January 03, 2008

1/3: Your Move, Iowa

Caucus Day is finally here, and bloggers are making their final predictions. Most conservative bloggers seem to be picking Mitt Romney to edge Mike Huckabee in the GOP caucus race. Few liberal bloggers are venturing to make predictions about the tight-as-a-tick Dem race, but those who are seem to think that Barack Obama will triumph. However, it is clear that most of the leading liberal bloggers are actively rooting for John Edwards, whose unabashedly populist message garnered him 48% in the latest Daily Kos Straw Poll -- his best showing ever. Should Obama win tonight, will his netroots critics react with anger and dismay? Or will they follow the lead of Markos Moulitsas, who recently wrote:

"Given the minor differences in policy, and the vast gap between them and the chamber of horrors the GOP has put forth, I'll be satisfied with any of these candidates as my nominee. None of them rock my world, there are no true people-powered candidates in our field (the only one is Ron Paul, on the other side)...With no obvious gate-crashing people-powered candidate, and with what really is solid field, I'm left firmly in the undecided camp."

DEM FIELD: The Netroots Want Edwards

Salon's Joan Walsh recently praised the leading netroots bloggers for not endorsing candidates in the primary:

"Much was written in 2007, much of it wrong (I weighed in, perhaps also wrong, here) about the attempt by liberal blogfathers to play Democratic powerbrokers in 2004 and 2006, and it was assumed there would be a 2008 sequel. But the real story is that the biggest names of the lefty blogosphere -- Markos Moulitsas, Duncan Black, Jane Hamsher, Jerome Armstrong, Matt Stoller, less surprisingly (because I think of them primarily as journalists) Digby and Josh Marshall and our own Glenn Greenwald -- have decided not to publicly endorse. I don't know what they're saying privately, but from what I can see publicly, most are spending their time trying to dampen conflict among hot-headed readers who stridently support one of the Democrats...Given what's at stake in this election, as well as the relative quality of the Democratic field, the respected bloggers could be crucial in making sure trademark circular firing squads don't decimate the party's fractious base. There's an integrity and maturity in the role leading liberal bloggers are playing on the eve of the first 2008 votes, and it's exciting to see."

While Walsh is correct that most of the major liberal bloggers aren't raising funds or mobilizing support for any of the candidates, many of them are openly rooting for Edwards:

Open Left's Chris Bowers: "If Edwards wins, the narrative will be about progressivism and populism rising. If Obama wins, the narrative will be about partisanship and ideology declining. If [Hillary] Clinton wins, the narrative will probably be about political skill, or something...the apparent truth is that an Edwards victory in Iowa will result in much better press for progressives than either a Clinton or Obama victory. Also, beyond the Democratic nomination narrative, consider the rhetoric Clinton, Edwards and Obama would choose in the general elections. As TocqueDeville has pointed out, if Edwards were to become the nominee, we can expect nine months of populist, anti-corporate, anti-elites rhetoric. For my money, that is far preferable to hearing nine months of rhetoric about experience and getting things done, or nine months of rhetoric about the start of a post-partisan, post-ideological age."

Open Left's Matt Stoller: "Like Chris, I'll be rooting for a John Edwards win in the Iowa caucuses...Only Edwards has put forward an aggressive populist message, one conducive to the partisanship we need. And while he has no strong political accomplishments and I'm not sure he'd run a good general election campaign, he's succeeding somehow in Iowa with almost no media focus and a deep hostility from DC (marked by his fundraising circles, which unlike those of Clinton and Obama are entirely driven by non-DC sources). That is admirable, even if I don't fully understand how he's doing it."

MyDD's David Mizner: "I've long hoped that influential bloggers would take up sides in the primary because active support from the sphere increases its relevancy, and because I figured that Edwards would be the primary beneficiary of endorsements. In the past week, both Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller have said they're rooting for Edwards. Though neither offered exactly a ringing endorsement, each recognizes what's increasingly clear: whatever his flaws, Edwards offers the best hope for a progressive revival."

The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "If Edwards wins in Iowa by running left and pissing people off, that'll be a good thing for the world. By contrast, while there's a lot I like about Barack Obama, if he wins Iowa it won't have been by running hard on the things I like best about him."

DEM FIELD II: Everything's Up In The Air

In a long, detailed post, Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal offers some final thoughts on polling the Iowa Caucus:

"1.) We Have No Idea Who Will Win. Yes, despite tens of thousand of interviews, polls of every shape, size and method and our own fancy charts featuring regression-derived trend lines of varying degrees of sensitivity, the only thing we can say with confidence is that the Democratic and Republican races are close [...]

