NEWS: 39 Days To Iowa

POLITICS: 39 Days To Iowa

Oh, shit. We are now officially getting down to it. The Iowa “we’re a special state” caucus is on January 3rd and there are 45 delegates up for grabs. Five days later the New Hampshire primary will be held and that tiny, weird state will cough up 22 delegates. I think it is fucking bullshit that Iowa gets to hold the first primary every year and make an enormous impact on the presidential election because based on recent candidates; they are sucking at their picks.

The big news out of Iowa is that Hillary is beginning to drop. The latest poll has her numbers sinking from 43% in September to 26% now. That is a plummet and puts her in second place behind Obama, who comes in at 30%. Edwards is bringing up the rear with 22%.

The way voters are talking, it sounds like the last thing they want is Hillary Clinton, regardless of how the media is trying to make her sound “inevitable.”

New direction, new ideas = Obama. Old ideas, old direction = Hillary. There’s more.

Clinton comes in 4th on which Democrat is most "honest and trustworthy" -- 27% Obama, 18% Edwards, 14% Richardson, 13% Clinton.

Fourth. That is incredibly poor for the “leading” presidential candidate. The only guy I know of who won a presidential election when people did not consider him “honest and trustworthy” was Nixon. In ’68, he hit the road and had a bunch of townhall meetings, basically winning over people because of his knowledge and intellect. Americans didn’t like him but they thought he would do a better job. After eight years of Bush I don’t know if that is going to fly for Hillary.

In less than 50 days, we are going to be down to two candidates. Most likely, Obama and Clinton. That is when I believe we will really begin to see the Clinton likeability factor. People will begin leaving their favorite candidate, as Edwards, Richardson, Dodd, and the rest fall way. Where will those people go? I can’t see very many of Edward's followers going to Hillary because she is seen as a corporate beast and he is running a populist campaign.

Edwards has also been falling in Iowa and those votes are going to either Obama or Richardson. They are clearly not jumping over to Hillary. But Hillary is not giving up and has recently flooded the state with operatives. The only problem is that everyone already knows Hillary, which means more organizers isn’t going to make a difference. Almost everyone has made up their mind about Hillary and voters are now picking between the guys they don’t know: Richardson and Obama.

In New Hampshire, Clinton has a bigger lead but she is also starting to slip. Edwards is in a dead heat with Richardson, but he is falling while Richardson is going up. If Richardson finishes ahead of Edwards, the southern ex-Senator will be in pretty, bad shape and may be close to calling it a day.

If Obama has a good showing in Iowa, which is how it is looking now, he could be riding a huge wave of good time feelings. Headlines will be screaming that he kicked the ass of the ex-President’s wife. More money comes flooding in and he is off and running. At that point, Clinton will have to go very negative, which coming from an unlikable person never goes over well. She already started last week and it was rather pathetic.

Ah, yes, he doesn’t have any foreign experience. Slam. Or was it?

And game over. That is a quick and easy ass kicking by Obama. Note to Hillary: If you are going to talk shit about someone not having any experience, make sure your own experience doesn't suck.

Will his lack of foreign policy experience be a problem? Yep. Will anyone who voted to go into Iraq be able to call him on it? Nope. Certainly the voters in Iowa are taking his foreign policy experience into account and they are still moving in his direction. He's also got this big likeability/sexy thing going on. That is always tough to beat.

Clinton is on top right now in nationwide poll, but that does not mean shit. If Obama pulls off Iowa, he heads into New Hampshire with a lot of momentum. If he then manages to pull off win in the granite state, then Hillary is fucked going into South Carolina. The primary season will only last three weeks after that and all the spinning of “inevitable” over the past month by her campaign will bite her in the ass.

For the record, I don’t want either one of them. (I’m a racist/sexist.)

RON PAUL '08!

I changed my party affiliation from Green to Dem so I could vote for Obama in my state's absolutly worthless primary.

I'm fucked. Hillary is a corporate tool, Obama is a homophobe......Only one choice then....

Gore 2008!!!!

I'm still fucked.

Pft, I'm either writing in Mickey Mouse or Stephen Colbert when I vote. I'm at a total loss at this point...

The sad thing is that in terms of qualifications, Richardson is far and away the best candidate the Democrats can field in this election. But the sad truth is that he's not a "celebrity" to the extent that a politician can be one, he's not especially charismatic and he's not good looking. So we're stuck with worse choices.

I had actually thought that a Clinton/Obama ticket might happen and could be very interesting, but the way the two have been squaring off I doubt we'll see that.


I will say this - it's sad that fucking Iowa of all places can have such a huge impact on who gets to stay in the race.

Experience is pretty thin on both sides of the aisle. If experience was the deciding factor, we'd have McCain v. Biden next fall.

Please.

