If I’m not mistaken (apart from the Brisbane City Council election where leading Liberal in the land Campbell Newman is up for re-election) we don’t have any state or territory elections in Australia in 2008. So no doubt a lot of psephological and political commentary will focus on the presidential race in America, though no doubt it would have anyway. The primary season is now actually upon us, after a very long run up which has seen a definite slippage in Hillary Clinton’s momentum, the (presumed) implosion of John McCain’s campaign, louder rumblings about an independent Bloomberg candidacy, and disarray in the GOP ranks. Voters will have their say in Iowa on Friday Australian time. I deliberately don’t say “go to the polls”, because the first vote of the primaries is not an election but a series of party caucuses in each of around 2000 precincts in the state. That makes it very hard to predict a winner, particularly insofar (in something quite rare in American politics), on the Democratic side, at each precinct caucus voters have to go with a second choice if their first one doesn’t reach 15% of the support in the hall. This puts a premium on organisation, and also makes the polls pretty much irrelevant.
Here’s how it works.
By no means all (in fact a small minority) of winners of the Iowa caucus have gone on to win their party’s nomination, and the process is often criticised for giving undue weight to a demographically small and unrepresentative state. On the upside, it’s said that the intensely local and personal campaigning required compensates for the mass market ad driven nature of later primaries. What we can say for certain is that Hillary will take a hit if she doesn’t win, Obama would get a big boost, and Edwards probably needs to win or to come a close second to remain a viable candidate. Obama, to me, is all rhetoric and little substance, and there are good arguments against a Clinton restoration. Over the fold, I’ve posted an excerpt from an interesting post by Alan Thomas at Shiraz Socialist making the left case for Edwards.
For some time, I felt that progressives should support Barack Obama, the Illinois senator who swept into office in 2004 on the back of an electrifying speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention. The only Black American in the US Senate, and with a proud record of having opposed the Iraq war from its inception, as well as a record of accomplishment in the state senate in Illinois, and with a talent for oratory that invited favourable comparisons with Jack Kennedy, Obama seemed like the ideal antidote to Clinton’s stale brand of “DINO� (Democrat In Name Only) politics. And yet, since initially blasting into the race, Obama has always seemed unsure of himself, and at times has made peculiar statements seeming to suggest that he would engage in pre-emptive military action against perceived security threats, even if they were to come from with countries that are technically US allies, such as Pakistan. On the other side, he seems to some degree to have lost his populist touch, instead beginning to play the game of celebrity endorsements and thin politics that lead one to wonder just how deep his commitment to progressivism really runs.
That of course leaves John Edwards. Edwards does not have an untarnished record - he was Kerry’s running mate during the failed election campaign of 2004, he was a one term senator from North Carolina who did not actually carry his home state in that election. He also voted to authorise the Iraq War.
However, he has, unlike Clinton, fully recanted that vote. Further, during the 2004 campaign, he consistently outpolled Kerry in terms of popularity. He faced the Republican spin machine down and came out unscathed. Since 2004 he has elaborated upon his theme of “two Americas�, which he has developed into a genuinely populist challenge to corporate power. Adding a second theme, “America Rising�, he has spoken out with clarity, fiery passion and consistency against a system which he himself says is governed by “corporate power�. He makes calls to fight that corporate power, and for people to “rise� by fighting to change a system that leaves 47 million people with no healthcare insurance, 37 million in poverty, 200,000 military veterans homeless on the streets, and 35 million people going hungry in any given year. He wants to reverse tax cuts for the rich, and to break the influence of drugs industry lobbyists over health policy. Again in a marked departure from normal Democratic politics, Edwards makes a big play out of “never having taken a dime� from any lobbyist during his time in Washington DC. Perhaps the most poignant story he tells is a single anecdote about a man named James Lowe, who could not speak until he had an operation for a cleft palate. He had no health insurance, but still had the operation. At the age of 50. It is staggering that a man in a western nation should go without a voice for half a century for want of a simple operation. Edwards thinks so too, and so supports universal health care.
Furthermore, it is worth pointing out that (contra DLC wisdom) Edwards outpolls most Republican candidates by margins significantly larger than Clinton’s and on a par with Obama’s.
