The long awaited Iowa caucuses take place today in an atmosphere of political uncertainty greater than in many past years — amid conflicting reports, see-saw polls and signs that at least one campaign is already working on its spin to explain its candidate’s anticipated defeat.
And, when it’s over, it begins an official month of mega-politicking ending Super Tuesday February 5 when — some analysts have said — the race for the two parties nominations could effectively be over.
OR WILL IT?
The fact is: seldom have politicians and political experts seen a year in which voters seem so incredibly restive — so intent on shopping around in both parties. Consequently, self-assured analysis pieces by mainstream media and “new media” bloggers (including on this site) are sheepishly swept under the rug in the hopes no one will remember as new conventional wisdoms emerge…seemingly by the hour.
The biggest question today: will the two candidates most perceived as being most palatable to their parties’ controlling elites walk off with the prize?
Or will Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton’s “inevitability” be shattered by Senator Barack Obama or “second choice” former Senator John Edwards?
And former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (who is essentially trying to piece together a more traditional Republican coalition) find the enormous energy and money he put into Iowa paid off or will he be upset by Rush Limbaugh (i.e. “establishment) un-favorite Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee? Or by Senator John McCain? And will Rep. Ron Paul prove he can get double digits and be taken as a “serious” candidate by a red-faced mainstream media?
The developments are moving fast and furious but here are some of the latest:
(1) Two of the key challengers to the more establishment candidate in each party are using a populist message. But will this work?
As Iowans kick off the unusually tight presidential nominating contest tonight, they will offer the first test of whether a populist message can resonate in the 2008 campaign.
In the frantic closing days, as candidates have touted their resumes and needled their opponents, two leading contenders from each party — Democrat John Edwards and Republican Mike Huckabee — have ramped up their anticorporate, anti-Wall Street rhetoric.
Mr. Huckabee’s campaign represents a new challenge to the historically business-friendly Republican Party, and so far none of his rivals have picked up his rhetoric. But Mr. Edwards is tapping into a long tradition of Democrats’ receptivity to working-class appeals, and his main competitors are scrambling to echo the populism as economic anxiety has intensified among voters.
Salon’s Walter Shapiro (consistently one of the best political columnists on the American scene) says it’s Edwards day of reckoning:
Four years ago in the final days before the caucuses, Edwards was an electrifying candidate, the kind who inspired voters to try to touch him physically, as he raced across the state with his final-argument speech about the “Two Americas.” This time around, the former trial lawyer cannot win a let’s-make-history contest against the first woman and the first African-American to wage front-running campaigns for president. Instead, Edwards is campaigning as the unyielding champion of hard-pressed Americans as he wages battle against “corporate greed.” Despite the cheap-shot claims that a candidate who built a gargantuan house in North Carolina and briefly worked for a hedge fund cannot be sincere in his passion for the poor, there is an underappreciated core of consistency to Edwards.
And this time, Shapiro writes, Edwards is doing it HIS way:
This race is personal for Edwards in a way that no other candidate could possibly imagine. In 2004, when he waged an uphill battle against John Kerry until the end of February, Edwards sometimes gave off the impression that he was running as the candidate that his consultants wanted him to be. This time around Edwards is running as the candidate that he and Elizabeth always wanted him to be.
Meanwhile, Governor Mike Huckabee went on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show amid the writers’ strike, crossing a picket line with signs saying “Huckabee is a Scab.” In Des Moines, he played guitar and was accompanied by actor Chuck Norris. Huckabee was the flavor of the week until some GOPers (particularly those in the establishment) thought they tasted left wing in his positions and in his rhetoric.
(2) Polls are all over the place so before they vote just pick one that shows the man/woman you want ahead and say IT is accurate amd the methodology of the others are wrong. US News has a list of recent polls HERE but to give you an idea:
–Barack Obama, Huckabee Up In DMR Poll
–Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney Lead In CNN Poll
–Zogby Tracking Shows Hilly Clinton, Huckabee Holding Narrow Leads
Most of these polls fall within the margin of error so in reality: NO ONE KNOWS what will happen.
And then the AP offers two polls with different results. The CNN-Opinion Research Corp. calls it for Clinton and Romney. The Des Moines register for Obama and Huckabee. (What’s a political junkie to DO?)
(3)Actor and Republican Presidential candidate wannabe Fred Thompson is surging. Actor and Republican Presidential candidate wanna be Fred Thompson may drop out of the race.
