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
28 Comments:
Mark, if you are in Iowa, who are you going to support? I would strongly lean toward Obama if I were you. That's who I will be supporting.
Also, as for countercoattails, House Democrats would do very well to follow the 1972/1988 formula which calls for Democratic House candidates to actually say that they won't vote for the nominee.
Mr. Phips, I'm in the unfortunate situation of not being able to publicly support anybody. I work for a nonpartisan state office that forbids participation in partisan political affairs. I'd love to attend the caucuses on January 3, but can't risk the consequences.
There are a number of candidates who I have favorable feelings towards (as well as reservations) and it would be a hard decision for me to choose a horse if I was able to. I really like Barack Obama, but expect he'll get filleted on his limited experience during a wartime election. I'll stand behind him proudly if he's the nominee, but don't believe he's our strongest candidate. John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd all possess either a higher level of gravitas or red state electability. On the surface, Obama does as well, but I don't believe he's been battle-tested enough politically to survive a yearlong national campaign under the microscope with the media and his political adversaries just waiting for the first hint of a mistake to savage him. I'll generally be satisfied with the Democratic nominee if he's anybody but Clinton or Kucinich, but am increasingly skeptical of Democratic chances with both the war and illegal immigration shaping up to the Republicans' favor for 2008.
By the way, which Democratic House candidates said they weren't gonna vote for Dukakis in 1988? I hadn't heard that one before.
Mark, several southern Democrats in tough races said they wouldn't vote for Dukakis in 1988. I know one was Mike Parker in MS-04 and another was Liz Patterson in SC-04. Im sure there were others, but can't think of them off the top of my head. Jim Marshall(GA-08), Baron Hill(IN-09), Chris Carney(PA-10) Nick Lampson(TX-22), and Nancy Boyda(KS-02) should all remind voters in their district that they would not vote for Hillary, although Survey USA shows Hillary carrying KS-02 over Giuliani.
So I guess I should be packing my bags and preparing to move in with my boyfriend in Brazil now. If most people here now can't see what a disaster the GOP has been, after all the messes they have gotten us into, inside and outside the country, then they never will and I will have completely lost faith in my country.
The job market for environmental scientists like me is much better in Brazil anyway, they are much more accepting of foreigners, and the real is increasingly strong compared to the dollar, with one U.S. dollar being worth 1.4 reais now; normally one U.S. dollar is worth about 2 reais. If I didn't miss California so badly, and if it didn't take me so long to find a job in Brazil, I'd probably already be in Brazil by now.
sara, you may want to hold off on moving for another 11 months just in case Mr. Phips and I are wrong. I'm sure it wouldn't be the first time for either of us. We'd hate to lose you. Out of curiosity, are there any Republican Presidential candidates who are acceptable on environmental issues? I always thought McCain wasn't considered to be too bad.
Mr. Phips, the difference between now and 1988 is that a public Hillary snub by conservative Southern Democrats would today incite a national media narrative that would put the entire Democratic Party on the defensive for weeks. In 1988, Mike Parker would be able to state his intent to vote against Michael Dukakis and the story would be largely confined to Mississippi. In the current era of bloggers and 24-hour news networks, it seems incredibly unlikely that we'd be able to survive the kind of headlines multiple Democratic defections would produce.
I too hope that we're wrong and that the Dem nominee can pull out a win. I'd hate to leave my country, but I've been feeling more and more like an outsider lately, and my boyfriend doesn't know even if he will return. He returned to Brazil because that was where he found his only job opportunity, which came after a year of finding nothing, and the market for computer science majors is still pretty bad here.
As for the GOP candidates, there is not a single one I would consider voting for, not even Rudy or McCain. McCain is the closest of the GOP candidates to me on the environment, but I can't stand him on just about every other issue. I used to respect him until he started sucking up to the religious right. Even if Hillary is the nominee, I will hold my nose and vote for her.