It may be that Edwards will not win the Democratic nomination, still less the presidency. He is currently running third nation-wide, and is in a three-way battle in Iowa that he absolutely has to win to remain in the race. But I for one hope he does stay in. Because sometimes someone comes along and refreshes a debate by doing something very simple. And he’s done that. By doing what? By telling the truth.
Sometimes we on the left would do well to remember just how big changes arise from such small beginnings. That’s why I hope Edwards wins the election, and that’s why you should as well.
I have been following the US elections for a few months now, even though I am proudly Australian.
I am personally anxious to see how Republican Ron Paul fares in the Iowa caucuses, and then the primary in New Hampshire.
He’s the only candidate on both sides that has anything going for them, to enact a real and good change for America and also the world.
“and Edwards probably needs to win or to come a close second to remain a viable candidate.”
The article says:
“He is currently running third nation-wide, and is in a three-way battle in Iowa that he absolutely has to win to remain in the race.”
Why? Iowa gets so few votes at the convention. Is it simply a momentum thing?
Sort of, wpd, in the sense that momentum translates into fundraising ability. After New Hampshire, it gets very expensive indeed to run a campaign, and that’s been exacerbated by the front loading of the primaries with a lot of big and biggish states voting on February 5 - where you’d have to campaign across a large number of states simultaneously. I’m not as pessimistic as Alan Thomas about the absolute necessity of a win for Edwards to keep his campaign viable, but it would be a huge boost.
Just wondering….
If Edwards is so against “corporate power”, won’t this have a really bad effect on donations to the Democrat campaign for presidency if he gets the nomination?
Perhaps it would!
I meant to add that Edwards may have a chance in the South Carolina primary (he was born there and represented NC in the Senate) on 26/1, but the Democratic vote in that state is largely African-American which might favour Obama.
Here’s the schedule for the primary season:
[link]
Is there any actual, like, POLITICS, rather than mere number crunching in this post? Sorry, just skimmed it and there seemed not a skerrick.
Thanks Kim. I am following this race with interest. as you say it is the only game in town.
Are the Democrats hoping Huckabee gets up because he would be such an easy target? (Remembering that here in Australia no-one thought Howard would ever be PM).
Of course, things are never as they seem. As Custer said at the Little Big Horn. I’ll never understand these Indians. Half an hour ago they were all singing and dancing.
Is You Tube having the effect it is having on outside observers?
That’s the point of the excerpt and the link.
Sorry, but you are mistaken. The ACT election is to be held on 18 October 2008. Unless, of course, Kevin decides to hold a double dissolution that day, then it will be 6 December 2008.
Sorry, wpd, crossed with you - my comment above is in response to Wolfe. I very much doubt that Huckabee has any sort of real chance. But I’m sure the Dems would love to run against him. Have only just started looking at the race myself so can’t really comment on the YouTube factor yet.
I think all Queensland councils have elections in March 08
Yes they do, but I’m not sure there’ll be nationwide attention to any bar the BCC.
If one can place any reliance on the polls coming out of the Obama camp (the 32% one) Hillary could be in real trouble. I suppose it depends on how many Democrats want to come out in Des Moine in the dead of winter, and who they’re going to vote for. If Edwards stays in 3rd place, he’s still got a chance.
With the Republicans, suspect (and hope )-Huckabee (a fundamentalist Baptist? Yeek, that will just make GWB look like some-one with brain-damage)will go down the drain once McCain and Giuliano come back into the picture.
Re Dems, would prefer Edwards, but I could live with Obama. At least he’ll concentrate on Al-Qaeda. Though I acknowledge the frightening security implications you point out.The Presidency does change people though.
Kim, just a gut feeling (and we know how reliable they are). From my reading I can’t see the US electing another Clinton. This is not to say she won’t get the Democratic nomination.
Second, while I can see that Obama will get the Dems nomination, i can’t see him being the next US President.
Third, I can’t see any of the Republicans being the next President.
Oh dear. Sort of eliminated everyone.
BTW, is it theoretical possible (no matter how unlikely) that Gore could be endorsed. Or is it too late?
Unless there was a deadlocked convention (highly unlikely), it might happen on the West Wing, wpd, but not in America in 2008.
