Search Results for ‘caucuses’

Jerry Falwell’s Legacy and Rudy Giuliani

Cross posted at Iowa Independent

Jerry Falwell died two days ago. Will the Christian Right soon follow? That is certainly one of the questions being debated amidst the 2008 presidential contest. The front-runner for the GOP nomination, Rudy Giuliani, is pro-choice. But he has come under fire; recently for these views and his lead is shrinking nationwide and in Iowa.

Will the Christian Right try to stop Giuliani from winning the nomination? Could they if they tried? In this sense, perhaps the real legacy of Jerry Falwell won’t be known until the GOP has its nominee.

The cover story of the New Republic’s current issue is a lengthy (and intriguing) tribute to the idea that Giuliani can win the GOP nomination. Nestled within, however, is this paragraph:

Then, of course, there is the religious right. Though their power is on the wane, Christian conservatives are not going to allow Giuliani to have the nomination without a bitter fight… Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, put it this way: “If he wins, he’ll do so without social conservatives.” Then he added that a Republican presidential candidate can “no more win without conservative voters than a Democrat can without overwhelming support from blacks.”

 

Earlier today, James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, and one of the leaders of today’s Christian conservative movement announced he would not support Giuliani if he were the Republican nominee:

Speaking as a private citizen and not on behalf of any organization or party, I cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008. It is an irrevocable decision. If given a Hobson’s – Dobson’s? – choice between him and Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, I will either cast my ballot for an also-ran – or if worse comes to worst – not vote in a presidential election for the first time in my adult life.

On the other hand, Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, urged social conservatives to give Giuliani a chance. According to the Hotline, Reed told viewers of the Christian Broadcasting Network that Giuliani “can still potentially win over pro-family voters” if he focuses on issues where they agree. Giuliani had campaigned for Reed last May when Reed was running in Georgia’s lieutenant governor primary; Reed went on to lose the election, but has maintained an affinity for Giuliani, apparently talking him up in January at the National Review Institute.

Here in Iowa, Giuliani has the support of former Congressman and failed gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle, who was conservative on social issues while in Congress. However, Nussle’s running mate, the more conservative Bob Vanderplaats, in addition to the very conservative Danny Carroll, has endorsed former Arkansas governor and pastor Mike Huckabee. Iowa Republicans–especially the grassroots–are well known conservatives. Two polls taken in 2000 showed that about 60 percent of likely GOP caucusers thought abortion should be illegal, according to the Des Moines Register. The Register reported in the same article that Giuliani hasn’t decided yet whether to participate in the Ames Straw Poll, a crucial test of Republican support in Iowa.

Whether Giuliani will win the Iowa caucuses or the nomination remains to be seen. But what is clear is that a Giuliani victory would be a crushing blow, perhaps a fitting epitaph, for the movement that Jerry Falwell helped create.

11 comments May 17th, 2007

Rating the First Three Democratic Ads in Iowa

Crossposted from Iowa Independent.

This week marked the first time that candidates were competing head to head with TV ads for the Iowa Caucuses, as John Edwards, Bill Richardson, and Chris Dodd all announced ad buys on local networks and cable. The Edwards and Richardson ads are so unique, that one might call the more boilerplate Dodd ad ‘distinctively normal.’

The first two of the three, from Edwards and Richardson, were not what one might call standard TV ads. In Edwards’s 30-second spot, the first 27 seconds feature “everyday-looking” Iowans finishing each others’ sentences about what Congress should do to end the war (the answer is support Edwards’s call to send the same bill that Bush vetoed back to his desk unchanged). The Senator does not come onto the screen until the mandatory “I’m John Edwards, and I approved this message” tag at the end. It is clearly intended to portray the sense that Edwards’s campaign is more about its supporters than its principal, and it drew quite a bit of notice from media when it was first announced.

In Richardson’s two 30-second spots (one is airing currently, the other is sitting in the can to be aired later), the Governor sits at a desk while a middle management-type interviews him for a job. The tone is something akin to the film Office Space, as the interviewer begins by rattling off impressive facts from Richardson’s resume and ends the second ad by saying, “For what we’re looking for, you might be a little overqualified.” Most people will think the ad is funny, but they won’t realize why: it is because, from Richardson’s point of view, the public is behaving like the caricature of the middle manager, ignoring his resume as if experience weren’t important. The ads are intended to change minds with humor, and the media has been buzzing about them ever since they launched.

