Iowa, Caucuses & 2012 - The Possibilities Abound (Huck's Probable Exit Shifts Big Mo' to Sarah)

Congressional Quarterly ^ | December 1, 2009 15:50 PM | By Bill Pascoe

[caddystacks]

Mike Huckabee's chances of winning the 2012 GOP presidential sweepstakes died in a coffee shop in Seattle, Wash., on Nov. 29.

That day, Maurice Clemmons -- a felon sentenced to 108 years in prison in Arkansas, who was released nine years ago courtesy of a clemency order signed by then-Arkansas Gov. Huckabee -- allegedly shot and killed four police officers.

Huckabee is many things, but stupid is not one of them.

He knows that were he to attempt to run for the GOP nomination again, his opponents would use the name "Maurice Clemmons" the way a previous GOP presidential contender once used the name "Willie Horton," to undercut Huckabee's support among the evangelical Christians who dominate his route to the nomination -- the Iowa caucuses.

In fact, within hours of the breaking news, media outlets were running headlines linking the two -- "Huckabee's 'Willie Horton Moment'" read one, while conservative blogger Michelle Malkin used the opportunity to remind her audience that Clemmons is not the first man whose release by a Huckabee clemency order led to more violent crime later. Erick Erickson at RedState declared "This is going to be extremely problematic" for a Huckabee 2012 run, and Quin Hillyer at The American Spectator Blog entitled his take, simply, "Huck Fin-ished."

So Huckabee will not run for president in 2012.

And that means that the interesting question at this point is not whether the "Clemmons issue" "hurts Huckabee's chances" (because it destroys them outright); the interesting question, rather, is the simple cui bono -- to whose benefit?

Let's begin by taking a look at the national delegate selection process in Iowa.

First, Iowa Democrats and Iowa Republicans both begin the process of choosing their delegates to their national conventions by means of caucuses held on the same day -- but the similarity ends there.

Under Democratic Party rules, there is something called a "viability threshold" of 15 percent: in order for a campaign to have its supporters' votes counted at the end of the night, the campaign must begin the evening with the support of at least 15 percent of those gathering in each caucus.

Supporters of candidates who fail to reach the 15 percent threshold on the first attempt at caucusing must decide in a second round if they wish to move to join the supporters of another candidate, or if they wish to caucus as uncommitted Democrats.

In other words, it's like an instant run-off, where the field in the second round is limited to those who showed at least 15 percent support in the first round.

This aspect of the Democrats' process has significant implications for the outcome of the caucuses -- being the second-favorite candidate of the supporters of the lesser candidates is a crucial angle, because if a lesser candidate (say, a Dennis J. Kucinich) cannot draw the support of 15 percent of the voters at any given caucus location, his supporters can then join with supporters of a candidate who did meet the 15 percent threshold.

Republicans, by contrast, have no such "viability threshold," and consequently no need for a second round of caucusing. That means that being the second-choice candidate is irrelevant, because the second choice never comes into play.

Second, the very nature of the Democratic process in Iowa demands a public show of support for one's chosen candidate -- supporters literally gather in various corners of the caucus location. No secret ballots are allowed. Social pressure, the desire to be part of the "in group," comes into play in the delegate selection process.

Not so for Iowa Republicans. They write down their choices, or in some cases use voting machines, and the secret ballot is sacrosanct.

Thus, long-shot/outsider candidates are likelier to score better in the GOP caucuses than they would in the Democratic caucuses, because their supporters don't have to fear social ostracism from their neighbors as they make their choices.

Third, Iowa's caucuses have never been as important to the selection of the eventual GOP nominee as they have been to the selection of the eventual Democratic nominee.

In contests where no incumbent was running for re-election, no fewer than five of the eight non-incumbent Democratic nominees chosen over the last 36 years have begun by winning the Iowa caucuses (including the last three in a row): Jimmy Carter in 1976, Walter Mondale in 1984, Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, and Barack Obama in 2008.

And in 1992 -- one of the three elections in which a non-incumbent Democrat won the nomination without first winning Iowa -- the Iowa caucuses were not contested, because Iowa's own Sen. Tom Harkin was a candidate for the Democratic nomination, and everyone else made the strategic decision to skip the caucuses.

So, really, Democrats had seven contested nomination fights where Iowa was in play -- and in five of those seven contests, winning Iowa meant winning the nomination.

