuliani nomination that much more likely.

On the Democratic side an Obama loss would push the possibility of his nomination even farther out of reach than it is now. An Obama win would do nothing to deter or even slow Hillary Clinton’s campaign.