And as for conservative Democrats in Congress, I think that they should not openly say that they won't vote for Hillary if she is the nom. I just hope that she ends up not being the nom so we can avoid this problem of her being the face of the national party.
Moving to a different country because of an election is stupid. But considering someone on the internet said that, it is really no suprise. Many folks who spend a whole lot of time on the internet are mentally insane, myself included.
And by the way, Mark, Hillary is the most electable of the big three in reality. But a lot of things happen in peoples heads, that do not happen in reality. Mark, want me to dig up all your posts from the past where you said the Democrats would lose everything in 2006, and they ended up winning?
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Now I am going to list my opinion of all the major candidates.
Hillary Clinton- Is actually the most electable. Probably the reason why the far left hates her. However, her personality sucks.
Barack Obama- Ugh, I would not want it as President. I do not mind a black person being elected president, just not that black person.
John Edwards- He is a big phony idoit.
Bill Richardson- Good candidate, but makes little head way.
Rudy Giuliani- Poor hater, idoit, do not like him/care for him.
Mitt Romney- What is up with people from Massachusetts wearing flip-flops? It is awfully cold up there. About as cold as Hillary's personality. Regardless, he is an idoit.
John McVain- He wants to have completely open borders and allow those illegal terrorists to enter the country, no thank you.
Mike Huckabee- Actually a decent candidate, I agree with him on everything except gay issues, and that stupid national sales tax.
Now Mark, I want you to take this test to see where your political leanings are. It is a very good test, even though I am not a fan of the site it comes from.
Take it here!!!
Remember to take it with a grain of salt, and avoid "strongly" answers as much as you can, but not more and not less. And do as I say.
My results (shows why to take it as a grain of salt):
Economic score: -0.26
Social score: +3.3
Your score pegs you as economically centrist and socially moderately authoritarian.
Economic centrists generally support economic policy that they see as fit for specific situations, although they may have different views relating to taxes and regulation.
Moderate social authoritarians typically support social controls meant to encourage moral behaviour and an organised society, although they may have some moderate or libertarian positions.
It is not just politics that are discouraging me from staying here. It is also the extremely consumerist culture here that my frugal self does not fit and the worsening job market. My boyfriend may not return here for a long time if ever because there are simply no jobs here for him, and this very consumerist culture frowns upon environmentalists. Environmental engineering is the second-fastest growing industry in Brazil, and the recycling industry is very big there too. And as I said earlier, if it didn't take me so long to find a job in Brazil, because I think I'd have to speak fluent Portuguese to be able to work there, and if I didn't miss California so badly, I would probably already be in Brazil by now. Yes, now, even before November 2008.
Sara,
Computer Science is actually a very good degree, just not in the Southern Plains. Every where else in the US it is very useful.
Economic trends do not last forever by the way.
My boyfriend actually searched all over the country and found nothing. And I know that economic trends do not last forever. Unfortunately, we need jobs now, not 5 years from now.
Here are the results of my political leanings test, which are not particularly surprising...
"Economic score: -5.42
Social score: -4.17
Your score pegs you as economically leftist and socially moderately libertarian.
Economic leftists mostly support strict economic controls and programs to assure that the poor are elevated to a higher position in society.
Moderate social libertarians generally favour a hands-off approach to social legislation. They may believe that the government has no right to enforce morals, but may support certain controls on individual rights to avoid crime, drug use, or similar social ills."
I have slightly more nuanced feelings about some of the issues than the agree/disagree nature of questionnaire would suggest, but I'm definitely a hybrid of economic populism and social libertarianism, meaning the Democratic Congress' top 2007 priorities of establishing a guest worker program and tripling the most regressive and nanny-state tax in existence made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Jim Webb is perhaps ideologically closest to me of high-profile pols.
Onto your thoughts about the candidates........
Economic score: -2.58
Social score: -8.00
Your score pegs you as economically centre-leftist and socially far-leftist.
Economic centre-leftists typically support above average controls on free trade, raising or maintaining the current tax levels, but still support free trade.
