So yesterday we looked at the Democratic frontrunners. For those of you who have been living under a rock, last night's Iowa caucus handed Barack Obama a fairly decisive win. Looks like second went to John Edwards, and third to Hillary (is it significant when someone is referred to only by their first name?). I'm not a pundit like Chris Matthews (my current favorite on cable), but this would seem to bode ill for the Clinton campaign. We'll see.
The results of the Iowa caucus are shown in the graphic to the left here, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal. As you can see, it looks like Edwards and Clinton are in a virtual tie for second, but Obama had a clear (and significant) advantage.
On the Republican side, Huckabee turned out the evangelical vote to a pretty much one-sided win. Romney was a distant second, and, while the graphic shows Thompson ahead of McCain, for all intents and purposes McCain finished tied for third. The McCain showing (along with the surprisingly strong Huckabee win) should trouble Mitt Romney greatly. Hell, McCain didn't really bother to campaign in Iowa having committed political heresy by suggesting that he was against ethanol and farm subsidies.
Romney outspent Huckabee in the last few weeks by a factor of almost six and he still couldn't get it done. If I'm Romney, I'm thinking about what I can do for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, or at the very least shaking up my campaign team a bit.
On the Democratic side, this has to be the worst possible outcome for Mrs. Clinton. She would have been fine with a second-place finish to anyone but Obama. However, this coupled with a virtual tie for second with Edwards has to be judged a disastrous finish - so much for being the anointed one. I would imagine that this is the end for Edwards (sigh of relief); he pretty much banked everything on Iowa, so a loss really hurts him. If he drops out, it will be interesting to see who he endorses. Neither Clinton nor Obama share his angry partisan fury, but my guess is that he jumps on board the Obama bandwagon - there's no love lost for Clinton there. Sadly, Joe Biden (and not so sadly Chris Dodd) have dropped out of the Democratic races.
Without further babbling, here's how the GOP candidates shake out - remember, we'll only go in depth on the top-tier candidates.
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Mitt Romney - The Mormon candidate. Actually unfair, he's running as the "gets things done" candidate who's ready to revive the Ronald Reagan brand. This year's answer to John Kerry, has been consistently inconsistent on many issues. Formerly pro-gay, now anti-gay, a bit of a waffler on the second amendment, he seems to have struggled to find his sweet spot. Now part of this could be due to the fact that he has time and again had to defend the Mormon religion, which I thought he had done fairly eloquently, but I think it's more that people are having a difficult time determining what he really stands for. Actually, the John Kerry comparison up front was unkind, he's more like the Republican Hillary Clinton; very data (poll) driven, always looking to triangulate on an issue, he seems to have very little legitimacy.
Personally, I like the guy, but I'll never vote for him for one reason; he pushed through the government-run healthcare fiasco in Massachusetts when he was that state's Governor (up till 2006). This has been a disaster since day one. It's most egregious clause is the personal mandate, which is basically being discarded everywhere because the cost of providing all the frills associated with what passes for a minimum insurance policy in Massachusetts is pretty much beyond the means of most of the residents the bill intended to serve in the first place. It also places a penalty on businesses over a certain size that don't offer insurance. So, if I'm one of those businesses that's close the the threshold, and I can't afford to provide health insurance, you can damn sure bet I'm gonna be reducing staff below the penalty line. In any case, I'm not gonna launch into a screed on healthcare (we'll do the issues in another column), but increased government intervention sure doesn't sound like the "Party of Reagan" to me, and I don't care if he did "reach across the aisle" to get it done - I mean hell, show me a state with a larger percentage of Democrats that MA; not like they weren't falling over themselves to get government-run healthcare done!