On Tuesday, Chris Dodd’s campaign released its new Iowa ad, and it provides a stark contrast to Richardson’s and Edwards’s ad in that it follows the fairly standard format of the candidate talking to a camera for 30 seconds. Although Dodd’s was not the first ad to go up, it is the first standard political ad of the campaign to hit the airwaves. In it, Dodd maintains a serious expression while explaining his support of the Reid-Feingold plan in the Senate. Next to Richardson’s informative-but-funny ad and Edwards’s community-oriented, borderline gimmicky ad, Dodd’s looks stately but uninspired.

Perhaps the Dodd camp has made the calculation that they aren’t going to win by trying to run the most inspiring (or inspired) campaign; they see their opening in wonkish policy plans and sober assessments of reality. I couldn’t get them to reveal this entire campaign strategy to me, but I did ask Dodd’s Iowa Press Secretary, Taylor West, about the distinctive seriousness of the new ad. “There can be no more serious issue confronting the nation than how we bring this war to a responsible close,” she began. “[Dodd’s] campaign and his ads reflect his understanding that at a time when the stakes have never been higher for the country, we need proven, bold leadership.”

All this isn’t to say that Senator Dodd does not have a sense of humor, because he does have at least one joke that we know of that he tells regularly on the campaign trail. Still, Dodd’s new web site has launched, and it promises to make full use of all the latest Web 2.0 crazes that often impress netroots activists. Perhaps what we are seeing now is the beginning of Dodd’s repositioning himself to appeal more to policy wonks, technocrats, and bloggers, and this experiment might just work.

Video of all three candidates’ ads is below:

Edwards ad:

Richardson ads (the first is airing now; the one that plays after it in the clip below is likely to air later on):

Dodd ad:

43 comments May 16th, 2007

Frontloading and the Future of the Iowa Caucuses (part 972)

In an article for the New Republic online, Jonathan Cohn points out that one possible unintended consequence of the frontloaded primary system is that it increases the likelihood of a protracted primary and would elevate the importance of late primaries like those in Oregon and West Virginia. While almost every four years, political pundits salivate at that thought of a fierce primary that would last months or even a floor fight at the convention to determine the nomination, Cohn hints at a more disturbing historic truth in his article: the primaries that he mentions as the late primaries, Oregon, West Virginia and Indiana were once the early primaries. West Virginia was where John Kennedy effectively clinched the nomination in 1960 and Indiana and Oregon were decisive battlegrounds in the 1968 primary contest between Hubert Humphrey, Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy. (The first time a Kennedy ever lost an election was when Bobby Kennedy finished second to Eugene McCarthy in Oregon.) The drift of the primary schedule has turned what were once early primaries into laggards.

We’ve expressed our concern about the frontloading of the primary process before. But this drift towards earlier primaries has the potential to end the Iowa Caucuses as we know them. The “Super-Duper Tuesday” on February 5th and Florida’s move to hold its primary on January 29 may force the Iowa Caucuses to be held, at latest, on January 7. If this trend continues, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the caucuses are held in 2007 in order to preserve their primacy. If that happens, then the Caucuses are finished. Holding a Presidential Primary or Caucus in 2007 would be so absurd that it would make wholesale reform of the Presidential nominating process inevitable. If there is top to bottom reform of the process, Iowa will not be first in the nation anymore. The interests opposed to Iowa are dramatically stronger than those that support Iowa and once the caucuses lose the advantage of stasis and institutional conservativism, the Iowa Caucuses will be not be first in the nation before. The timeline for selecting a Presidential nominee has drifted earlier and earlier every election. But this drift cannot go on indefinitely and it seems increasingly likely that it will be ended after 2008 as the possibility for root and branch reform grows greater as another Presidential primary moves up in the calendar. And it seems more likely that one of the prime candidates for root and branch reform will be the Iowa Caucuses.

The timeline for selecting a Presidential nominee has drifted earlier and earlier every election. But this drift cannot go on indefinitely, and it seems increasingly likely that it will be ended after 2008, as the possibility for root and branch reform grows greater, and as another Presidential primary moves up in the calendar. And it seems more likely that one of the prime candidates for root and branch reform will be the Iowa Caucuses.