2.) Methodology Matters. [...] On the Democratic side, it has long been clear that John Edwards does better in polls that include bigger percentages of past caucus goers, and more recent surveys show Hillary Clinton and especially Barack Obama doing better as the samples include more first-time caucus goers.

3.) Our Regression Estimates (and Poll Averages) Don't Help. [...] Our current regression estimates are incredibly close, with only a point or two separating Clinton, Obama and Edwards among Democrats...However, those estimates essentially split the difference among the various methodologies. If the consensus guess about the best way to 'model' the turnout is wrong, then the averages will be wrong too.

4.) So What Do We Know About the Horserace? The Democratic race is now obviously a three-way contest between Clinton, Edwards and Obama...the variation in the composition of the likely electorate tells us the likely story of the race. We just don't know the ending yet. [...]"

Pollster John Zogby, writing in the Huffington Post, sees the distinct possibility of a three-way tie: "Everything I have been observing about a three-way tie, with no defined winner or loser, still holds true as a real possibility...I've been on the record for a while now suggesting that any one of the top three Democrats can come in first -- and any one of them can come in third. That is still very true. But my comments have been normally followed with the argument that a third place for any of them would be devastating. I am amending that second part. This race could stay very close and we may emerge with all three as viable candidates going into New Hampshire."

OBAMA: Finishing Strong?

Many bloggers are taking their cue from the Des Moines Register poll and the Zogby Daily Tracking Poll and predicting an Obama victory:

RCP Blog's Tom Bevan: "I'll be shocked if Barack Obama doesn't win. In fact, I think he's potentially sitting on a very big win. He seems to have upward momentum in the polls, his crowds are huge, and his message appears to still be connecting with voters and there is no indication that he's experiencing an erosion of support in the final hours of the campaign. In other words, all the signs are pointing to a strong finish for Obama."

Iowa Independent's Douglas Burns: "I expect Barack Obama to win the Democratic Iowa presidential caucuses Thursday night. He has succeeded in turning lightning in a bottle, that transcendent speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, into an enduring legacy and boots-on-the-ground effective campaign in Iowa."

Open Left's Chris Bowers: "I'm not convinced that a narrow victory in Iowa would give Obama enough of a boost to win New Hampshire. I am also not convinced that two narrow victories would give him enough of a boost to take over the national lead. However, this is what we should expect based on the results of the 1988 and 2004 Democratic campaigns. While that isn't much to go on, trying to figure out how much momentum someone will get from an earlier state victory is an extremely difficult and nebulous task, at best, no matter how much data you have. Further, Obama might not win Iowa, or even finish in second. However, at this late date, with one or two Iowa poll still pending, if I am pushed to pick a winner in Iowa and in the nomination campaign overall, right now I'll pick Obama."

TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "I'll accept the Iowa Gold Standard poll's order of finish. Obama by 3 over Hillary 3 ahead of Edwards. Biden 4th. Richardson 5th. Dodd 6th. Gravel and Kucinich last. The spin? A HUGE win for Obama and he rolls on to the nomination."

MyDD's Jerome Armstrong: "I expect Obama to win, I'd be shocked to see Clinton win, but I'm rooting for Edwards to win."

CLINTON: Rising Or Falling?

Only a few bloggers are predicting an HRC victory:

Talk Left's Jeralyn Merritt: "I think Hillary comes in first and Edwards second."

Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher thinks HRC's older supporters give her a slight edge: "Obama's supporters are young and really enthusiastic. His crowds are bigger than Clinton's, and if passion could take the day, he'd do it. At Clinton's rally today in Cedar Rapids (above), her followers are older and have the air of being civic leaders...Candidates need people who can show up and argue persuasively for them in a community situation. If the person who grants you your bank loan, who sits on the city council, who employs your kid at the local hardware store is saying one thing and a bunch of impassioned teenagers are arguing another, after eyeballing their respective crowds I'd have to give the advantage to Clinton."

The Left Coaster's Turkana is skeptical about HRC's chances: "Obama's surge seems to be for real. So does Hillary's collapse."

GOP FIELD: Risk Vs. Reward

NRO's John O'Sullivan offers his thoughts on the GOP race and takes a final shot at Huckabee: "The voters will begin to issue their verdicts [tonight]. In doing so, they should remember the following points: Romney or [Fred] Thompson may have a lesser chance of winning the general election than either [John] McCain or [Rudy] Giuliani. But if either wins the election, they are certain to form a more conservative administration than either McCain or Giuliani. So you take only one risk of disappointment with Mitt and Fred versus two risks of disappointment with Rudy and one risk plus one certainty of disappointment with John. And Huckabee...don't ask!"