I have walked door to door in some small Iowa towns because I think
Barack Obama is the person who can enact change, working in a tolerant, wise, non-partisan, & non-imperialistic manner. Sure he is far from perfect, but all of the others have made gross mistakes that are much more costly, or they are just not viable.

Please be my candidate Barack

I have complained about the Iowa caucus for years, yet nobody ever cares about the problem once the political "off season" starts.

After the entire campaign, the parties, the election bitterness, and the inauguration, everyone forgets how bad they got fucked in the beginning by a big bunch of milquetoast babies who whine when you try to even talk about changing the primary schedule.

The current system usually picks shitty candidates who inspire nobody.

I just hope the new giant multi state mega-delegate primary voting can pull some of the status away from the "Me first" states this time around.

richardson does have one thing going for him: brute force.

yeah yeah, I'm from New York too...

but that attitude really sucks.

The people of Iowa take this responsibility very seriously and they turn out in huge numbers to vote for the candidate they think will be most viable for themselves and for the entire set of us. I don't know much about the people in other states, but campaigning in Iowa, people want to talk, and want to listen, and I find that refreshing. And hey, they aren't all stupid, whatd'ya know?

From my own anecdotal experience, they care about taxes, low wages, healthcare, and ending the war over all other concerns.

A number of republicans and independents in Iowa also get involved in the process. I find it amazingly refreshing to let anyone vote in the primary for candidates of either party.



the democratic primary process in iowa
from wiki..

Sounds fucking brilliant to me.

Well, that's all great, but allowing one state to have such an enormous impact on the election process EVERY year is bullshit.

It should be on a rotating schedule. A new state every year.

Obama isn't the best candidate out there, but he's worlds better than Kerry was and worlds better than any Republican candidate (except maybe Ron Paul). So Obama/Whoever '08, I guess.

dennis kucinich....

it's obvious

ya, that will never happen... the people of Iowa will never allow it.

No, sorry, wrong. That is the wrong answer, I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul for even stating as much.

It is obvious, and I'll be voting for him in the primary, but it won't matter.

This.

If I may add something, though...

The first Clinton administration will not be remembered for its foreign policy. It will be remembered for its economic policy, and Hillary had very little to do with economic policy. The experience argument would be valid if her name was Robert Rubin, but it isn't...

As for the primary dates...

I hate to say this, but we may need a Constitutional amendment to push the primaries back to closer to the conventions and to keep the timing fair to everyone. I'd say that you start it in April or May, and have a two week buffer period between dates. If it's a state like Indiana, where it occupies more than one time zone, then you assign it the date corresponding to whichever time zone occupies a larger portion of the state's area. This shit with the primaries being in fucking January is ridiculous. It takes all the fun out of political conventions when you know who the nominee is by the third week of February, and it's extremely undemocratic for states like Iowa and new Hampshire (which have a combined population that is only 1.5% of the national population, and only three black people in each state) to play such a large role in determining who the nominees are.

Neither Dennis Kucinich nor Mike Gravel is going to win the Democratic nomination, and Al Gore isn't running. So the only obvious choice for me is voting Green or independent, since I don't buy the 'vote for the lesser of two evils' argument.

And thats exactly why it is bullshit.

I have no problem with Iowa or its people per se, but I agree with FTR that there is no good reason for Iowa to always have such a disproportionate say in determining who moves on in the primaries other than that's the way it's been and they don't want it to change.

Iowa doesn't contain any major cities. Its demographics are significantly different from say, New York, Texas, Florida and California - four states that contain an enormous fraction of the country's population. Iowa's economy is primarily agrarian while most of the rest of the country has a service based economy.

Are the political concerns of Iowans significant? Of course, and they should be considered along with the concerns of everyone else. That's my big problem - the way the system is currently set up, their concerns trump those of the rest of the country. Why do think we still have massive farm subsidies?

Me thinks you read too many blogs. Obama had one closet case perform at some campaign stops, and now he's a homophobe? He's just riding that line to attract moderate Christians.

Yes, it's a bit fucked up. But let's put things in perspective here.

Thanks for pointing that out. People act like Iowa is full of hicks who don't got no time for this politics crap 'cos they're too busy sloppin' the hogs and, I don't know, being exceedingly white or something. I lived in Iowa and spent a lot of time involved in politics there, and the average voter is extremely passionate about being informed and being involved--at every level of politics. It's not just the caucuses; it's state legislative elections, school board elections, you name it.

You can get all bitter about how unfair it is that "a big bunch of milquetoast babies" are "fucking [you]" if you want to, but that's not accurate. And honestly, it's always the people whom I'd be surprised to hear have (or would, even) ever set foot Iowa, much less know anything factual about the state, who whine about it the loudest, which makes your bitching just a little less valid in my views.

Interesting. I've stepped many a foot in Iowa. I don't have a problem with the people. And it is still complete bullshit that one state gets to set the tone for an entire country every four years. It is indefensible.