1 comment March 25th, 2007

The Power (and Danger) of Internet Ads

There is an issue in the news right now that is of greatest interest to Iowans. I’m not taking about frontloading the primary schedule, but rather the exponentially increasing role of the internet in campaigns. While it remains to be seen what impact it will have had when this process culminates on January 14, 2008, we have already seen the effect it can have for a candidate. Many have credited YouTube for handing Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) and the Democrats the senate majority, thanks to a video featuring now former Senator George Allen calling a Webb staffer a “macaca.” Facebook and MySpace have also thrown their names into the political arena. While this may get many more people involved in the caucuses, it is increasingly difficult for the rest of us to process such a large volume of information and take the time to make sense of it for ourselves.

A prime example of this is a video entitled “Vote Different.” Posted on YouTube two weeks ago, it has been viewed over 919,000 times. It is a testament to the power of such ad campaigns on the internet. If you haven’t seen it, watch it for yourself.

Upon first glance, you should notice a few things. First is that it is a clever mashup of the famous 1984 Super Bowl ad introducing Apple Macintosh to the computer world. Secondly, it appears to be obvious that it is from the Obama campaign. This is a view that many major sources of news media have advanced. It’s a fair statement. The woman with the hammer has the symbol of Obama’s campaign on her shirt, and at the end of the ad is Obama’s web address.

But something just doesn’t seem right. Why would that particular sound bite be chose? There must be something that gets their message across more efficiently. They show Hillary’s explicit attempt to come across as a regular person, having a “conversation” with each of us individually. Now watch the original. The Macintosh ad speaks of “one people, one will, one resolve, one cause,” and “a garden of pure ideology where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests of any contradictory thoughts,” all coming from a voice that is meant to sound evil. It completely contradicts with Hillary’s explicit statement that “we all need to be part of the discussion,” and “I don’t want people who agree with me.” Themes such as unity, and “one people” are actually coming from the Obama campaign. Also notice the change in contrast between the two, as Hillary is bright white, as opposed to the dark room. The image of the “big brother” is dark, and blends with the dark wall, with a lighter room.

Now consider that the video was posted by someone with the username “ParkRidge47.” It is significant in that Senator Clinton was born in Park Ridge in 1947. It was also posted with the text: “Make up your own mind. Decide for yourself who should be our next president,” very much in line with the Hillary sound bite. So let’s say this actually is from the Clinton campaign. Could the message be that she is trying to create an exchange of ideas to make everyone better off, thus distancing herself from the image of politics that she is associated (i.e. a war of the partisans or even a politics as a competitive sport in which the American people are spectators)?

In the original commercial, the power comes from the irony of the hammer hitting the screen just as the “big brother” says “we will prevail.” In the mashup, the hammer hits Hillary as she says “I want to keep this conversation going until November, 2008.” Also notice that the woman with the Obama symbol is now wearing an ipod, symbolizing that she refuses to take part in Hillary’s conversation, and is then actually stops it suggesting that Obama is the one who wants to end her conversation. As for the reason why 2008 won’t be like “1984,” that is the year that Walter Mondale, running as an unabashed liberal, lost forty-nine of the fifty states in the general election. This suggests that having Hillary on the Democratic ticket would result in a different outcome this time around. This message is made clearer by having Obama associated with the black screen, while Hillary is associated with white.

Both sides have denied responsibility for the mashup, and I personally don’t subscribe to either view. We just don’t know, and can’t say for sure where this ad came from. My point is that not everything will be as it appears this campaign season. We must all take a closer look at everything we see and form our own opinions. It’s not an easy job, but it is our responsibility to do so.

Add comment March 21st, 2007

Candidates Take Varying Approaches to Hiring Staff in Iowa

After the Edwards campaign released its list of “senior Iowa staff” the other day, I thought it might be prudent to discuss how each campaign’s staff is shaping up. Their differing approaches are interesting, at least, and they could make a difference by the time the caucuses come around next January.

First up, the Obama campaign has been doing quite a bit of hiring over the last month. All of their key positions (regional field director, state field director, state director, and deputy state director) are filled, and they are hiring on new field organizers every week. Some have compared Obama’s staff to Howard Dean’s from four years ago, because it seems to include an unusual number of ideologically motivated young people, many of whom have never worked a caucus before. Their typical field organizer offer, which is the lowest of the candidates reviewed here, is $2,000 per month. Because Senator Obama is so magnetic, they are having no trouble filling positions, but the low salary may not be enough to entice experienced operatives.