ROMNEY: Cruising To Victory?

Most conservative bloggers are following Robert Novak's lead in predicting a Romney win tonight:

Power Line's John Hinderaker: "For what it's worth, I think Mitt Romney will win the Iowa caucuses tomorrow, and John McCain will win New Hampshire. Neither will be a photo finish."

AmSpec Blog's John Tabin: "This might be wishful thinking, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say Romney wins tonight."

RedState's Leon H. Wolf: "I expect Mitt to win by 3-5 points...However, this highlights part of Mitt's problem: so does everyone else. And like Huckabee, if he finishes second, even by a close margin, this deals a severe blow to the morale of his campaign, at a time when John McCain is breathing down his neck in his second stronghold (NH). A win here puts Romney in good position to win either NH or MI and his campaign will be right on track, a loss and the picture is much murkier."

NRO's David Freddoso: "Romney should win. Public polls are mixed, but one campaign's internals put him four to seven points ahead of Huckabee. Romney's people are playing the expectations game by predicting a tie, but they will not admit the possibility of a loss. The candidate himself has predicted a win, which demonstrates that he is not trying to game expectations by portraying himself as the underdog. And then there's the fact that Huckabee has sort of done his 'going-negative-by-not-going-negative' thing. This could be read in any number of ways, I admit, but campaigns go negative late when they feel they are losing."

One notable exception is Right Wing News' John Hawkins, who thinks Huckabee will win:

"Although it's notoriously difficult to predict who's going to win and lose in Iowa because of the number of candidates still in the hunt, the tiny percentage of Iowians who actually vote, and because of the unpredictability of the caucuses, here are some predictions about who's going to win....

1) Mike Huckabee
2) Mitt Romney
3) John McCain
4) Fred Thompson
5) Ron Paul
6) Rudy Giuliani"

Meanwhile, AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein thinks Romney must win Iowa if he wants to win the nomination: "Though Romney says that he'd be happy with a silver in the Hawkeye State, I think he needs to win here. One of the things that has helped Romney in the polls is the calculation that he's electable because he's run a very strong, well-managed campaign. He set a strategy at the beginning of the year to win in Iowa and New Hampshire, worked like the dickens (as he would put it) to see it through, spent a ton of time and money in Iowa, and built a world class organization here. If he loses to Mike Huckabee, who has spent a fraction of the money and has a comparatively small formal organization, it will be a major blow to the Romney concept of running a presidential campaign like a business venture. It will mean that at the end of the day, regular voters weren't buying his product."

NRO's Rich Lowry agrees: "It's looking more and more like [Romney] needs a win to cushion the blow of losing New Hampshire, where McCain continues to surge as Rudy fades...The Romney people have got to be hoping that Thompson can just barely outdistance the Arizona senator for third, but he might not have enough gas in his tank to do it."

AmSpec Blog's James Antle is less certain: "I agree that an Iowa loss would certainly demonstrate some underlying weaknesses in Romney's candidacy -- at the very least, it would suggest that doubts about Romney's sincerity can't be easily overcome by familiarity, improved name ID, money, advertising, and organization. But there are a lot of variables that go into deciding whether an Iowa loss would finish Romney off. We'll know the answers soon enough. In the meantime, put me down as a definite maybe."

ROMNEY II: Can't Buy Me (Media) Love

Campaign Standard's Richelieu thinks the mainstream media has it in for Romney: "In every presidential primary the elite political press corps picks one candidate to thoroughly (and rather unfairly) despise. What triggers this is hard to calculate, but the usual ingredients are strong funding, perceived pandering, and a conservative stance on most social issues. Think Phil Gramm in 1995. Today the candidate the media love to despise is Mitt Romney. It will be interesting to see how the media will cover the story if Romney indeed beats Huckabee tomorrow night in Iowa. Will they (honestly) report an impressive comeback win, or will the snarky and contemptuous tone of most Romney coverage continue?"

Campaign Standard's William Kristol agrees: "The media resents and dislikes Romney, for some good reasons and mostly bad ones. Above all, they hate someone who has moved to the right and might benefit from doing so (think of the coverage of Vice President [George H.W.] Bush in 1987-88)...the media hostility to Romney also poses a potential trap for John McCain. McCain has to make sure his criticism of Romney doesn't seem simply to echo the liberal media's, or isn't perceived by GOP primary voters as simply echoing the liberal media's."

