The Shifting Sands of the Presidential Race
No matter how clear it seems from the outset how the Presidential primaries are gonna unfold every four years, there always seems to be a monkey wrench thrown into the conventional wisdom at the 11th hour. We're only in the 10th hour right now and the Democratic and especially the Republican primaries are already getting alot more interesting than they appeared they would get a couple months ago.
It was only in October that I began to grudgingly accept the inevitably of Hillary Clinton's nomination. Up until that point, I was convinced that electability arguments and Hillary's lack of widespread appeal in first-in-the-nation Iowa made her vulnerable. I still think Hillary will almost certainly get the nomination, but there's no denying that she's had a disastrous November and is in serious danger of losing the Iowa Caucus. Losing Iowa would not be a calamity for the Clinton campaign, but the negative headlines heading into New Hampshire would be a major buzzkill for her. It also depends who wins Iowa in Hillary's place. Whatever polls may show, Obama's youthful supporters are likely much softer than the more committed demographic of Edwards supporters and thus less likely to show up on a cold January night. With that said, John Edwards is probably not a candidate with national viability at this point in the campaign, and winning Iowa would be unlikely to generate the slingshot of momentum he would need to overcome the two power players. An Obama win in Iowa would be more substantial nationally, and present more serious problems for Hillary in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
The big question regarding Hillary at this point is....how much more damage can she and her husband bestow upon themselves in the next five weeks without destroying her chances? For a campaign as allegedly well-oiled as Hillary Clinton's, the frequency of gaffes being committed in the last 30 days has been nothing less than astounding. It all started with the October 30 debate meltdown where Hillary botched the drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants answer. That issue alone poses a seemingly endless litany of trouble for her in a general election next year, but in itself wouldn't have sucked the oxygen out of her seemingly inevitable march to the nomination. It was the campaign's tactics AFTER the debate that are really planting the seeds of doubts in the minds of voters already questioning her electability. The "they're all picking on me because I'm a girl" defense was insulting to voters of both genders and all political persuasions, and it's stunning that the campaign didn't realize that before they demagouged the point for nearly a week.
And finally, who could have ever imagined that husband Bill, allegedly the smoothest politician of our lifetime, would prove to be such an obvious albatross around Hillary's neck? First, Bill compared the very legitimate debate question about drivers licences for illegal immigrants posed by Tim Russert and Brian Williams with the "Swiftboat ads" ran against John Kerry in 2004, a parallel that caused everybody to wince. And now, Bill proceeds to tell a crowd in eastern Iowa that he's always opposed the war in Iraq, when every shred of documented commentary provided by Bill Clinton between 2002 and 2004 suggested he supported the war at the time. How could he not have realized that that comment would be THE story of that news cycle, reinforcing the worst fears about Clintonian slickness and duplicity? For that matter, why is Bill making so many public appearances in the first place? Particularly when the vast majority of his commentary relates to what a stupendous job HE did as President in the 1990s? Hillary's would-be chief asset is fast becoming her Achille's heel, raising a new level of wariness in the mind of Democratic voters with each passing day. It's not out of the question that Bill Clinton could produce the "Yearrghhh!" moment of 2008 that sucks the oxygen out of his wife's campaign. I'm not holding my breath for it given the naivete of the Obama campaign and the ruthlessness of the Clinton campaign, but it seems infinitely more possible today than it did 30 days ago.
Things are considerably more fluid on the Republican side. Two weeks ago, I went out on a limb and predicted Willard "Mitt" Romney would be the GOP nominee because he had secured leads in all of the first four primaries. The momentum Willard would have generated after four consecutive victories would have made him virtually unstoppable heading into Florida and then Super Tuesday the following week. The asterisk I placed next to Willard's inevitability was the undeniable rising star of Mike Huckabee, who started to look like the real deal at some point in the last couple of weeks, and his confirmed it to be so since Thanksgiving.