Next, the Edwards campaign has staffed all or most of its key positions as well, and has begun hiring field organizers. In contrast to Obama’s staff, most of Edwards’s staff so far have Iowa political experience, and many have also worked with state director Jennifer O’Malley or state field director Jackie Lee before. General impressions from folks seem to be that the Edwards staff has things together, that their hiring process is quicker and perhaps more organized than Obama’s, and that they already have a more specific plan in place. Their typical field organizer offer seems to be $2,500 per month.

And finally, Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been a bit slower to announce their hiring decisions here, but those whom they have hired have impressive resumes. Staffers who may not have significant Iowa experience but who have significant experience elsewhere are taking positions on the Clinton campaign that are well below where the staffers might be in most campaign hierarchies. Clinton is paying field organizers about $2,750 per month — the most of any candidate — although from what we know here, many positions have not been filled.

Beyond these “big three” campaigns, none of the others have hired (or begun to hire) a full staff here. Dodd, Richardson, and Biden all have a few folks on the ground here, but not enough to get a general impression yet.

How the staffing differences will affect the caucuses, nobody knows, but past caucuses have proven that staff strength can be a major factor in the final delegate counts. Without a sound field strategy in place, a campaign cannot win Iowa, and that takes a good staff.

3 comments March 20th, 2007

A (Partial) Defense of the Iowa Caucuses

I know, I live in Iowa, so a defense of the caucuses that comes from me is just going to seem like I’m greedy.  I should say that before I moved to Iowa for college four years ago, I shared the opinion that the importance of the caucuses is unjustifiable, and that a national primary would be more democratic.  Then I experienced the caucuses (in 2004), and I changed my mind.

Over on MyDD, desmoinesdem published the second part of her diary series, “How the Iowa caucuses work.”  She echoes concerns that we brought up here about inequalities in the caucus system based on delegate assignment, demonstrating that it takes more caucus-goers to elect a delegate in precincts with higher concentrations of activist Democrats who have free evenings than in precincts with lower concentrations of said activists.  (E.g., it took about 70 caucus-goers to elect one delegate in the Poweshiek County, where I caucused in 2004, while in less-Democratic and less-populous Fremont County, it only took 22 caucus-goers to elect one delegate.)

The conclusion of all of this?  The caucus system (according to our own Geraldine) “favors the old over the young, the rural over the urban, Western Iowa over Eastern Iowa.”

Why is this wrong?  Well, while the caucus system seems to create inequalities on the surface, it can compensate for deeper inequalities.  Many have complained, here and elsewhere, that the Iowa Caucuses are unfair to families with young children, workers who have evening shifts, handicapped persons, and, generally, people with busy schedules, because it requires them to take several hours out of a weekday night to argue with their neighbors about politics.  Not everyone can do that, and it’s understandable.

That is why precincts are assigned delegates before caucus night: if a disproportionate number of Democrats in X precinct have to work the night shift or have young children (or even if there’s a blizzard), the system currently in place ensures that their precinct will still be important.  And precincts are the smallest geographic unit our election officials recognize for general elections, so it is assumed that others in your precinct likely represent similar interests to yours.  Think of it as a much more geographically specific version of the electoral college.  (Maybe you have your problems with that system, too, but at least this caucus math has a constitutional precedent.)

Aside from that, though, here’s a question nobody has asked: what is the harm in giving Iowa’s downtrodden rural hamlets and agricultural areas a little attention from the rest of the country every four years?  It isn’t like John Edwards is going to spend the last week before the caucuses camped out in Keokuk and Grundy Counties just because each caucus-goer is worth more there.  At the end of the day, Keokuk and Grundy still represent a tiny fraction of the total delegates needed to win, and putting on events and doing GOTV work is easier and far more efficient in urban areas like Des Moines and Cedar Rapids.

While disparities in caucus-goer to delegate ratios from county to county may seem a little alarming, the truth is that urban areas are still immensely important, and that a candidate can win the caucuses without putting practically any resources into the less populous half of Iowa’s 99 counties.  A campaign will hire more than 10 full-time field organizers for Polk County before they will hire a single full-time organizer for Grundy County.  And most importantly, I don’t know a single Iowa Democrat who will argue that Polk County (Des Moines area) Democrats don’t have enough influence on state politics, the state party, or the caucuses.

I hope this will be the start of a series of posts written here as a defense of the Iowa Caucuses.  Toward that end, I’m looking for more arguments to respond to.  So, dear readers, please participate: What arguments against the Iowa Caucuses do you find most compelling? 