But on the Republican side, only two non-incumbent nominees over the last 32 years began their march to the nomination by first winning the Iowa caucuses: Bob Dole in 1996, and George W. Bush in 2000.

So if Iowa's caucuses do not determine who wins the GOP nomination, why is Iowa important to the GOP? Because Iowa winnows the field -- from 1976 to 2004, no GOP nomination winner has ever finished worse than third in the Iowa caucuses (and 2008 GOP nomination winner John McCain, who largely skipped campaigning in Iowa, nevertheless finished a close fourth, by less than a thousand votes).

More important even than the Iowa caucuses themselves is the Ames Straw Poll, a mid-summer-of-the-year-before-the-caucuses fundraising event for the Iowa GOP that provides the first real test of organization strength for the rival campaigns.

Voting at the Straw Poll is restricted to those who have paid for the right to vote. Campaigns regularly bus in supporters from all over the state (and, in previous election cycles, from out of state, too) for an afternoon and evening of barbecue and clowns and face-painting and other forms of family entertainment, and the campaigns pay for their supporters' rides and tickets to the event. So in many ways, the game is rigged to favor the rich campaigns with cash to burn.

Of the five times the Ames Straw Poll has been held, its winner went on to win the Iowa caucuses three times -- George Bush in 1979, Bob Dole in 1995, and George W. Bush in 1999. The other two times, the winner of the Ames Straw Poll finished second in the caucuses -- in 1987, it was Pat Robertson, and in 2007, it was Mitt Romney.

But more important even than winning the Straw Poll is beating the expectations game.

In 2007, the important news out of the Ames Straw Poll wasn't that Romney won easily (he had been expected to win -- see above), it was that Huckabee finished ahead of Sen. Sam Brownback, who up until that point had been competing with Huckabee for the support of Iowa's conservative Christians. Broken at the Ames Straw Poll, Brownback withdrew from the race, leaving Iowa's religious right to Huckabee -- and Huckabee used that to springboard to a first-place finish in the caucuses.

In the 2008 Republican caucuses in Iowa, 120,000 Republicans showed up in 1,874 separate gathering places to caucus. According to the exit poll published by MSNBC, 60 percent of those who turned out said they were evangelical Christians, and Huckabee won 46 percent of them -- beating his next closest competitor, Romney, by 27 points.

Asked, "Which ONE candidate quality mattered most in deciding whom to support tonight," 45 percent answered, "Shares my values" -- and Huckabee took 44 percent of these voters. The second-most popular answer, at 33 percent, was "Says what he believes" -- and Huckabee won this group of voters, too, with 33 percent.

Asked "How much does it matter to you that a candidate shares your religious beliefs," 36 percent answered, "A great deal" -- and among these voters, Huckabee took 56 percent, to 11 percent each for Romney, McCain, and former Sen. Fred Thompson.

A pattern emerges -- Iowa Republicans in 2008 favored a candidate who shared their conservative Christian values and was perceived as being a straight shooter.

With no Huckabee in the field in 2012, the religious conservatives who dominate the Iowa caucuses will be looking for a candidate with similar qualities.

That could be Sarah Palin.

It also provides for the possible entry of someone we're not looking at right now (Newt Gingrich?)--someone else with a strong claim to the hearts of the conservative Christians who dominate the Iowa Republican delegate selection process.

Any way you look at it, the events of Sunday morning in Seattle have scrambled the Iowa GOP's delegate selection process for 2012 -- and with it, the calculations for those considering a run at the GOP nod.

And, oh, by the way -- it's just 88 weeks until the Ames Straw Poll.

[itsahoot]

Newt had his own Willie Horton moment last month

He didn't help himself on Hannity last night either. is praise of Obama's decision on Pakistan, was sickening.

[itsahoot]

Newt had his own Willie Horton moment last month

He didn't help himself on Hannity last night either. is praise of Obama's decision on Pakistan, was sickening.

[freedomfiter2]

You’re right and the other candidate in the top two will be the establishment’s fovorite RINO.

[campaignPete R-CT]

Obviously, Pawlenty of neighboring MINN makes a big push in Iowa (as he is in New Hampshire). So does Romney survive Iowa? It is debatable.

The one-state program didn’t work well enough for Huckabee, so I hope Palin doesn’t follow the same script (skip New Hampshire and go south).

[jim35]

“He didn’t help himself on Hannity last night either. is praise of Obama’s decision on Pakistan, was sickening.”

Let us not forget Newt’s glow-bull warming commercial with Pelosi.