Large Turnout in Iowa Caucus Brings Victory to Obama, Huckabee
By Greg Flakus Des Moines, Iowa04 January 2008
Illinois Senator Barack Obama and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee have won the Iowa caucuses held in that Midwestern state on Thursday. Obama, who won the most votes in the Democratic Party caucuses, is the first person of African descent to have won the first-in-the-nation political contest. Huckabee, who won the Republican contest, came from near obscurity to defeat former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who had outspent him on campaign ads in the state. VOA's Greg Flakus was on hand to witness the process and has this report from Des Moines.
So, Obama and Huckabee. How do we feel about this? A bit surprising, perhaps?
Obama, I don't think. We knew he was polling well against Hillary, and there were some negative which were appearing them, foremost IMO her perceived support for the war effort. Whether that was entirely fair or not, I don't know, and it doesn't seem the proper thing given supporting our troops was the right thing to do. But count on the libDem core to be turned off by that.
Now, Huckabee I do count a surprise. Consider he had to pass two people - Giuliani and Romney - to take a victory. Not a terribly easy thing. Why, do you suppose? A Midwesterner speaking to Midwesterners, perhaps? Be that as it may, it was nto entirely unexpected either. But one wonders what it will do to the race. Do Giuliani and Romney brush off the results, confident that when the effort most East (as it will now) that they'll reverse it? What do Thompson and McCain take away from this?
Bottom line question: Do these results appeal to you? Turn off? Energize for any direction, even a different one? I find myself rather blase about it, and am curious to see what others think.
Let's roll, people!
4 comments:
I was speaking to our good friend Paul Viscovich at some length, last night, and he told me something I had known about that occurred in Iowa - how many hear realized that perhaps as many as three Democrat candidates told their people to cast their votes for Obama if their efforts didn't clear the 15% mark.
I knew there was a great deal of antipathy for Hillary on the Right side of the aisle ... but the fact one also exists on the Left came as a bit of a surprise.
The question is, will this continue to play out - and successfully for the anti-Clinton effort - outside of Iowa?
(Paul ... this was your break; I certainly hope you'll expand and comment!)
A much clearer indication of antipathy for Hillary on the left side of the aisle can be seen in the Michigan result. She was the only candidate on the ballot and was guaranteed all the delegates from the state, yet she got only 56% of the vote. That means that 44% of Democratic voters (over 200,000 of them) went to the polls for no reason other than to say, "That Clinton lady, yeah, we really don't like her."
Sorry, a correction is needed in my earlier comment. Per wikipedia, the Democratic National Committee declared that Michigan’s delegates would not count in the nominating contest. Nonetheless my main point stands, there was no significance to the vote of 236,762 democrats other than to express displeasure at Clinton as neither Obama nor Edwards was on the ballot.
So, what's been going on? Any interest in keeping up this blog leading up to November?
Post a Comment