7 comments March 6th, 2007

The Health Care Connundrum

Health care is shaping up to be the most important issue in the United States for the first time since the early 1990s in the coming election. It is an issue that all the Democratic candidates have been addressing here in Iowa and one that they will continue to address until the caucuses. A recent New York Times poll gives a lot of perspective about how the candidates are and should be addressing the issue. According to the poll, 90% of Americans think our health care system needs either fundamental changes or to be completely rebuilt and a disproportionate percentage of Americans, 62%, trust Democrats to improve the health care system. One may think this is an easy chance for Democratic candidates to push a massive reform like a single payer health care system but popular opinion about health care reform is much more complex than it seems.

64% of Americans think the government should guarantee health care for all Americans, which is an increase of 10% since 1996 and by a 2 to 1 margin, Americans think its worth paying higher taxes so everyone can have health insurance. When asked on the details of health care plans, Americans favor a single payer solution over the current model by a margin of 47 to 38 percent. However there is a big gap between how people percieve health care in general in the U.S. and their own individual health care coverage. While 57% of Americans are somewhat or very dissatisfied with the state of health care in the United States, only 20% of Americans are somewhat or very dissatisfied with their own health care. This trend also holds with the cost of health care. A whopping 81% of Americans are somewhat or very dissatisfied with the cost of healthcare in the U.S. but only a bare majority, 53%, are dissatisified with the cost of their own health care.

Only one candidate has introduced a health care plan so far, John Edwards. His health care plan tries to balance the concerns expressed in the poll of universal coverage without affecting people who already have health insurance. Unfortunately, it comes across as a little complex as a result. The poll results belied this. People who expressed an opinion about it favored the plan by a margin of over 2 to 1. However, nearly half of all poll respondents were unsure, which is a sure sign that it confused a lot of people.

This deftly illustrates the problems that candidates face. When like John Edwards, or Bill Clinton in his first term, they fix our dysfunctional health care system while taking into account the relative satisfaction that individuals feel about their personal health care plans, the result is confusion. However, if you try to set up a single payer plan, it makes people afraid that they will lose their health care. The result gives a candidate two difficult choices between what type of health care plan to propose. John Edwards has already picked one option and it will be interesting to see what the other candidates do.

Add comment March 1st, 2007

Caucus Correction

In January, we posted the complete list of how many caucus delegates each county would be apportioned in the caucuses. However, as Drew points out on Bleeding Heartland, the IDP has reduced the total number of delegates from 3000 to 2500. As a result, the number of delegates from each county at the State Convention has been reduced accordingly. Here’s the corrected list:

County Delegate
1 Polk 357.0258199
2 Linn 202.1855356
3 Scott 141.5583295
4 Johnson 136.9502264
5 Black Hawk 116.9633193
6 Dubuque 89.53813553
7 Story 76.49680278
8 Woodbury 67.55177384
9 Pottawattamie 54.72432734
10 Clinton 45.83467967
11 Cerro Gordo 45.67426497
12 Des Moines 41.19029231
13 Dallas 38.58355352
14 Warren 37.41290819
15 Jasper 34.56172796
16 Lee 33.74437689
17 Webster 32.34265801
18 Marshall 31.88624001
19 Muscatine 31.4431899
20 Wapello 31.08798593
21 Boone 23.89606044
22 Benton 22.94694017
23 Marion 22.52298704
24 Bremer 21.24157918
25 Jackson 19.54385699
26 Buchanan 19.5419473
27 Fayette 18.29109462
28 Jones 17.68190071
29 Winneshiek 17.52339572
30 Poweshiek 17.42982048
31 Cedar 16.1751484
32 Clayton 16.14459322
33 Tama 15.73209829
34 Carroll 15.66525884
35 Washington 15.62897456
36 Floyd 15.49147625
37 Jefferson 15.05224554
38 Delaware 14.68367368
39 Dickinson 14.21770718
40 Henry 14.12604164
41 Hardin 14.09357677
42 Kossuth 14.01718882
43 Hamilton 13.64288786
44 Plymouth 13.45764708
45 Iowa 13.36980094
46 Winnebago 13.11390131
47 Chickasaw 12.86945987
48 Mahaska 12.80834951
49 Buena Vista 12.30227934
50 Madison 12.0521088
51 Clay 11.7446473
52 Allamakee 11.61860719
53 Butler 10.81271432
54 Appanoose 10.55872438
55 Crawford 10.28181806
56 Wright 10.12331307
57 Harrison 10.01636994
58 Cherokee 9.55422284
59 Mitchell 9.525577359
60 Cass 9.145547308
61 Union 8.914473759
62 Guthrie 8.876279784
63 Howard 8.845724604
64 Hancock 8.773156052
65 Palo Alto 8.377848411
66 Grundy 8.366390218
67 Greene 8.290002268
68 Clarke 8.032192937
69 Worth 8.005457155
70 Calhoun 7.925249807
71 Shelby 7.923340109
72 Keokuk 7.881326736
73 Louisa 7.864139447
74 Franklin 7.818306677
75 Monona 7.659801681
76 Sioux 7.465012409
77 Page 7.457373614
78 Mills 7.428728133
79 Humboldt 7.405811748
80 O’Brien 7.331333497
81 Sac 7.23393886
82 Lucas 7.014323504
83 Emmet 6.808076039
84 Adair 6.491066047
85 Monroe 6.483427252
86 Decatur 6.45669147
87 Davis 6.187423946
88 Montgomery 6.007912264
89 Pocahontas 6.002183167
90 Audubon 5.4942033
91 Van Buren 5.41781535
92 Fremont 5.140909032
93 Wayne 4.678761934
94 Taylor 4.648206754
95 Ida 4.556541215
96 Ringgold 4.537444227
97 Lyon 4.275815498
98 Adams 3.439367447
99 Osceola 3.082253781