Mike Huckabee - The social conservative candidate. Really likeable guy, but since I couldn't give a damn about the social conservative agenda, not really my guy. Good sense of humor, quick wit, one of those guys you'd like to have a beer with, but since he's an former Baptist minister, he probably doesn't drink beer (or screw standing up - looks too much like dancing) so that's probably not gonna happen. Has really rallied the evangelicals in Iowa, and as shown above, has pretty much come out of nowhere not 8 weeks ago to deliver a pretty resounding ass-kicking to Mr. Romney in the Iowa caucus last evening. From my perspective, there's not much to recommend Huckabee - as I've said I'm absolutely quite liberal when it comes to social issues, and George Bush has pretty much proven to me that the White House is no place for religious zealotry (from those fun-lovin' guys who brought you Iraq), but there's one thing Huckabee is a winner on, and that's tax policy.
Huckabee supports the Fair Tax, which would basically replace our current personal and corporate Byzantine tax codes with a national sales tax of about 22-25%. For those of you who worry about the progressivity of such a tax, low-income earners would be given a "pre-bate" every year to offset their contribution to the tax. Huckabee would repeal the 16th amendment, and do away with income taxes for good. In one fell swoop we'd accomplish a more equitable tax system, along with significant tax reform. The tax position alone augurs well for Huckabee, but I just can't get behind a social conservative candidate. In my experience they're less tolerant, and not where the country wants their leadership to be on those issues.
Rudy Giuliani - the 9/11 candidate. I'm aligned pretty closely with Rudy. I share his views on social issues, and I like the way he managed NYC as mayor. But, I have two very large problems with Rudy. First, I don't trust him one damn bit on his position on the second amendment. As mayor, he was quite happy to try to trample on gun-owner's rights, along with attacking gun-manufacturers as well. I'm a huge believer in the 2nd amendment, and somehow Rudy's assurances that his position with respect to the presidency is more enlightened than the one he took as mayor rings a bit hollow to me (see Mitt Romney above). Second, I think he's a bit of an arrogant prick. Now some people can pull this off, I mean heck, some people think I'm an arrogant prick, but with Rudy it really annoys me.
I think that his tough-guy persona is offensive to really tough guys everywhere (not sayin' I'm tough, but I do know I could kick Rudy's ass), and some of his campaign trail antics have made me pretty sick - remember him taking the cell phone call from his wife at the NRA luncheon? He's lucky somebody didn't bust a cap in his ass, or least his cell phone (it was the NRA after all). OK - all the joking aside, a reasonable, mainstream candidate who's probably exceptionally competent and will appear to moderates and those for whom security is still a top concern. Didn't campaign in Iowa, and isn't in New Hampshire either, preferring to compete in states where he's presumably more palatable to the electorate, gunning for February 5th. I could at least see my way to voting for him in a general election, but he's not getting my primary vote. I'm saving that for...
John McCain - the experience candidate, and the candidate I'm casting my vote for in Tuesday's (01/08) New Hampshire Republican primary. There's actually a lot not to like about McCain: he wrote and jammed through congress the assault on free speech known as the McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform bill, and, he opposed the Bush tax cuts of 2003 and beyond. But, and here's the thing that I keep coming back to with McCain, yeah there's a lot I don't like about him, but I have never once questioned his belief that he's doing the right thing for the country. From my perspective, he's the only guy who's standing tall and not tailoring his message to appeal to this or that interest group based on any sort of polling numbers.
I mean this is the guy who just rolled up a respectable third-place finish in Iowa after telling them that he didn't support farm or ethanol subsidies. Guess what, he doesn't, and he's not going to "take the pledge" in Iowa to chase votes. A president has to represent the entire country, not just a bunch of corn-growers in the Midwest. He's got a famous temper, but on him it looks good (contrast with Rudy who seems petulant). And, he's definitely the Republican I'd most like to have a beer with. A good guy, who wants what's best for the country, and has verifiable proof that he can attack problems in a non-partisan way. I'm not always gonna agree with him, but I do believe I'll always understand his positions.
Finally, this post would absolutely be remiss without a shout out to my man Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican candidate. This guys is the complete package, it's just a damn shame that he doesn't have a hope in hell of winning the primary. He's the small government candidate that I most closely align with. He's against Iraq and wants to lower taxes. He's a live-and-let-live conservative on social issues - basically a message of tolerance. Unfortunately, those of us in the real world have to deal with questions of electability, and he just ain't got it, but God, what a great story he's been!
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