Re-Handicap the Race after Iowa

Great Debates
41

If I were to honestly handicap the Democratic presidential race so far I would place Hillary Clinton far above the whole pack. Her strategy of going to visit the troops during Thanksgiving and stealthily going right of Bush on the war gave her some traction with more mainstream Americans. In part because Bush went to Baghdad, not her planning, few people are aware that she is the only Democrat with a reasonable position on the war (Lieberman, the invisible man, excepted).

Hillary voted for the war. She supported funding it. She suggested we might need more troops and a flexible date for pulling out. She was right. I have no idea if she is sincere, or just playing smart politics. Either way, she would be my pick to either be POTUS in 2008. Or [longshot], she might come in to “save the Democrats from themselves” at the convention. That’s far less likely with Dean out of the picture.

OTOH, Dean really isn’t out of the picture. Last night it struck me how few actual caucus votes had been counted, while political pundits like Scarborough and Matthews competed to find greater and deeper meaning in the thousand old white farmers that had voted so far. Not to say that Iowans don’t represent the United States. They do, but they don’t. The hype surrounding the early voting is a bit out of proportion if you consider the fact that my subdivision has several thousand people in it. California, NY, Texas, and Florida – last I checked – along with several other big states will decide who wins what both at the primary and general election level.

As noted by others, the Iowa caucus can benefit a candidate, kill off lesser candidates, or hurt a candidate (like Dean). OTOH, Dean has organization, far more support among urban types, and will be a factor throughout the race. He’s running a “50 state campaign”, as they say. So, in a nutshell, unless everyone decides to follow the Iowans like lemmings, not much has really happened so far.

Edwards has always been dangerous. Like a good attorney, which he was, he is capable of discussing his issues the way he wants to for a long time. He does “connect with the people” better – somewhat. It’s obvious he has seen the inside of a grocery store within the last decade (to actually buy groceries). He’s young, engaging when he allows himself to go off script, and energetic. Most importantly, he has that genteel southern accent that is necessary for any Democrat to win the White House in modern times. Prove me wrong.

In my opinion, it’s Hillary, Edwards, Kerry, Clark/Dean (tie). That’d the descending order of the D candidate that has the best chance to win the general election – were it held today. Which it isn’t. Good thing. If it were, only Hillary would have any chance whatsoever.

42

Moving forward a bit to the general election, I have to second kwildcat and say that the biggest positive factor for the Dems in this is the fact that the turnout in Iowa was something like double what it was in 2000, and was, I think, a record. This shows an energized base for whoever gets the nomination. That single fact, more than anything else, should make Rove sweat.

43

Video and Text of speech (Requires free registration Real player format, sorry :frowning: )

Dean doesn’t sound nuts (minus the little growl) in that speech hes just rallying the troops.

44

Apparently, a lot of your fellow Dopers don’t think so.

45

I take a somewhat dim view of the “horse race” mentality which which the early primaries are viewed and reported. Too many things can change in the early stages. As far as I’m concerned, the picture won’t be shaping up until Super Tuesday. Until then, I just observe and don’t opine.

However, I will admit to fascination with Edwards’s emergence. If he manages to score the top slot at the convention (which is a long shot, but bear with me), do you realize that he will be the first nominee who officially announced his candidacy on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart? Am I the only one who finds this simply beyond hilarious? I can see Jon rubbing his eyes and saying WHA-AAA-AA? now…

46

What I heard him talking about was taxing all wealth gains equally, rather than taxing wages/salary at a different rate than capital gains. In essense, the taxation theory would be to take the person’s net value at the end of the year and compare it to his net value at the beginning of the year, and tax the difference as income regardless of the source.

The Tax Reform Act of 1987 had eliminated the disparity, and was widely talked about as a remedy for “loopholes”, but that’s basically what it was. In the 1990’s, separating the two became popular again, because the middle-class was actually seeing alot of its income in the form of capital gains. Thus we returned to classifying those sources of wealth differently.

If we’re going to tax capital gains the same as wages, we’re going to need to keep low rates, because capital gains taxes really tend to discourage investment and retard economic growth.

That said, I have no principled objections to that theory of taxation (though I’d prefer no wealth/income tax at all, if we’re going to have one I don’t particularly object to that method.) At least he isn’t repeating Dean’s foolishness of advocating a total repeal of the Bush cuts.

