I was a little surprised but not disappointed. I thought Clinton would hold a strong second place. It is a horse race for the Dems. Obama might make history and hopefully bring much needed change to Washington. I hope Edwards gets a bounce from Iowa. One thing is for sure, this is going to be an interesting election.
Huckabee wasn’t a big surprise in a conservative state like Iowa. I wouldn’t underestimate his appeal to the rest of the country. He is a charismatic and savvy politician. The evangelical vote carried G.W. Bush to the Oval Office.
We’ve gone from questioning Hillary’s inevitability to questioning her viability. A great win for Obama, perhaps the death blow to Edwards, and a severe wound to Hillary. The stakes in New Hampshire have now increased dramatically. Should Obama capture two lily-white states, I can’t see the black voters of South Carolina cutting him off at the knees. She could be winless after SC and in a two person race with someone a thousand times more charismatic. It will be interesting to watch the national polls post-Iowa.
IMHO, the horse race is down to three candidates on the GOP side, and two on the Dem side. I think Edwards is losing well, changing the character of the race by his involvement in it, which is why he shouldn’t quietly fold his tent. But he’s not going to win.
On the GOP side, as I’ve been saying for awhile, NH is Thunderdome for McCain and Romney. If Romney goes 0-for-2 after pouring all the money he has into Iowa and NH, then he can’t win anywhere. OK, he can win Utah. McCain doesn’t really have anywhere else he’s got the strength to break through if he can’t do it in NH.
And the others? Why should evangelicals in SC vote for Gramps when they can vote for Huck? And why will anyone care about Rudy after he fails to make an impact in Iowa (finished 6th), NH, MI, and SC? (Even Rudy’s advisors have apparently realized their late-primary strategy is a clunker: apparently they’ve decided to change their minds yet again on NH and send Rudy up there and throw a bunch of ad money into the state. Betcha it still gets him no better than 4th.
So, it’s down to Huck and the NH winner. If Huck improbably pulls out NH, then it’s down to just Huck, and we can watch a replay of 1964’s “Stop Goldwater” effort by party leaders. It’s kinda fun to see the heirs of 1964’s rebels being the GOP establishment in 2008, scrambling to hold off a new generation of outsiders. Live long enough, and you get amused in all sorts of new ways.
Charismatic? Yes. A good/effective President? I dunno. I think the general populace might have doubts about that too, which may mean that almost any Republican candidate would be able to win against him in the end.
That’s the only reason I’m uncertain about cheering him on. Heck, this whole race has me completely confused.
They already tried that. Clinton’s people tried to make a big deal out of his decade-old admission that he did drugs in college 25 years ago, and then there’s the ‘closet Muslim who hates America’ rumor. But New Hampshire does it’s thing on Tuesday and I think he’ll win there.
I know what I wrote last night, but I’m unsure what this means for Edwards. On the one hand, he did beat Clinton - on the other, he campaigned in Iowa for longer than anybody, and if he didn’t win there I’m not sure how he will do elsewhere.
McCain and Romney are supposedly leading in New Hampshire for the GOP. I don’t know what kind of bounce Huckabee will get, but it’s really hard to imagine him winning there. If McCain wins or comes close it’ll mix up this race even further.
Maybe not the kind you read in legitimate newspapers, but my Mom just got a new email (actually a blend of three others that have been going around the last year) in which Obama is slammed with mostly false accusations. The interesting thing is, the email says something to the effect "this has been verified with snopes.com . :o
Of course, snopes has multiple articles that have refuted the charges over the last year. FWIW, the emails are forwarded by fairly conservative friends of my mom. Fortunately, my mom is a bit more savvy and always asks me to check these out.
Will their supporters turn to Obama? Or could Edwards scoop up a decent number of them? Is the adage that “Hillary is no one’s second choice” true? Or did Dodd and Biden simply not have enough support for this to matter at all?
Which only proves that you can do anything with stats. For another way of looking at it is that Billary lost by over 70% of the vote. And I very much doubt that if Edwards quits the race for lack of funds and/or encouraging results, his supporters will turn to her.
Looks good from my non-American perspective and sincere wishes for real change for the better of your Nation.
Beyond exuding charisma to brighten the Sun, I trust Obama’s substance holds true as well if (when, hopefully) he ends-up in The White House. And if not I also hope people will hold his feet to the fire.
McCain doesn’t really have anywhere else he’s got the strength to break through if he can’t do it in NH.