I warned readers almost a year ago that this Huckabee guy was a force to be reckoned with if he caught on, but his abysmal fundraising totals from the first half of the year made me back away from those comments given the necessity of a substantial warchest to compete in today's compressed primary timeline. Amazingly, Huckabee has beaten the odds with a very impressive grassroots campaign, and I now give him better-than-even odds of winning the Iowa Caucus, a feat which would be a setback, if not necessarily a devastating one, to Willard.
I find myself equally fearful and relieved at the prospect of a Huckabee candidacy (I still don't expect it to happen because of his aforementioned fundraising deficiency which negates his competitiveness outside of Iowa no matter how much momentum a caucus win would give him). I'm fearful because I can't imagine there being a Democrat (and especially Hillary) who would beat him. His combination of economic populism and social conservatism is exactly what the doctor ordered for many voters, including African-Americans, of whom 49% voted for Huckabee is the last Arkansas gubernatorial election. On the other hand, I'm relieved because on the issues most important to me (economic fairness), Huckabee is by far the least objectionable Republican in the field (or Republican candidate for any major office in recent memory for that matter). Given that any of the top-tier Republican nominees would likely beat Hillary in a general election (and would have at least even odds against Obama), the lesser of many evils doesn't seem so bad. Nonetheless, Huckabee's "national sales tax" idea is far too radical for widespread appeal and would itself likely derail him if his campaign surges to the point that it's deemed worthy of his opponents' scrutiny.
And I don't believe it'll just be Huckabee who rises from the lower tier to nip at the heels of Willard and Giuliani. With a huge campaign warchest capable of funding an abundance of campaign ads and a unique and eloquently delivered message, I'm convinced Ron Paul has what it takes to get third place in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Paul is such a novelty act in the Republican Party that he has zero chance of getting the nomination, but he could nonetheless kill the chances of Thompson to score the third-place finish he needs in Iowa, and Giuliani's chances in New Hampshire. And if Willard fails to win New Hampshire after a Huckabee win in Iowa, he's likely done for. The only outcome I'm fairly certain of is a less than impressive showing for John McCain in must-win New Hampshire. Paul and Giuliani will simply steal too much of his thunder.
Another outcome I'm reasonably certain of is that Rudy Giuliani can't win the nomination if he goes 0-for-4 in the first primaries. Whoever advised Rudy to sit out Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, and South Carolina so he can wait for favorable terrain in Florida and primaries afterward should be fired. Such a strategy may have been manageable in 1968, but I can't imagine it being so with compressed timeline and high scrutiny of the 2008 primaries. The media will write Rudy's obituary if he doesn't win any states before Florida, and the obituary will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Couple that with the negative headlines Giuliani has been generating in recent days and you have a campaign starting to spiral out of control. The momentum is with Huckabee and Paul right now.....two guys with very slim chances of picking up the nomination yet still threaten Willard's domination of the early states, and the very survival of Thompson and McCain past Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively. It's shaping up to be a very exciting contest on the GOP side. It was from the beginning, but the constant changes in momentum and unexpected rise and fall of so many players is more of a roller coaster ride than I could ever have predicted.
The issue that Democrats planned to win the 2008 election on was discontent over the war in Iraq. Voters are still discontented, but the military situation in Iraq has improved to the point that the Republican nominee will be able to convince enough voters of progress and thus pigeonhole the Democratic nominee into a general election position very similar to John Kerry's in 2004 ("the war in Iraq was a mistake, but we must stay and continue the progress, which I'll do a better job of realizing than my opponent"). Unless secterian violence resurfaces at pre-surge levels, it will be impossible to make the case to the American people that the war must end. If Hillary were elected President, I'm convinced we'd still have more than 100,000 troops in Iraq by the end of her first term. With all this said, the Democrats' surefire path to the White House is sudden shot full of holes, and Republican opposition with a logistical advantage, particularly if the polarizing Hillary is the Democratic nominee. As has been speculated by myself and Mr. Phips in the recent past, the conventional wisdom of 2008 being an epic Democratic year could turn into a disaster if the aforementioned scenario plays out and we're stuck with Hillary as a nominee. The countercoattails she would generate downballot in two-thirds of the country may be strong enough to threaten the Democratic majority in the House. Hopefully, it doesn't come to that, but if Hillary runs a national campaign as poorly as her primary campaign has been run in the past month, it will come to that.