Social far-leftists generally believe that the government has no business enforcing morality on most matters, instead favouring a government that intervenes only when absolutely necessary to avoid direct harm. Many social far-leftists also look negatively on the government's past attitudes toward groups they view as persecuted, although some simply oppose government intervention on utilitarianist grounds.
First, you are correct that I lowballed Democratic chances in 2006. At various points in the race, I raised red flags, but always thought the party's chances of winning the House were odds-on. I was way off in my Senate predictions, especially in my final predictions three weeks before the election, but did predict the Dems would take the House, albeit with 10 fewer seats than they ended up getting.
Thoughts on 2008 candidates...
Hillary--shaping up to be an even worse candidate than I expected she'd be. I always questioned her electability, but too for granted the conventional wisdom that she was a brilliant politician who knew what to say and when to say it. Right now, she looks just as slippery and flip-floppery as Mitt Romney. And it's become abundantly clear that husband Bill is gonna be an albatross rather than an asset, constantly reminding voters of their least favorite aspects of the Clinton Presidency. Some of the leading Republicans appear weak enough to where Hillary could theoretically topple them, but I'd give 3:1 odds towards her defeat at this stage.
Barack Obama--please specify your "Ugh" regarding Obama. I think Obama would make a great President, but find him ripe for opposition demagoguery based on limited experience during "wartime", and vulnerable to the same kind of backdoor racism that toppled Harold Ford in Tennessee last fall.
John Edwards--he's more than open to criticism on "political opportunism", but I take umbrage with the "phony" tag for a variety of reasons. First of all, Edwards grew up in a working-class household and spent his private-sector career championing consumer causes against corporate malfeasance. His background makes him authentic. As for his current wealth, everybody in Congress is rich. If being personally wealthy disqualifies any politician from credibly discussing poverty issues without being branded a "phony", then the only logical conclusion is that poverty issues can never be discussed and the poor and working-class are left entirely to their own devices while Congress and Presidential candidates attend only to the needs from those within their own social class. Calling John Edwards a phony for talking about poverty essentially means government by the rich for the rich is not only the way things are, but is the way things should be.
Bill Richardson--I've been disappointed with his public speaking skills, which at least in my mind, draw unfortunate comparisons to those of George Bush. I still think he'd be a strong running mate candidate and expect he's on Hillary Clinton's short list.
Rudy Giuliani--A truly awful person in every regard. He would also be a bad candidate for Republicans in a general election for a seemingly endless litany of reasons, and I expect GOP voters are starting to see that now. That vintage Giuliani smugness has been suppressed thus far in the campaign, but I don't think he could last an entire Presidential campaign without displaying it, adding to his list of liabilities. In a race between Hillary and Rudy, I expect a significant third-party presence would arise and the election would end up being very close.
Mitt Romney--a potentially tough candidate who has spread himself far too thin with political opportunism, now having the audacity to nuance his hard-line anti-immigration position with the caveat that it doesn't apply to the Republican-voting demographic of Cubans, of whom he publicly welcomed all to come in a newspaper article last week. He doesn't seem as formidable as he did a month ago, but I still think he'd beat Hillary.
Fred Thompson--the second coming of Bob Dole. Bring him on...even Hillary might be able to beat him.
John McCain--his newfound momentum in New Hampshire is no longer just a media fairy tale. Polls suggest it's real. He'd be a cinch against the leading Democrats in a national election. My thoughts on him...far too conservative on issues important to me (and not libertarian enough for me on others) but a couple steps up from the current administration.
Mike Huckabee--a brilliant candidate who would swamp any Democrat in the general election and win the highest percentage of African-Americans of any Republican in generations with his "socially conservative populist" persona. I disagree with him on more than I agree with him on (and am appalled by his nanny-statism, the avoidance of which is generally one of the few good things that come when conservative Republicans are in power). Still, I expect lower blood pressure levels during the four years of a Huckabee Presidency than I would the other leading Republicans.