Part of Hillary’s vulnerability is that her “electability” argument is pretty shaky - which makes the stakes high for her even in Iowa. It’s hard to pinpoint what she stands for, and a lot of folks hate her enough. I’m not sure Obama would lose to a Republican, but in the US, the party labels aren’t sufficient to predict what will happen (there are polls around that show a hypothetical Democrat beating a hypothetical Republican, but that’s a judgement on Bush, not on the current candidates from either party.) A lot really does depend on who the GOP ends up with - Guiliani and McCain would run well, I suspect, because they’ll pick up independents. Romney is too manufactured. The Huckabee phenomenon is an eruption of the “base” demonstrating that they’re angry about being effectively irrelevant, but Clinton would surely mobilise them to turn out, for reasons which are largely if not wholly irrational.
It really does make a difference that there’s no incumbent or quasi-incumbent (ie V-P) in this race. It’s quite open.
Monbiot sinks the boot into Gore and the current crop
“Until the American people confront their political funding system, their politicians will keep speaking from the pocket, not the gut.”
[link]
HRC has come back to the field in the last month but still has Rupe in her corner. This will make her very hard to toss. And she has the Beltway Steal of Approval. Obama lost some of his populist supprt when he started to talk about getting “pre-emptive” on “friendlies”, indicating to “powerful interests” that he won’t rock the big boat too much if he gets his hands on the tiller.
With Gore playing for higher planetary stakes and Kucinich squeezed out and unfortunately never a serious show, the po’ boy from Carolina made good is not the roughest to torch enough support to be there or thereabouts when the whips start cracking, however he’ll need ALL the luck-in-running.
Board Odds!
Hillary Clinton 5/6
Barack Obama 4/1
Rudolph Giuliani 6/1
Mitt Romney 10/1
John Mc Cain 12/1
Mike Huckabee 14/1
John Edwards 16/1
Ron Paul 20/1
Mike Bloomberg 20/1
Fred Thompson 25/1
Monbiot:
I can’t remember where I read it, but someone wrote a good article a few months ago pointing out that the Congress on both sides is so beholden to corporate interests, any real action on climate change may be several election cycles in the future - which of course will be too late.
Wolfe: if you mean policy differences, they’re largely meaningless at this point. With the US system, everything gets massaged through two houses of Congress, possibly the courts, and a federal system even more chaotic than our own; the (public) differences between the Democratic candidates on most (domestic) issues are not that big.
As to the Republicans, they’re all completely insane if you take their public positions seriously. Expect some serious moderation from whomever gets the nomination.
Monbiot actually blames Gore (who headed up the negotiating team in ‘97)for much of the mess, Mark, if I recall the article correctly.
Sure, Lefty E, but that’s not the point I wanted to make. I don’t know enough about what Gore was doing in 97 to agree or disagree, but I think he’s right that just waiting for Bush to leave office won’t necessarily bring about enough change.
Hilary’s lack of electability is largely a Beltway myth. She won a substantial majority in New York, including upstate dyed-in-the-wool rural conservative New York in 2000 by 55%. She was re-elected with 67% of the vote last year. Those figures do not add up to someone who cannot get elected and does not know how to campaign. It seems to me that Hillary is merely being subjected to the same bizarre treatment that Gore was in 2000, where the guy could hardly speak without the US media screaming that he was a liar. And so that paragon of honesty GWB was elected (sort of anyway).
The Beltway punditry hated Gore. They loved Bush. They hate Edwards and Hillary. They love Obama. Obama has spent recent weeks promoting the myth that that their social security system will run out of money if not fixed and that unions are a special interest group. True or not, and I do not remotely think either is true, those are republican talking points that will be fine ammunition in the general election.
Gore Vidal denounced the myth that everything in America would be wonderful if only a nice man was elected president. That’s essentially all Obama stands for. They tried that in 2000 when they elected nice guy Bush over nasty guy Gore and repeated it in 2004 when they rejected the evil flip-flopping medal-faking Kerry. I really do not know why Americans disconnect their brains at election times and start voting for symbols over substance. It’s a bit sad watching LP serving up the same noxious brew.
For the record if I was an Iowa voter and they used preferences Hillary would get my second.
Yes, agreed! The whole structure of political funding and lobbying lies behind Monbiot’s pessimism. I see the point.
I tend to think the world needs to take action without the US. At a certain international critical mass the free-rider becomes it own problem: the uninnovative economy, subject to increasing exclusions from relevant trade and technological fora.
