Posted on 08/08/2007 12:28:34 PM PDT by SirLinksalot
It's August. It's hot — very hot! It's supposed to be a quiet time in politics.
But this year, because of the ridiculously advanced and compressed primary and caucus schedule next winter, the campaign season is already upon us - even though it's August.
Some recent developments:
1) This Saturday's Iowa Straw Ballot: Rudy and McCain long ago dropped out of the event. Romney has spent millions to win it, including months of statewide TV ads. He is leading in the polls in Iowa and should also win this event, which is a small test of organizational skill. The key? Buying thousands of tickets to this all-day affair and then busing in thousands of supporters to use the tickets thus becoming eligible to vote Saturday evening in the Straw Ballot. What's the point? To earn a large national, Sunday a.m. news headline: Romney Wins in Iowa. That, and a leg up for the real vote next January 14, is why these candidates are knocking themselves out for this Saturday's event.
Rudy made a huge mistake in deciding to blow this off.
This decision will hurt him big time all the way from now through January.
He is now behind the eight-ball in Iowa and won't catch up; he is ceding Iowa to others. Let's just say Romney wins both the straw ballot and then in the real caucuses in January. Then, a week later, Romney wins his neighboring New Hampshire primary. That's two huge wins in the first two contests. Can you imagine the big mo he will have?
And Rudy — who has been ahead in these national name ID polls for a year — suddenly has lost the only two contests we have. How does he look then? Does he look like a winner? Or do voters scramble over to Romney?
Or does the race just deteriorate into various winners in different states on the Mega Super Tuesday — Feb. 5.
Rudy has planned all along that Florida's Jan. 31 primary will be the beginning of his string of victories ( he has polled well there, perhaps due to the influx of retirees from the northeast, but his numbers have declined lately). But by then he will have lost several states.
In the end, he may regret not competing in Iowa all the way including this Saturday. Assuming Romney wins the straw ballot, the second and third place finishers will also get a boost. Who will they be?
Will Ron Paul's incredible online success translate to real votes on paper?
Can one of the other second-tier group do something to separate themselves from the pack? 2) In the midst of this event come more and more signs of ambivalence from the Fred Thompson Camp. Stories abound about his wife's role inside the campaign. It seems as if she wants him to run more than he wants to run. He has already peaked; his decline has begun, and all before he even has announced his candidacy. 3) One other GOP note: the more the Republican candidates flounder, the more likely it is that Newt Gingrich will flirt with entering the race.
Newt is provocative; he is entertaining. He makes news. But he is unelectable because he is undisciplined and overly egotistical and he already blew it once when he took the 1994 Republican Revolution and morphed it into the Gingrich Revolution.
He is great at throwing a hundred ideas up on the wall to see which ones work and which don't.
But he is not a leader who can unite the party and, more importantly, the nation, which craves someone who can indeed "bring us together." The Democrats: 1) Hillary as the front-runner is a nightmare for many people — both Democrats and Republicans. Why? Because she might be the one Democrat who so scares a dispirited, divided GOP into pulling itself together behind its ticket just to keep her, and Bill, out of the White House.
It is said that many social conservatives will just stay home rather than vote for a pro-choice candidate like Rudy Giuliani. That may be true. But the specter of the Clintons back in the White House may also energize the GOP Base like nothing we have ever seen.
2) A Hillary/Obama Ticket: this is all-the-talk these days. Many are predicting it. Let's analyze: what does Obama bring to Hillary's ticket that she wouldn't have anyway?
Illinois?
Nope. She, too, grew up there and it is solidly Democrat anyway.
The African-American vote? Nope. She will get 89 percent to 92 percent of that vote anyway in a general election. In fact, any Democrat will get that percentage in a general.
A wave of young and disenchanted new voters who will help swamp the GOP in the general election? Maybe. Maybe there is a hidden wave of super-angry-at-the-GOP/Bush voters who are dying to come out in November of 2008 and stick it to the GOP. But will these voters only do it if Obama is on the ticket? That remains to be seen.
It seems more likely if Hillary is the nominee, and we still have a long way to go before that is certain, she needs some sort of balance on her ticket, either geographical or ideological.
She needs to get something through her Veep candidate that she wouldn't get otherwise.
Florida? Can she win it on her own? If not, if she took Sen. Bill Nelson as her running mate would that give her a good shot at winning this crucial state?
What about Bill Richardson, an Hispanic governor of a Southwestern state? He may help bring not only New Mexico but also Nevada, Arizona and perhaps even Colorado — all usually GOP states in presidential elections.
By the way, this same thinking applies to the GOP. Some opine that Rudy would pick Romney as his running mate. Why? What does Romney give the ticket? He can't and won't even win his home state of Massachusetts.
Others mention a Rudy/McCain ticket. Oh really? McCain so turns off the GOP base that these two together are just inviting a third candidate, a Perot-type, to run in the general just to spite the GOP. Plus McCain brings nothing to the ticket. His once-vaunted independence has been frittered away on Iraq and amnesty for illegals; he is now seen as an out-of-control war hawk who, combined with Rudy, would make this ticket seem out of the American mainstream on Iraq.
Conclusion: The GOP race is much less developed than the Democratic race. The fact that an un-announced candidate — Fred Thompson — could have risen in the polls without ever even announcing is proof of the yearning inside the GOP for a new candidate who is a mainstream conservative without all this marital and personal baggage. Unfortunately, we haven't yet found that candidate, and Thompson is clearly disappointing most people by his odd non-campaigning. The Democratic race is clearly a Hillary-Obama race, with John Edwards needing desperately to win Iowa (where he has been doing very well for three years) to get back into the mix.
Out of it all, the country wants to find someone who makes at least an effort to re-unite us all as Americans first and partisans second.
Hillary cannot do this and will never be able to. The very minute she takes office many will oppose her. And that will never change. She is a polarizing figure, just the way G.W. Bush has become polarizing. Can a nation of 300 million people only elect presidents now from two families? Are the two main political parties the wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Bushes and the Clintons? Until this changes, we, as a nation, are in for more years of division and disgust.
John LeButtHead strikes again.
Headline doesn’t match the article...
Meanwhile Rush says Hill has an 80 per cent chance of winning the WH. That should be enough to turn your hair white.
The way he's been acting and what he's been saying lately makes me wonder if he isn't making a deal with Hillary.
This story and the its Title are a supreme mismatch.
Newsmax sucks. There email updates are just a bunch of spam pimping crappy products and laughable medical quackery. Piss be upon them.
I agree
Nice of LeButthead to speak for "the country".
Compromising and playing nice with the scumbag Democrats is like saying, "Yeah, a little bit of cancer is okay."
Iowa Straw poll is about as significant as.......well.......a straw poll taken in Iowa 5 months before the carcas and we all know how important THAT is.......
Story barely mentioned Fred.
Jean LeButtliar.
Debka West........
LeBoutillier really looks like a novice here. The percentage is not the issue for the black vote, it's the turnout. And Bill Clinton has been the best at turning out that vote.
Romney isn't going to be the nominee, however much "mo" he gets out of two little and very atypical states.
IMHO, Newt & Hitlery are as thick as thieves.
This author lashes out against any person who doesn’t meet his ideological prescriptions 100%. That, of course, is just about everybody. His thoughts on Fred are totally irrelevant.
John LeBoutillier is an arse. He’s the one who suggested that Bush was a dry drunk and the reason he is so stubborn on Iraq is because he never did the 12 steps.
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