Here is how my opinions of the candidates changed in recent weeks:
Democrats
Hillary: much lower after the slip-up on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants and the slow transition of her husband from an asset to a liability
Obama: lower; he seems more "style over substance" lately, and we've already had more than enough of that with Shrub.
Edwards: no change, I still like him, but fear he's too far left to win. And of course he's rich because in this country you can't get elected without big money. We need clean money, now!
Richardson: no change; still have a high opinion of him, but am afraid that he won't be able to win
Dodd: higher; I have been more impressed with him lately. I only don't switch my support to him because the last thing we need is another "northeastern liberal".
Biden, Gravel, and Kucinich: no change
Republicans
Giuliani: Much lower after hearing his "socialized medicine" BS and his "keep on burning" approach to global warming
McCain: No change; my opinion of him throughout the campaign has been low since he started sucking up to the religious right and pushing aside issues such as the environment
Romney: No change
Huckabee: Lower after finding out about his advocation of a "fair tax" and that environmentally he seems only marginally better than most of the rest of the field. Since George Allen's demise, I have seen Huckabee as our most formidable foe in this election, and I still believe he is.
Thompson: No change, and I used to see him as a possible dark horse that could be troublesome for us, but now I see him as comic relief.
Paul, Hunter and Tancredo: No change, and I still think neither of them has a snowball's chance in hell
sara, I concur on Dodd. It's too bad he didn't catch on. And although Biden's mouth would assuredly hang him in any national campaign, I like him far more than most Kossacks do. Hillary and Obama would maintain the status quo in Iraq with only cosmetic changes just as Biden is accused of. Biden at least admits it rather than pandering....and has the foreign policy knowledge to back up his assertions.
Everyone saw Thompson as a dark horse. Even I took the hype seriously for awhile even though my instinct was that he was a curmudgeon. Now it's hard to believe anybody couldn't have seen this trainwreck of a candidate coming.
As for Ron Paul, he may have a snowball's chance in hell of getting the nomination, but he has a unique enough message and a substantial enough warchest to be a serious contender and steal momentum from other candidates. I'm on record predicting a third-place showing for Paul in both Iowa and New Hampshire. These paleoconservatives are funny. They're simultaneously right on more issues than the average Republican circa 2007, but also the most dangerous of all Republicans given the extreme wrongness of the issues on which they're uncompromisingly wrong.
What exactly do social liberals answer on that matrix? I am tolerant yet I never got lower then a +1.26, no matter what I did...
I can't get above -6...even without checking the "important" box.
I am sad.. only 13 months left of the Bush Presidency! Dang, he is one of the best presidents ever, imo.
:( :( :( :( :(
I do not want Shrillary, Obama, Edwards, Rudy, Romney, McVain, or even Huckabee in office.
Neither do I!
Y'all think bush is bad now.. wait till you see our NEXT president!
I know you all think I am either 1) Right wing or 2) Joking. But seriously, enjoy Bush while you can. Considering the front runners for the next presidential nominations, the next President wont be any better.
The next term will likely start out great, because, he or she is someone other then Bush. But after a year or so, it will start to be a disaster till 2012. We really may be stuck till Jan 2013 till a good president comes out.
All I can say is, only time will tell. For now, until we know for sure, Shrub is still the worst!
Hey everyone, I'd like to announce I am becoming a Republican.
Mark, if you don't mind, whenever you post, I will respectfully counterpoint our disagreements.
james, whatever floats your boat I guess.
Regarding James' comment on Edwards being a "phony", it is because of how he displays his wealth, like with the "$400 haircuts" and his big house and such. If I were Edwards, I would have not displayed my wealth so much, by living in a modest house and keeping myself "low profile" similar to what Jerry Brown did as governor. Brown strongly advocated living within our means, and when he was elected governor, he refused most of the privileges of the governorship, living in a modest apartment instead of the Governor's Mansion (which was sold at the end of his second term) and being driven to the Capitol in a compact sedan instead of a limo.
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