1 comment March 1st, 2007

Who Will Go To The GOP Caucuses?

The Politico has this profile of the head of the far right Iowa Christian Alliance, Steve Scheffler. Scheffler has become a major player in Iowa Republican politics over the past six years as the far right has reasserted its dominance over the Republican Party of Iowa as Democratic majorities in both houses of the state legislature, Iowa congressional delegation and our control of the Governorship attest to. Scheffler brags in the article that three quarters of the Republicans who show up to caucus “will be down the line on life, immigration, marriage and spending.” Aside from that fact that these aren’t all typical social conservative hot-button issues, it gets to the question of what the actual composition of the caucus crowd will be.

Every candidate tries to draw out special niches that they think that they will get a lot of support from. In 2004, as Roger Simon’s classic piece about the caucuses noted “Dick Gephardt targeted family farmers; Howard Dean went after the young and disenchanted; [John] Kerry pursued veterans.” With both parties holding highly competitive caucuses, there will be a lot of competition for both groups. It’s fair to say though that we can tell some of the core demographics that candidates will go after in 2008. McCain will go after veterans (and Giuliani may too), Romney will go after fellow Mormons (there aren’t a lot in Iowa but enough to make a difference), Huckabee and Brownback after fellow evangelicals (perhaps special denominational focuses after Protestants and Catholics respectively). All the candidates will go after people in all of these communities but there are some communities where they have a more significant appeal. So why does this matter? Because every person who goes to the Republican caucuses is someone who cannot go to the Democratic ones. In 2004, the fight for the Republican nomination was not competitive. This meant that only diehard Republicans attended the caucuses. In 2008, both parties will feature highly competitive primary battles. That means there will be big advantages for candidates whose niche voters are also their party’s base voters. Of all the candidates mentioned, this has big ramifications for John McCain, his special appeal is with veterans and he will probably try to emulate John Kerry’s strategy of wooing veterans in 2004. Kerry was able to attract quite a few veterans who were Independents and Republicans to come caucus for him in 2004. The problem for McCain is, many Democratic veterans will be participating in the Democratic caucuses. Another problem is that all the Republican veterans who showed up to support John Kerry will getting harassed by Democratic candidates as well, since they showed up to a previous Democratic caucus. This means that they’ll be getting a ton of phone calls from Democrats, which will drown out any attempt by McCain to reach out to them. This puts McCain at a disadvantage and it makes more likely that a right winger will triumph in Iowa on caucus night.

1 comment March 1st, 2007

Momentum Grows For A National Primary

The Hill is reporting that it seems quite likely that 20 states will hold a national primary on February 5. We’ve reported on the issues that this frontloading can cause before. There’s also a Bleeding Heartland post about possible alternatives to the entire primary system. With states all shifting their dates up, it will definitely make the caucuses more important. Unfortunately, it may also lead to the caucuses being held in 2007 too.

1 comment February 28th, 2007

Next Posts Previous Posts


Calendar

December 2008
M T W T F S S
« Jun    
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  

Posts by Month

Posts by Category