It was only in October that I began to grudgingly accept the inevitably of Hillary Clinton's nomination. Up until that point, I was convinced that electability arguments and Hillary's lack of widespread appeal in first-in-the-nation Iowa made her vulnerable. I still think Hillary will almost certainly get the nomination, but there's no denying that she's had a disastrous November and is in serious danger of losing the Iowa Caucus. Losing Iowa would not be a calamity for the Clinton campaign, but the negative headlines heading into New Hampshire would be a major buzzkill for her. It also depends who wins Iowa in Hillary's place. Whatever polls may show, Obama's youthful supporters are likely much softer than the more committed demographic of Edwards supporters and thus less likely to show up on a cold January night. With that said, John Edwards is probably not a candidate with national viability at this point in the campaign, and winning Iowa would be unlikely to generate the slingshot of momentum he would need to overcome the two power players. An Obama win in Iowa would be more substantial nationally, and present more serious problems for Hillary in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
The big question regarding Hillary at this point is....how much more damage can she and her husband bestow upon themselves in the next five weeks without destroying her chances? For a campaign as allegedly well-oiled as Hillary Clinton's, the frequency of gaffes being committed in the last 30 days has been nothing less than astounding. It all started with the October 30 debate meltdown where Hillary botched the drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants answer. That issue alone poses a seemingly endless litany of trouble for her in a general election next year, but in itself wouldn't have sucked the oxygen out of her seemingly inevitable march to the nomination. It was the campaign's tactics AFTER the debate that are really planting the seeds of doubts in the minds of voters already questioning her electability. The "they're all picking on me because I'm a girl" defense was insulting to voters of both genders and all political persuasions, and it's stunning that the campaign didn't realize that before they demagouged the point for nearly a week.
And finally, who could have ever imagined that husband Bill, allegedly the smoothest politician of our lifetime, would prove to be such an obvious albatross around Hillary's neck? First, Bill compared the very legitimate debate question about drivers licences for illegal immigrants posed by Tim Russert and Brian Williams with the "Swiftboat ads" ran against John Kerry in 2004, a parallel that caused everybody to wince. And now, Bill proceeds to tell a crowd in eastern Iowa that he's always opposed the war in Iraq, when every shred of documented commentary provided by Bill Clinton between 2002 and 2004 suggested he supported the war at the time. How could he not have realized that that comment would be THE story of that news cycle, reinforcing the worst fears about Clintonian slickness and duplicity? For that matter, why is Bill making so many public appearances in the first place? Particularly when the vast majority of his commentary relates to what a stupendous job HE did as President in the 1990s? Hillary's would-be chief asset is fast becoming her Achille's heel, raising a new level of wariness in the mind of Democratic voters with each passing day. It's not out of the question that Bill Clinton could produce the "Yearrghhh!" moment of 2008 that sucks the oxygen out of his wife's campaign. I'm not holding my breath for it given the naivete of the Obama campaign and the ruthlessness of the Clinton campaign, but it seems infinitely more possible today than it did 30 days ago.
Things are considerably more fluid on the Republican side. Two weeks ago, I went out on a limb and predicted Willard "Mitt" Romney would be the GOP nominee because he had secured leads in all of the first four primaries. The momentum Willard would have generated after four consecutive victories would have made him virtually unstoppable heading into Florida and then Super Tuesday the following week. The asterisk I placed next to Willard's inevitability was the undeniable rising star of Mike Huckabee, who started to look like the real deal at some point in the last couple of weeks, and his confirmed it to be so since Thanksgiving.
I warned readers almost a year ago that this Huckabee guy was a force to be reckoned with if he caught on, but his abysmal fundraising totals from the first half of the year made me back away from those comments given the necessity of a substantial warchest to compete in today's compressed primary timeline. Amazingly, Huckabee has beaten the odds with a very impressive grassroots campaign, and I now give him better-than-even odds of winning the Iowa Caucus, a feat which would be a setback, if not necessarily a devastating one, to Willard.