Fred is surging, Zogby reports:
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, gained a bit on Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas. Huckabee cumulative three-day tracking total equaled 28% support among likely Republican caucus–goers, while Romney moved up from 25% to 26% support. Arizona Sen. John McCain remained in third place at 12%, tied with former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who has seen a late-breaking surge. Among Democrats, 5% were yet undecided just three days ahead of the caucuses. Among Republicans, 6% were yet unsure.
Fred may drop out, The Politico reports:
Several Republican officials close to Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign said they expect the candidate will drop out of the race within days if he finishes poorly in Thursday’s Iowa caucus.
Thompson’s campaign, which last spring and summer was generating fevered anticipation in the media and with some Republican activists, has never ignited nationally, and there are no signs of a late spark happening here in Iowa, where even a third-place finish is far from assured.
This reality—combined with a fundraising drought—left well-connected friends and advisers of Thompson Wednesday evening predicting that he will pull the plug on hype and hope before the Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary.
Just point to the link above that fits your bias and call the other one “inaccurate.”
(4) Hillary Clinton’s camp is already indulging in transparent spin control. ABC News:
As the presidential candidates engage in furious pre-caucus spin, one of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s most prominent Iowa supporters said Wednesday that she’s already accomplished what she needs to in Iowa and can declare success even if she finishes in third place.
If Clinton finishes third and that’s a big success, then John Kerry should pop open the champagne and celebrate his marvelous victory in 2004.
“She has done what she needed to do here,” Vilsack said shortly before a Clinton campaign event in Indianola. “When she started the process she was way behind — it’s now by all standards a competitive race.”
Asked if the order of finish matters, Vilsack deflected the question.
In other words, he won’t say.
“She absolutely had to be competitive, and she’s accomplished that,” he said. “Obviously, everybody’s interested in winning, and I think we’re going to do well. It’s tight. There’s no question about that.”
Vilsack’s comments stand in marked contrast to optimistic predictions he has made in the past, including last May, when he endorsed Clinton’s candidacy.
In May, Vilsack was quoted in The Washington Post as saying, “There’s no question she’s playing in Iowa and playing to win.” Vilsack dropped out of the presidential race earlier this year and endorsed Clinton.”
In what seems to be life imitating satire, here’s what the conservative satirist Scrappleface has on his website (THIS IS A SATIRE):
(2008-01-02) — Former presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton today reaffirmed her commitment to her White House bid in the face of polls showing she could finish as low as second or third in Thursday’s Iowa caucuses.
Reprising her campaign announcement speech, Sen. Clinton said, “I’m in, and I’m in to win. But it all depends on what your definition of ‘win’ is.”
Mrs. Clinton said it’s too early to talk about pulling out of the race, and that if she gets “any support at all in Iowa, it will be a historic event since no wife of a former president has ever notched even single digits in the state.”
Meanwhile, rival Dennis Kucinich encouraged his supporter to back Sen. Barack Obama if, as expected, the diminutive Congressman fails to garner at least 15 percent on the first ballot.
The reality: Clinton has been working tirelessly in Iowa (even distributing snow shovels to volunteers). If she finishes third she needs to make a strong showing in New Hampshire or else many will conclude that Democratic voters seek new face, feel uneasy with the idea of yet another member of a political dynasty running the White House, and simply has too many negatives to be the party’s optimum candidate in 2008.
Conservative columnist Robert Novak is already writing her Iowa political obituary:
Sen. Hillary Clinton faces tonight’s Iowa caucuses not as the inevitable Democratic presidential nominee but seriously challenged by Sen. Barack Obama, thanks in no small part to committing a strategic error: premature triangulation.
…The threat of Obama winning in Iowa makes it white-knuckle time for Clinton. With Obama ahead in some New Hampshire polls, a double loss for Clinton in the first two tests of 2008 would raise the specter of Howard Dean’s collapse four years ago after losing in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Hillary Clinton is surely no Howard Dean. Furthermore, Michael Dukakis finished third in Iowa in 1988 and went on to be nominated (on the Republican side, both Ronald Reagan in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1988 got the nomination after losing Iowa). But an Obama victory in Iowa could be fatal for Clinton. It is believed in Democratic circles that Mark Penn, as the advocate of triangulation, would be the scapegoat, with Bill Clinton leading the trashing of the strategy that helped make him president.
A Clinton third place showing would also fit the unintentional political journalism narrative: The Candidate Advances, The Candidate Stumbles, The Candidate Loses. The last part is: The Candidate Makes A Comeback.
But will — and CAN — she?
So Iowa will shape the whole race?