I like Monbiot’s line that we need a war on global warming - even RWDBs shut up about state intervention when you call something a “war” (eg massive erosion in civil liberties for the WOT)
They’re simple folk - put it in military terms and they salute.
Alan, I wrote:
Which there are.
I don’t see how that constitutes:
I tend to agree with much of what you say on Obama, though.
Btw, this link may be of interest:
“A Blood Pressure Lowering Guide to the Democratic Party and Democrats”
[link]
Also btw, there’s one poll that shows Edwards with a (statistically insignificant) lead - basically neck and neck among the three top contenders. Bearing in mind the poor relationship between the polls and the size and nature of the vote, it still might be a harbinger of something:
[link]
This is kinda interesting too:
The US primaries seem odd to me, in a way.
The ultimate goal is to get someone from yer side (elephant or donkey) elected, but yer spending a year before that gettin yer own side to attack yer own candidates.
So X is runnin around badmouthing Y, and conversely Y is trash talking X, but ultimately one of ‘em is gunna be the preznital candidate against Z from the other team. And all Z has to do is sit back and say “Dude, what X said” (or Y or whomever ).
It is to larf.
don’t larf, as pathetic as usa politics is, they do participate to a much higher degree than ozzies.
vidal’s notion, that a ‘good president’ isn’t the answer to america’s problems is the crux of political theory: who decides?
in a democracy, the people decide, through referendum. that would be switzerland.
in an elective monarchy, the president decides- and the whole world can see how well that works with a king george the w ‘decidering’.
in an hereditary monarchy, the king’s ‘flappers’ decide in secret cabal meetings called ‘cabinet.’ that’s why we have ‘work choices’, but no solar cell factories.
The Iowa outcome will be interesting also for the reason that Edwards has been getting a huge amount of support from the unions, running campaigns not dissimiliar to the Workchoices campaign here, regarding labour laws & health insurance, among other things. & Iowa is, or has been a blue collar state, a state that has experienced big manufacturing closures in the last decade. If the US is looking at recession, Edwards New Deal rhetoric may translate into a Dean grassroots effort.
But the crystal balling is made so much harder by the peculiarities of selection process. State laws determine whether preferences play, voting schedules & there are 50 variations of all those things. The other complication that may not play out til the actual presidentials at the end of the year, is that both parties have since 1968, bound delegates to the state-based results regarding which candidate they then vote for at the party convention. Prior to Chicago, delegates could change their vote on the convention floor - this is no longer the case. The Democrats may end up with a candidate who looked relevant at the beginning of 2008, but who is steamrolled by events by November. Which may also apply to the Republicans - certainly progressive commentators are delighted with the GOP horror at the Huckabee campaign & its current success. But if the US falls into recession, & the Dems have either Clinton or Obama as their front runner, Huckabee may just wend his way through to the White House in a Rockmanesque glow of Middle America finally having to pay the price of fiscal tomfoolery by Bush & corporate America.
Mark at 18, It’s a Gore for sure, but a Vidal not an Al.
Lefty, the War on Global Warming is the War of The World we had to have.
[But if the US falls into recession, & the Dems have either Clinton or Obama as their front runner, Huckabee may just wend his way through to the White House in a Rockmanesque glow of Middle America finally having to pay the price of fiscal tomfoolery by Bush & corporate America.]
Bernice that sentence was so beautifully written I read it three times to savour the aftertaste.]
Hope it doesn’t come to pass though, cos Hucky’s a card-carrying fundy fruit-cake.
Apparently, according to “the media and the other Democratic candidates”, it is a very bad thing that Edwards is angry… about poverty and stuff. I’m with the post at Shiraz Socialist.
[link]
Kim
I should have been clearer about the noxious brew. To me claims that Clinton embodies DINO politics or that she trails in electability are a noxious brew. Both are untrue. I don’t know if you follow The Left Coaster, but they’ve been eviscerating those claims for a while now.
Clinton’s voting record in the Senate, for example, is identical with Obama’s except on the confirmation of Bush’s army chief of staff when Obama (unlike Clinton) voted to confirm Bush’s nominee.
