Iowa Debrief (Emphasis on "brief")
Friday, January 04, 2008
Item: Biden Tanks in Iowa, Drops OutI guess I was kidding myself. In hindsight the Democrat caucus rules in Iowa did not lend themselves to a strong Biden showing. You need to get a minimum of 15% in the precinct in round one, or you don't get to round 2; Biden probably got 10-15% a lot of places, which ended up translating to nothing. A pragmatist, he took his 1% of the vote and dropped out. Sorry to see him go, sorry that American politics has become a process of polling-fundraising self-fulfillment. But he'd make the perfect Veep for Obama, or a Secretary of State for any Dem.
But, dear reader, know that an endorsement is not a prediction; we predicted both Obama and Huckabee to win Iowa.
Item: Huckabee Wins
Not a surprise. Nice to see Romney lose though; he has that combination of smugness and opportunism that just totally grates. And I can't see Americans voting for a guy if we're wondering, "Does his hair look like that when he wakes up?" Huckabee seems like a really nice guy, and I hope he enjoys his moment in the sun, before the more pragmatic New Hampshire voters remind us that he's a tax hiking religious nut.
Item: Obama Wins; Hillary Places Third
Saw Obama coming a mile away; his supporters, likely to be under 30, are also likely to live in cell phone-only households and are thus unavailable to the infallible political pollsters. Indeed I even predicted this outcome to a graduate class in market research.
Hillary has a real problem now. Her campaign, based on the notion of its own inevitability, is now no longer inevitable and thus hollow. I heard a pundit on CNN say that her husband campaigning in New Hampshire won't help her, because her third place showing in Iowa was "a repudiation of the Clinton presidency." I don't think so. Rather, I think that by flocking to Obama-- young, black, inexperienced, great speaker, he feels our pain-- the Iowa voters were making the statement that Obama, and not Hillary, is this year's Bill Clinton.
Labels: The politics
Posted by: --josh-- @ 3:37 PM
It's amazing how old and used-up Hillary seems next to a believable Obama...dull, tired, and completely politics-as-usual.
I'm trying to remember that she's been so good to New York, she was re-elected practically unopposed.
Obama's Secretary of Human Services, perhaps?
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