The Washington Post’s David Broder says no. He points to the exotic caucus system there and writes;
It has been an Iowa pattern to tilt the Democratic race leftward and the Republican race to the right. And often it has been New Hampshire, where the primary turnout approximates the pattern of the overall electorate, that restores the balance and corrects for the distorting effects of the Iowa dynamic.
The key to New Hampshire is usually found among independent voters, who can take part in either party’s primary, depending on the choice each individual makes on primary day.
That fact by itself pulls the candidates away from the ideological edges and back to the center, and it is abetted by two other forces. Organized labor is a much weaker political element inside the New Hampshire Democratic Party than it is in Iowa’s. And among Republicans, the state is much more secular than Iowa, with a significantly smaller percentage of people who describe themselves as born-again Christians.
….In New Hampshire, nearly half as many people voted in the 2004 primary as in the November general election — a far better cross-section of the state. What was even more remarkable was that the number of votes cast in the Democratic presidential primary — 221,309 — was two-thirds of the votes John Kerry received when he carried the state in November.
New Hampshire is a more reliable, less distorted lens through which to view the presidential landscape than Iowa.
But today all eyes will be on Iowa.
And when it’s over there will be a NEW conventional wisdom.
Which will be operative until…New Hampshire’s list next week of winners and losers creates another new conventional wisdom…
BUT THAT’S JUST OUR VIEW. HERE IS A CROSS SECTION OF SOME OTHER WEBLOG OPINION:
—Glenn Reynolds on Thompson:
Thompson is running the kind of campaign — substantive, policy-laden, not based on gimmicks or sound-bites — that pundits and journalists say they want, but he’s getting no credit for it from the people who claim that’s what they want. It’s like in Tootsie when Dustin Hoffman tries doing the things he’s heard women say they want from men, only to discover that they don’t really want those things at all . . .
I am comfortable saying right now that Hillary Clinton winning tomorrow is the least likely outcome in the Democratic caucuses. What I’m looking for is hidden support. Obama’s hidden support is big turnout, particularly among independents and young people, and Kucinich’s endorsement on second choices. A big turnout will favor Obama (and it could favor Edwards vis-a-vis Clinton). Edwards has several potential sources of hidden support. First, he is polling stronger in rural areas, which are weighted more heavily than urban and suburban areas in the caucus system. In other words, Edwards will get more than one vote for every vote he receives, while Obama and Clinton will get less.
..In that scenario, I believe Obama will win New Hampshire, followed by Edwards, and Clinton again finishing third. On the Republican side, I predict that Mike Huckabee will win in Iowa quite comfortably. John McCain will win New Hampshire in a landslide. And I don’t think McCain will really have to break a sweat after that…he’ll be the nominee.
My guess is that Hillary’s internal polling is showing a real problem and they sent Vilsack out to provide as much spin as humanly possible with a face familiar to Iowans. I’ve speculated before that a third place finish might be a real problem for Clinton going into New Hampshire. Not much longer to wait now.
With the selection about to begin in earnest, I find myself unable to get fizzed about any of the major candidates. America is such a large place with a population about the size of western Europe and with so much wealth and intellectual talent and yet the presidential candidate roster usually looks so uninspiring. Perhaps, its just an inevitable outcome of democracy. The logical outcome of having to appeal to large numbers of people. Still, I guess, we must always cheerfully concur that democracy is better than any known alternative.
If Hillary loses Iowa, what does it mean? While it might not mean much in the delegate count, it will mean a lot to her aura of inevitability. The national media will will effectively call January 3, 2008 as the official time of death of the Hillary Clinton for President campaign. It will be hard for the Clinton political machine to beat back the frenzy that will result.
The best news I’ve seen out of Iowa so far is that Rudy Giuliani appears set to finish behind Ron Paul….Frankly, I can see it. This is basically a two man race between Romney and Huckabee. The race for third is among candidates almost twenty points behind those leaders.
—Kos himself on Fred Thompson’s likely exit:
But he was the savior! The wingnutosphere told me that he’d get in, and millions would pour in — because he said it would happen! We’ll have fun picking through his carcass when he’s good and out. In a bizarre election season, amongst the GOP’s veritable freak show, the Thompson saga is amongst the most entertaining.
It just wasn’t supposed to be like this. Hillary Clinton was to mop up the floor with all other pretenders to the throne without nary a breakage of sweat. Now?..Vilsacks is whistling up a drain pipe. Back in November he promised, “We’re going to begin using all the assets we have,” to win Iowa. You don’t spend a couple of million bucks to take third place. The Hillary machine is leaking oil big time.
UPDATE: For a LOT more blog reaction CLICK HERE.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.