It’s been the longest run-up to a presidential primary in American history, but finally on Thursday January 3 somebody, somewhere in these United States gets to vote on something relating to the 2008 presidential elections.
It has hardly seemed fair that we’ve had to sort through the seemingly endless supply of dem and republican candidates without the help of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Fortunately for our collective sanity, all that will finally change, but not soon enough for Iowa.
(More vexing still, on the day of both the Iowa primary and the New Hampshire primary the following Tuesday, I’ll be in Vermont at Bennington College for the next residency pertaining to my MFA program, a situation that worries me a bit as, when I was there this past summer, I don’t remember ever seeing a single television.)
With all this in mind, my favorite source of commentary in the run-up to Thursday is coming from my esteemed pal and blogfather, Marc Cooper. I know many readers and commenters here are also Cooper readers. But for those of you who are missing his daily Iowa reports on Huff Post, do your self a favor and get on over immediately.
Today’s report has him hanging out with Dave “Mudcat” Saunders at the Edwards camp and trying to determine if dark horse John Edwards can really win with his strategy of working the rural districts, as some of the new polls predict he might. (I notice that Mark has worked a Saunders quote into as many Iowa reports as possible—- simply, I suspect, for the sheer joy of writing “Mudcat.”)
Early bets anyone? Is the Edwards surge real? If so, what does it presage—an Edwards win or a derailing of an Obama win, giving Iowa to Hillary? Or is Barack’s momentum strong enough to blow past ’em both in these two early states?
And who’s likely to take Iowa on the Republican side now that Huckabee’s surge–not helped by his bad Pakistan answers— seems to have fizzled?
I hope that worst former president Jimmy Carter monitors the primary process in Iowa and New Hampshire to prevent fraud, especially since he criticizes our system more than corrupt elections of his loving dictators.
On who’s going to win in these primaries…that changes daily depending upon the polls, but what people do who are a thousand miles from where I live won’t affect my decision. My own mind changes at times. I have never supported McCain, but I respected his response to the Bhutto assassination and that swayed me to him…for now.
In the long run, I think that we need to resign ourselves to the prospect of having the Clinton’s smear, lie, and destroy lives to sastisfy their quest for power–and so that they can live in more free government housing.
Small minded righty blast that will never come to grips that St Ronnie was a senile fraud anthat Bush has been exposed as the most lawless and corrupt preasident in history. And the public has caught on – mr 25% is dragging his scurvy crew to the ignomy they deserve!
I think Edwards will do well. A lot of Hillary’s and Barack’s people have neve before attneded. 125,000 went last time and that was close to the record. So once again let us thank the yokels of Iowa – all 10 per cent of them as a part of the Hawkeye state electorate – who will wiled this disproportionate influence.
Edwards raised a ton of money this morning after being on the Breakfast shows on TV.
Enjoy Bennington, Celeste. Throw some snowballs!
I think the Edwards’ surge is mostly wishful thinking from his supporters and media in search of a story. RLC, that’s an official pundit prognostication from your friendly, local typing instructor. I’d be very surprised if Hillary or Obama doesn’t win, and, quite frankly, Hillary is still a heavy favorite in my book. However, there was one time when I was wrong about something (not Woody wrong, but I’m only an ordinary androgenous web creature) so I’m not gonna bet anything but information highway cred.
My early morning email had good New Years News- Latest from Iowa – Des Moines Register has Barack in a strong lead over the recycled…I mean “Prime Time” candidates.
http://tinyurl.com/3afr7v
Who knows…But I’ll go with this and predict a strong Barack win – 4-5 points.
The fact that he’s running strongest among prospective new caucus goers and independents says pretty much everything I need to know about the strengths of the respective candidates for the general election. I’ve come to the opinion that Edwards has gone nuts in his zeal to gain traction (“I will never sit down and negotiate, blah, blah…”) and obviously will say anything to rile the left of the Democratic base, which is pretty much all he’s got. Boy, that’s going to be great setup for November ’08. Of course if lightning strikes, he’ll just piss off the folks who helped get him the nomination on Day Two of the general and struggle – probably unsuccessfully – to look like someone who might actually be able to govern the country. The line of Hillary’s quoted by Woody, as much as I hate agreeing with Woody, makes her look like a Desperate WhiteHousewife. If the First Lady was being sent on “dangerous missions”, the Clinton administration was as half-cocked and amateurish as “some say” it was.
If I were a GOPer my picks for a run in the general would be Edwards (a dream candidate for McCain, who still has “independent” traction), Hillary (the establishment machine candidate whose black box might not be all it’s cracked up to be), then Barack (who has the strongest pull in the “middle”. And yeah, I know the guy’s middle name and that he went to a “madrassa”. The always-reliable Clinton campaign spinning that out on their surrogate megaphone doesn’t seem to have terrified the good people of Iowa.)
Well, Nader is now endorsing Edwards, so let’s see how that swings the numbers.
Interestingly, Kucinich has called on his people to shift to Obama should they not meet the 15% bar in Iowa caucuses. This is, in effect, a Kucinich endorsement of Obama – which might well have some impact on progressive Democrats who see the Kucinich platform as “ideal” but who are choosing between Obama and Edwards among the “Big 3.” ( I’ll certainly leave it to veteran Lefty Dennis Kucinich over St. Paul Krugman to decide which of the leading candidates has the most viable “progressive” street cred.)
I wouldn’t on the subject of a woman’s right to choose.
I think there’s a decent debate between the Edwards campaign and the Obama campaign over the best strategy for a progressive presidential candidate both in the general election and in governing from the Oval Office without any guarantee of a progressive majority in Congress and very little in the way of grassroots movements for change on the ground, but I lost some of my respect for St. Paul when he made the completely indefensible claim that Obama was the LEAST progressive of the candidates. That’s absurd on the face of it, especially coming from a guy who just a few years ago – I think it was 2003 – told an interviewer from the American Prospect that “I’m not that liberal.”