Alan I disagree. I think that Clinton’s electibility is the beltway myth. Yes she’s won twice, but in a heavily democratic state against weak opposition. While I think Clinton would be favourite to beat any of the Republicans, both Obama and Edwards would be/should be more heavily favoured. Each of them will inspire certain populations to come out to vote for them, and not provoke the same backlash in the Republican base Clinton will. (Actually Obama will provoke a huge turnout in the Republican base in the deep South, but in states no Democrat will win unless it is a landslide anyway).
Clinton’s lead is largely because of her huge amounts of money, which are at least partially because she has been the frontrunner - she’s there because she’s there as it were.
As to who would be the best President, well with Clinton you know she doesn’t actually want to fix many of America’s problems, because she doesn’t think they’re problems. And she’s happy to be in debt up to her eyeballs to the big donors who don’t want her to fix a whole lot of other problems. Edwards wants to solve more of the problems and will be less in debt to people who want to stop him. Obama remains an unknown - would he actually try to change America through unusual methods, or would he use the claim of a new methodology to avoid actually confronting the problems?
feral sparrowkawk
I’m not in the business of advocating for Clinton, I prefer Edwards by a long way. I just find it weird that Obama’s drift to the right on healthcare, unions, social security, and avoiding controversial votes like the plague is regarded as a qualification for anything. New York had until recently a Republican governor and the city has had had Republican mayors since Dinkins. Moreover Clinton has racked up majorities in upstate New York. There’s a lot of Appalachia (metaphorically, anyway) between New York and Boston.
Kim said
That’s certainly fascinating, but I have no idea at all where they pulled their numbers from. Which is annoying, because they’re great stats…
Biden and Richardson have certainly not made any ’suggestions’ as they’re still angling for a miracle third place, and the undecided vote is nearly as much a factor anyway; …So, combined with the lack of source, and the slightly misleading article title (surges? - he gained 3pts, not even within the margin of error!!), it seems more like a nice little furphie from an Edward’s supporter come-journo to me…
Well, IMHO, the only candidate with any substance, experience, chutzpah, finance, and street-smarts in this campaign is Hillary.
Who TF is this ridiculous gaggle of Huckabees, Romneys, Gulianis, Obamis, Edwardsees etc etc etc. They’re nobodies.
No. Give me a Clintonista anytime.
Amanda Marcotte’s primary post:
[link]
from Google news yesterday
Israeli dfense firm counts American votes.
ShortNews.com, Germany - 18 hours ago
Little did they know that the first election event in 2008 may be tallied by an Israeli defense contractor. The calls go to a call center in Georgia to …
and a short time later
NEWS had to be blocked by our Team!
News items that vioalate our Terms & Conditions can not be displayed.
Off shore vote counting without a paper trail? The Daily Paul follows it up [link]
so bored i’m live blogging…
we have winners…
Presumably, Hillary being in 3rd place is going to make things a little more difficult for her, or will her massive funding base mean it makes little difference. So is it a race between Obama and Edwards? Or do we have to wait for NH to get a clear idea of the front-runners?
By the way, what happened to the idea of Florida and various other states running their primaries earlier. Has this faded, and if not, what are its implications?
Obama’s Iowa victory speech.
[link]
Paul: Hillary’s not going anywhere. She didn’t win, but Obama’s win was pretty narrow, and the fraction between her and Edwards was miniscule. She has oodles of cash, better organization, and sound levels of support.
As far as I can tell from this distance, Edwards remains third favourite.
The Republican leadership is having horrible conniptions over Huckabee, apparently. The thought of an actual Bible-basher - as distinct from the faux Bible-bashers like GWB - being the party’s candidate is scaring the hell out of them. Not to mention that while the evangelical nutters love Huckabee, voters in the general election might not be quite as impressed…
The revenge of Monica.
What about Baba Bill Clintons kisser after the result. If a face can launch a thousand ships,It’s over for Clinton and I am soooooo glad.The rot has started, the prols are on to it.
Gaz: I might not care for Clinton, but I care less for the journos assigned to cover her. From Glenn Greenwald:
The MSM video highlights do not give the same sense as the written report of Obama’s speech. Seems that most of the highlights were edited out of the “highlights”.
[link]
Read reports on the Iowa action by a dozen Sep scribes. Two have merit. Greenwald, as Saigon suggests, shows why he’s an ace, and the following link from Marc Cooper contains some sharp obsevations sprinkled with some corn-ball cliches.