BTW, I have a word for these demand-side Democrats: single people spend money too! If you think consumer spending drives the economy, then there is room in your little Keynesian world for a few tax cuts for the single and childless, you know. To hear them speak, you’d think only middle-class families were important. Maybe someone should remind them that gays and lesbians probably won’t qualify for their family-oriented targeted cuts, perhaps that argument would resonate with at least the social liberals among them.

47

I agree with those who say the decline of Dean bodes well for the Democratic Party. Although I think Dean’s vulnerability was overstated by many, and he would likely have veered to the center after securing the nomination, I think the other major Democrats would be more formidable opponents, with the possible exception of Clark, who remains something of an unknown quantity.

I also don’t see that Kerry is as uncharismatic as people seem to be suggesting. I’ve heard people compare him unfavorably to Al Gore, which is ridiculous from what I’ve heard of these two speaking - Kerry is light years ahead of Gore, and seems to be no more boring than any other politician. His main albatross is a general election would be his extensive and liberal voting record.

But I don’t think the Iowa results are all bad for Bush. For one thing, Gephardt was said by many to be the Democrat that the Republicans feared the most, and he is eliminated. More significantly, the decline of Dean suggests - and I believe exit polls confirm - that opposition to the Iraq war has lost some of its its drive power even among Democratic primary voters, which would suggest even less concern among the independents and public at large. As this is apparently to be one of the main bases of Democratic opposition to Bush, it is not helpful to have it lose steam.

The other Democratic issue is the economy, but more air keeps getting let out of that bag every month. Unless the economy falters again, the Dems may be left with the old standby of class warfare and other shrill leftist attacks, which have little chance of winning them the election.

48

I said some of this in the other thread, but:

Dean will stick around. He will not win anywhere after (maybe NH), but he will continue to gather delegates and be a player.

Kerry will not blow away the field in NH, which will raise doubts, (since he is from Mass). He will tank in SC, and people will start comparing him to Gore.

Clark is over. He has Dean’s insanity without Dean’s energy. He’s playing for veep.

Lieb looks like a guy waiting in line to board the Hindenburg.

Sharpton will be the Marion Barry of the 21st century.

Dennis Kucinich will someday be listed in a “Where are they now?” article. He will be working with a soup kitchen based in an Ashram. “I don’t miss politics,” he’ll say.

Edwards will get stronger as the race goes on and will win the nom. If he can resist pressure to name a hard-left veep he’s got a shot in the general. My actual prediction is that he does name someone as nondescript and generally inoffensive himself, but loses narrowly in an election that is not so much the lesser of two evils as it is the lesser of two lessers.

49

Has anyone considered the the race in terms of fund-raising? If I remember correctly, Dean and Kerry have forgone federal matching funds, and the others have not. Does this mean that if Edwards wins the nomination he’s going to be out-spent by a huge factor by Bush? How does this affect his nomination chances or ultimately his electability?

50

Marley23 wrote:

That’s not correct. The only New England state that didn’t go for Gore was New Hampshire, and its 4 electoral votes didn’t turn the tide.

On the other hand, Gore could have won without winning a single Southern state by taking either Ohio or Indiana.

Here’s the interactive electoral map from John Edwards, so general election handicappers can play along at home.

51

New Hampshire actually would have made the difference. Bush won the electoral vote 271 to 266. If Gore wins New Hampshire, he wins 270 to 267. New Hampshire is usually Republican, so that may not be the strongest contention. But they did also mention Ohio and a couple of other places.

52

I believe you are mistaken. According to the interactive electoral map at John Edwards’s site, Bush had 278 electoral votes to 260 for Gore. New Hampshire wouldn’t have made the difference.
Your general point still stands, though. Gore could have won the election without taking a single Southern state.

However, I think Democrats would be very foolish to turn their backs on the South. For one, demographics are shifting such that the South will have an increasing share of electoral votes with each new census.

Secondly, the sort of moderate Southern Democrat who can snatch a Southern state from Bush is also the sort of moderate Democrat who will have appeal in swing states like Ohio, Missouri, and Pennsylvania. Nominate a moderate Southern Democrat, and you are helping yourself in two ways. One, you are putting Southern states in play (NC for Edwards, AR for Clark, FL for both) and forcing Republicans to expend resources there, and two, you are putting forth the kind of moderate candidate who might help you flip moderate states like Ohio.

53

Yes, it did. The 2000 electoral tally was Bush 271, Gore 266. Move NH’s 4 votes from Bush to Gore (just needed some Nader voters to vote Gore instead), and we’d have had President Gore.