I find myself equally fearful and relieved at the prospect of a Huckabee candidacy (I still don't expect it to happen because of his aforementioned fundraising deficiency which negates his competitiveness outside of Iowa no matter how much momentum a caucus win would give him). I'm fearful because I can't imagine there being a Democrat (and especially Hillary) who would beat him. His combination of economic populism and social conservatism is exactly what the doctor ordered for many voters, including African-Americans, of whom 49% voted for Huckabee is the last Arkansas gubernatorial election. On the other hand, I'm relieved because on the issues most important to me (economic fairness), Huckabee is by far the least objectionable Republican in the field (or Republican candidate for any major office in recent memory for that matter). Given that any of the top-tier Republican nominees would likely beat Hillary in a general election (and would have at least even odds against Obama), the lesser of many evils doesn't seem so bad. Nonetheless, Huckabee's "national sales tax" idea is far too radical for widespread appeal and would itself likely derail him if his campaign surges to the point that it's deemed worthy of his opponents' scrutiny.
And I don't believe it'll just be Huckabee who rises from the lower tier to nip at the heels of Willard and Giuliani. With a huge campaign warchest capable of funding an abundance of campaign ads and a unique and eloquently delivered message, I'm convinced Ron Paul has what it takes to get third place in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Paul is such a novelty act in the Republican Party that he has zero chance of getting the nomination, but he could nonetheless kill the chances of Thompson to score the third-place finish he needs in Iowa, and Giuliani's chances in New Hampshire. And if Willard fails to win New Hampshire after a Huckabee win in Iowa, he's likely done for. The only outcome I'm fairly certain of is a less than impressive showing for John McCain in must-win New Hampshire. Paul and Giuliani will simply steal too much of his thunder.
Another outcome I'm reasonably certain of is that Rudy Giuliani can't win the nomination if he goes 0-for-4 in the first primaries. Whoever advised Rudy to sit out Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, and South Carolina so he can wait for favorable terrain in Florida and primaries afterward should be fired. Such a strategy may have been manageable in 1968, but I can't imagine it being so with compressed timeline and high scrutiny of the 2008 primaries. The media will write Rudy's obituary if he doesn't win any states before Florida, and the obituary will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Couple that with the negative headlines Giuliani has been generating in recent days and you have a campaign starting to spiral out of control. The momentum is with Huckabee and Paul right now.....two guys with very slim chances of picking up the nomination yet still threaten Willard's domination of the early states, and the very survival of Thompson and McCain past Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively. It's shaping up to be a very exciting contest on the GOP side. It was from the beginning, but the constant changes in momentum and unexpected rise and fall of so many players is more of a roller coaster ride than I could ever have predicted.
The issue that Democrats planned to win the 2008 election on was discontent over the war in Iraq. Voters are still discontented, but the military situation in Iraq has improved to the point that the Republican nominee will be able to convince enough voters of progress and thus pigeonhole the Democratic nominee into a general election position very similar to John Kerry's in 2004 ("the war in Iraq was a mistake, but we must stay and continue the progress, which I'll do a better job of realizing than my opponent"). Unless secterian violence resurfaces at pre-surge levels, it will be impossible to make the case to the American people that the war must end. If Hillary were elected President, I'm convinced we'd still have more than 100,000 troops in Iraq by the end of her first term. With all this said, the Democrats' surefire path to the White House is sudden shot full of holes, and Republican opposition with a logistical advantage, particularly if the polarizing Hillary is the Democratic nominee. As has been speculated by myself and Mr. Phips in the recent past, the conventional wisdom of 2008 being an epic Democratic year could turn into a disaster if the aforementioned scenario plays out and we're stuck with Hillary as a nominee. The countercoattails she would generate downballot in two-thirds of the country may be strong enough to threaten the Democratic majority in the House. Hopefully, it doesn't come to that, but if Hillary runs a national campaign as poorly as her primary campaign has been run in the past month, it will come to that.
posted by Mark at 6:01 PM
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