[link]
Huckabee winning Iowa with its large population of like minded religious fundies is not a surprise. Obama winning Iowa is a big surprise considering the demographics of the state and the size of the Clinton campaign machine.
By no means should anyone discount Clinton just yet but the Obama win is significant.
Looks like Rudy wants Cheney as a running mate.
[link]
Don’t worry steve. Rudy hasn’t a hope in hell of getting the Republican nomination. Running on a campaign of shouting “911!” here and there isn’t going to get you far, even with the Republican heartland.
Intriguing, isn’t it? One way of looking at all this is that GOP bigwigs and corporate donors encouraged duds like Romney and Guiliani into the race to stop “maverick” McCain. They may end up rallying behind him to stop the real wild card.
This is the point where Rudy lost the plot. He has been plummetting in popularity since. If he takes Cheney down with him that is a bonus.
[link]
I’m not sure Rudy ever had the plot. He’s got major problems - first the liberal social stuff in terms of getting through the primaries and secondly a lot of baggage in terms of associates with corruption/criminal backgrounds whom he championed. And he doesn’t really seem to have anything much to say except “tougher on the terrsts”.
You can really see why everyone thinks the GOP has a pathetic field, and McCain’s being talked up again. A bit of gravitas and apparently clean and sane, though he’s certainly not the “moderate” he’s often hailed as.
He has got a strategy that seems to be a recipe for failure too.
[link]
There’s a great picture of Rudy here [link]
I don’t quite understand why they’re so panicking over Huckabee. With McCain and Guiliani not even stumping there, it was more a religious popularity contest, which Mormonism is bound to loose unless it’s Utah. What’s more, while winning Iowa will probably go someway to reducing the defecit, Huckabee is tens of millions of dollars behind Guiliani, McCain and Romney in fundraising. This will make it particularly hard for him in states that are less sympathetic to his Baptismal foundation…
Clinton it seems is concentrating on the states after New Hampshire. Apparently the voting system there allows Independents to register as Democrats in the day and this will favour Obama. Whichever way it goes all the three front-running Democrats are apparently euphoric about a Semocrat win for the Presidency in November. The fact that Clinton is saying this without specifically claiming she will win the nomination -that’s how I read it after looking over reports on-line this morning - perhaps does not augur well for her. Of course all this is probably hyperbole.
As for Huckabee - he stacked the Iowa Caucuses with fundies - he might be able to get away with this again in NH,as I understand the American primary system, but not anywhere else. This may be hope over experience, but I’d say the GOP is in disarray, based on some of the comments on this thread.
President - WINNER Centrebet
CLINTON, Hillary 2.35
OBAMA, Barack 2.85
GIULIANI, Rudolph 8.00
MCCAIN, John 8.50
ROMNEY, Mitt 12.00
HUCKABEE, Mike 14.00
The above market quotes suggest that as far as the Presidency goes, the GOPpers are rooted. I am of similar mind. All their candidates have “baggage” that renders them unelectable.
Hillary looked like a loser after Iowa, whereas the Junior Senator from Illinois fair sparkled. Americans are attracted to winners in ways that they themselves have no difficulty understanding. If Obama can Elmer Gantry a swathe of younguns and Independents in N.H. to come vote for him, then he’ll nudge HRC for favouritism. About the time El Rodente bit the dust downunder, Obama was backable at just under double figure odds.
Edward’s best chance at this stage is VP, an office that under present arrangements would give him considerable power.
An Obama-Edwards ticket is one I think Americans voters will buy.
From the Dan Balz Take (in link below)
In virtually every demographic category where Obama found his greatest strength in Iowa, New Hampshire’s electorate has at least as many or more of those voters, based on a comparison of the entrance polls from Thursday’s caucuses in Iowa and from the 2004 Democratic primary in Hampshire.
Take independents. They constituted 20 percent of the caucus electorate in Iowa on Thursday, but four years ago in New Hampshire they constituted nearly half (48 percent) of the Democratic electorate.
Older voters were Clinton’s friends in Iowa, not Obama’s, and in the caucuses they accounted for 22 percent of the participants. In New Hampshire four years ago, voters over age 65 represented just 11 percent of thee Democratic electorate.
