By now you've seen the results from Iowa. On the Democratic side Barack Obama pulled away from John Edwards and Hillary Clinton in a race that had been very tight. On the Republican side Mike Huckabee surged from nowhere three months ago to take the lead from Mitt Romney, then held off Romney's comeback attempt to post a solid victory.
Here are the latest, nearly complete figures:
Democrats (caucuses) Obama 38%, Edwards 30%, Clinton 29%, Richardson 2%, Biden 1%. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd are ending their campaigns. Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel vow to fight on.
Republicans (straw vote) Huckabee 34%, Romney 25%, Thompson 13%, McCain 13%, Paul 10%, Giuliani 3%.
Most media reporting has concentrated on Obama's groundbreaking win as an African-American and Huckabee's remarkable win despite Romney's immense financial advantage. They seem to feel Obama may be all but unstoppable now but that Huckabee may face rough sledding in Northern and urban states against Romney, Giuliani and McCain. Whether or not these prognostications materialize, time will tell. I'll have more to say in future posts. For tonight, though, I can't help drawing two conclusions from what transpired. The first has been talked about quite a bit, perhaps no better than by John Edwards, who said, "Tonight change won. The status quo lost." The second is that the Iowa voting bodes extremely well for the Democrats in 2008.
The big message of the evening was change. Of the Democrats Obama is the vision candidate. Edwards is the populist. Clinton ran on competence and change largely within the system. She came in third. A close third, to be sure, but third nonetheless. Democrats tend to favor change more than Republicans to begin with, and after seven years of a Republican president and six of a Republican congress that have thoroughly infuriated them this impulse for change has seldom been stronger. The only question for Democrats is how to effect it. Edwards's promise is to fight the institutions and groups that have been holding it back. Clinton pledges to work the levers of power to gain change politically. The similarity between both is the likelihood of partisan confrontation. Obama's tone has been quite different; he evokes instead a transformational appeal that he sometimes refers to as "postpartisan." His eloquent Iowa victory speech is one of the finest expositions of it yet given in American politics. Whether this can actually work in Washington is anybody's guess, and the historical record is not promising. But there is no question it speaks to a deep yearning that has been building in American society for some years now.
Serious problems beset the republic. Energy, education, debt, social security, exporting jobs, crime and Iraq are examples of problems that have been around for a long time now. There has been a great deal of sound, fury and finger pointing about them. And still they go unsolved while the parties and advocacy groups hurl blame. This is why Obama won. Although his voting record and proposals are quite liberal, his tone is inclusive and his approach conciliatory. Americans, fed up with anger and division, seek deliverance. Obama, by virtue of who he is and how he appeals for change, calls us to hear "the better angels of our nature," as Lincoln put it, and strikes a healing chord many are hungry to hear. It is also no surprise to learn that entrance and exit polls indicate Obama's margin of victory is attributable to the large numbers of independent voters at the Democratic caucuses. His "postpartisan" message is doubtlessly particularly appealing to them.
Change was also the strong message in the Republican results. Together, Huckabee, McCain and Paul garnered 57% of the Republican votes. The more conventional hard-edged candidates, Romney, Thompson, Giuliani and Hunter polled only 43%. Huckabee's ideas are conservative, but expressed in a calm and personable manner that frequently includes a humane element absent from his more hard boiled opponents. His debate admonition not to forget that illegal immigrants are human beings too stands as an instructive example. Its seeming sincerity stands as counterpoint to George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" slogan of 2000 that has in operation appeared more rhetoric than reality. In McCain's case, his predilection for striking an independent course from party orthodoxy is so well known that "maverick" is practically regarded as his middle name. He's opposed the majority of his party on the Bush tax cuts, campaign finance, torture and immigration yet still nearly came in third in Iowa despite hardly campaigning in the state. Paul got 10% as the most obvious change agent due to his opposition to the war in Iraq and his libertarian social and economic stands. Their combined 57% shows that Republicans too were eager to throw a few rocks through the windows of the status quo.
The second underlying message from Iowa tonight is that 2008 could well be shaping up as a banner year for the Democrats and a potentially devastating one for the Republicans. The turnout figures there are ominous for the GOP. The previous record turnout for the Iowa Democratic caucuses was 125,000 in 2004. Tonight they drew an estimated 232,000 people, an 86% gain and a powerful indicator of the interest and enthusiasm for the Democratic race and its candidates. By contrast, the Republican contest attracted about 115,000, still equal to the state record set in 1980, but more than 115,000 behind the Democrats. This comes in a state with 600,000 registered Democrats, 574,000 Republicans and 737,000 "undeclared" voters, who can choose to caucus with either party. For the Republicans to trail by only 26,000 voters statewide but get 115,000 fewer to the polls is extremely worrisome for their prospects in November. Certainly a great number of these were "undeclared" voters who found the Democratic race or candidates more appealing. No doubt many others were Democrats who haven't usually participated in the past. Entrance polls showed that these first-time caucusers broke heavily for the Democrats and for Obama. Neither development is good news for the Republicans, especially considering George W. Bush won the state in 2004 by less than 1%. It will be telling to see if this trend is repeated in New Hampshire and other upcoming primary and caucus states. Perhaps this was a unique blip just for Iowa. But if not it could be a long year for the GOP.
No comments:
Post a Comment