Edwards’ map uses the 2004 electoral votes, not the 2000 electoral votes. They’re different.

54

You raise some very good points that I wouldn’t argue with.

I think the map on the Edwards site is wrong. Every other website I looked at, like this one, said it was 271 to 266. I think the error MIGHT be because the 2004 electoral map appears to be adjusted for new population distribution figures (note that 2004 also says “Republican 278, Democrat 260”).

55

And because I previewed twice, checked an extra website and added a link, RTF beats me to the punch. :smack:

56

Ah. I see my error now.

I still think a “Screw the South” strategy is a really bad idea, though (both short-term and long-term).

57

Just look at the electoral map. The South is “rising” in terms of demographic importance. Florida and parts of the SW are growing so fast that a national politician ignores them at his or her peril. The fastest growing minority in the US (Hispanics) are mostly located in the South and SW also. That’s only part of the story. More people relocate down than up. That’s been true for decades.

Florida, as big as it is, and as much as it’s grown, is continuing to experience an unprecedented housing boon. Which, given the history of housing booms in Florida, is pretty amazing. If you ever fly into Florida at night it’s pretty hard not to notice that the entire East Coast of Florida is practically one big city the entire length of the state. Atlanta, pretty darn urban, is one half of Georgia.

“The South” has changed a great deal since the days of Foghorn Leghorn, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Killer Angels, and Deliverance.

58

Of course the most important factor (doh!) is that it’s possible for either party to win in the South. NY and CA – Rodan and Godzilla in electoral politics – are already penciled in as Democratic wins before every election. The Republicans can (amazingly) ignore them consistently and still win a decent percentage of national elections. The South is filled with potential swing states and quite a few electoral votes.

Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Arizona (especially longterm) provide enough electoral votes individually that they probably deserve their own strategies. Pennsylvania and Ohio have always been battleground states of traditional importance. People should be used to the new regime by now. Florida and Texas are, um, the Mothra and King Ghidorah of electoral politics. OK, no more Japanese movie monsters. “Flyover country” – seven here, six there – has an impact on the elections also.

A Southern Strategy is a flawed concept to begin with. You need a half dozen strategies just for Miami. The first thing I would suggest is looking at the South state-by-state. Florida is split down the middle. That’s true at the state level, in my city, and in my congressional district.

59

burundi got a fundraising call from a Dean worker last week; the worker said that Dean would be donating all his remaining funds to whoever won the Democratic nomination, assuming it wasn’t him. Has anyone else heard of this? And do we expect that he’ll not spend all donated money during the primary season?

Daniel

60

The pros and cons of Dems playing for the South versus doing a Northeast/Midwest/West Coast strategy are longer and deeper than I fully understand, let alone can get into here.

But let’s look at it this way: the Democratic base - the states they should win fairly easily in a close election - consists of most of the Northeast, most of the West Coast (and Hawaii, but in my analysis, I lump Hawaii in with the West Coast, and Alaska in with the Rocky Mountain states; it seems to be a good fit), and some of the Midwestern states.

The GOP base consists of most of the South, Great Plains, and Rocky Mountain (see previous parenthetical) states.

A number of Midwestern states are swing states, as are some states in each of the other regions. (NH, NM, FL come to mind).

A sensible strategy for either party is to try to make inroads on the swing states and the states that are sort of in the other party’s regions of strength, but are somewhat shaky. (E.g. the GOP took WV in 2000, and has been working on PA long and hard.) But not at the expense of forgetting about one’s own base. You want to find commonalities of interest between your base and voters in states you’d like to pull into it, and emphasize them; you don’t want to re-create yourself to please the latter group. (E.g. voters in the South don’t like being unable to find a job any more than voters in the Northeast; voters in the Northeast, while not being as intensely anti-tax as typical Southern voters, would still prefer to see their tax bill reduced.)

If you just go for your own base plus a few swing states, the problem is that the other party’s base is safe, and they can play offense, focusing all their resources on the swing states and the shakier states in your base. That’s a risky strategy short-term, and I agree that it’s a long-run loser.

I think the Dems who’ve advocated playing for the South have made it sound like the goal was to pander to Southern interests, for the party and its candidate to be something they’re not. I don’t know if they actually intend to sound that way, but that’s how I’ve read it. I think that’s fed the ‘northern strategy’ reaction, which I’ve fallen into somewhat too in the past couple of years. But as you can see, I’ve rethought it a bit.