[link]
Things sure have gotten interesting, as they say in America.
Gotta love the so called Chuckabee factor tho.
Great PR coup. ANyone see the youtube ad for Huckabee with Chuck Norris?
SOmeone who can link this, please do.
As for me, i was a Hillary fan, but Obama is growing on me.
I watched the Iowa caucus results at a friend’s place who is a major electoral nerd. God love im!
I dont know enough about American politics to know what the implications are: but I can tell you Obama is an absolutely electrifying speaker. Next best rheotirically (and the most progressive, it would seem) was Edwards.
Everyone else on either side was pretty dull to listen to.
I gather Clinton will be hard to beat, but boy, did it feel like the next pres was speaking when Obama took the podium.
George and Martha , typical American folk at home, sit on their front porch after the day’s chores are done. George is reading the Daily Bugle, while Martha fusses with a mess of quiltin’.
George: Hey, Martha, getta load o’ this! You’ll never believe who’s booked the Presidential Suite at the Hotel New Hampshire.
[link]
“Americans are attracted to winners in ways that they themselves have no difficulty understanding.”
Word. It’s a front-runner’s contest.
Interesting goings-on in Concord, NH. At a Democrat fund raiser Hillery was booed twice, Obama was mobbed.Obama’s people are walking on air. See article in Guardian unlimited, Google News. Maybe some-one would like to post a link. Though having received instructions some time ago I am still mystified.
Also looks like McCain could come up as a possible alternative for GOP, or they don’t get one til well ionto the campaign.
Paul, After his “bomb bomb Iran” routine, McCain, who wants that treacherous little warmonger Joey Lieberman as his running mate, is unelectable as president if Obama stays alive.
The GOPpers don’t have an electable candidate. Having jumped from the political woodpile with much aplomb and flourish, Obama’s is pulling support from the woodwork as he gathers momentum and lets his charisma do the talkin’ for him. Obama has an Elmer Gantry-like quality. He speaks the language of hope and offers the possibility of real change to youth, to cynics and to the systematically opressed, many of whom are scrambling for voter registration for the first time as the record turnout at Iowa showed. Expect a similar turnout in N.H. this tuesday.
[link]
The link seems to indicate that the cat from Illinois got the cream in the nationwide msm debate just concluded.
Re Baroma: you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!
j_p_z if you’re lurking, I’d sure appreciate your opinion on the latest razzamatazz.
Interesting take on “Huckmentum” over at Crooked Timber:
[link]
Woodpile, EC? Woodpile?????
If an Obama groundswell is on and the change vs experience mantra in relation to Clinton continues to grow and favour him, then surely there will inevitably begin to be stirrings and then growing, enormously powerful support coming to him, and the Democrat Party as a whole from African Americans excited and prepared to mobilise as they perhaps have never done before (at least electorally) at the prospect of a Black US President.
Don’t come the raw prawn with me, Sir Henry. You’ve aleady had your fun today upthread. Perhaps it’s best if you quit while you’re in front.
Katha Pollitt is good on this as on everything: [link]
Mark, I liked the P.J. O’Rourkian snark by Jon Swift in the second comment of your link at 66. Rightists with wit and humour are so much more fun to fence with…..
Geoff at 70, certainly go along with KP’s concluding para.In America these days, if you are a presidential aspirationalist, then you must subscribe to a popularly correct brand of “pie in the sky when you die” in order to chow down nights on a regular basis at 1600 Penn.
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“I find the manner in which they’ve been running their campaign sort of depressing, lately. It was interesting in the debate, Sen. Clinton saying ‘Don’t feed the American people false hopes. Get a reality check, you know?’ I mean, you can picture JFK saying, ‘We can’t go to the moon, it’s a false hope. Let’s get a reality check.’ It’s not, sort of, I think, what our tradition has been.”
So says Obama, the candidate for hopes and dreams.
I believe it was The Gmork, who at the end of the film “The Never Ending Story”, told Atreyou moments before the young warrior wasted him, that he was The Power behind The Nothing, and it was his job as a Gmork to rob the citizens of Fantasia of their hopes and dreams.
But why, said Atreyou.
Because when people have no hopes and dreams, they are easier to control.
Yep, EC, it was a fun read!