AmSpec Blog's Jennifer Rubin disagrees, and argues that the media has been harder on other candidates: "If anyone has reason to gripe it is Thompson or perhaps Huckabee who has had nearly unanimously critical coveage for weeks. (And did I miss the media apology to Rudy for making a mountain out of not even a mole hill about billing practices in NYC? Actually Chris Matthews had the class to do just that.) But isn't this all small beans compared to what is coming once there is a nominee on both sides? Assessing who can stand up to the media glare, defend himself and not whine would seem to be a useful exercise for GOP voters who would like to win in November."

MCCAIN: He's Baaack

Sen. Lindsey Graham encourages the RedState community to support McCain: "The next president of the United States will face some of the most monumental foreign policy challenges in our nation's history. Because of this, I believe foreign policy experience matters. For Governor Romney to say otherwise is simply naive. Because experience does matter, I encourage you to support John McCain for President."

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff is not persuaded: "Lindsey Graham takes to Red State to remind us that foreign policy experience matters. The Senator is correct, and it's fair to count McCain's experience, which consists of lots of official foreign travel but no actual responsibility for formulating or administering our foreign policy, as a plus. However, Graham overstates his case to the extent he implies that McCain's sort of experience is a prerequisite for being an effective foreign policy president. Certain governors have had great success in the realm of foreign policy...Meanwhile, Graham's support of McCain provides conservatives with a timely reminder of why we should be reluctant to jump on the McCain bandwagon. Think of the damage this duo has done, or tried to do, in just the past two years...Thanks to McCain and Graham, our intelligence services have lost the ability to use interrogation techniques such as waterboarding that have a proven record of securing vital information from hardened terrorists...[Furthermore,] if McCain and Graham had prevailed last summer, millions of illegal immigrants would now have path to citizenship. Our borders, however, would not be secure, and those who wish them to be made secure would have little more than the federal government's promise to accomplish this."

Like Mirengoff, NRO's Mark Levin is no fan of McCain: "His record on homeland security -- which is every bit as important as our military operations overseas as they are, in essence, one in the same -- is very poor. He has picked up the ACLU's brief for the enemy and advanced it in the Senate and in public debate...McCain's consistent support for the war in Iraq is one chapter in a long story. It doesn't speak to the entirety of a more complex and, in some way, troubling record. I believe it is accurate to label McCain a hawk in some ways, but I don't believe he is a conservative."

NRO's Victor Davis Hanson acknowledges McCain's faults, but would support him nonetheless: "Contrary to popular opinion, I think all conservatives will rally to any of the mainstream nominated Republicans in the general election (e.g., a McCain-Thompson or Giuliani-Thompson, or Romney-Giuliani or Giuliani-Romney, etc) -- given what the current Congress proved to be like, and the promises so far of an Edwards, Clinton, and Obama."

THOMPSON: What Could Have Been...

Captain's Quarters' Ed Morrissey wishes Thompson were a more skilled campaigner: "I like the philosophical, thoughtful approach that Thompson brought to this campaign...He exuded gravitas, and his unpolished demeanor seemed a refreshing change, as did his obvious distaste for the sillier aspects of campaign protocol. Unfortunately, along with that came a lack of apparent energy from the campaign itself. Fred didn't get out and talk with people until December...the biggest shame of that is that Thompson could still be the unity candidate. Given his track record on federalism, Thompson offered the complete conservative package -- smaller government, lower taxes and spending, pro-life, hard as nails on terrorism and only slightly less so on immigration, and the ability to charge life into the Reagan alliance that supports these ideals."

Glenn Reynolds falls into the same boat: "I like [Thompson]. And he's a home-state guy. He's run a pretty substantive, issue-oriented campaign if you actually read his position statements. Not many people have, though. And that's part of the problem. I've dealt with his campaign behind the scenes trying to set up podcast interviews, etc., and while they're nice folks, and things seem to have gotten better, it seemed to me this summer that he was failing at the key task of a President: Putting together a good team and getting it to run smoothly. I know enough about management skills to recognize their importance, and Fred hasn't been displaying those enough. Otherwise I probably would have signed on to 'Law Professors for Fred,' as Eugene Volokh, Jonathan Adler, et al., have done."

NRO's Mark Steyn speculates about the significance of reports that Thompson may drop out: "In practical terms the timing is everything. A pull-out before Saturday obviously boosts McCain in NH. But the very floating of the rumor on the eve of caucus could depress the Fred vote in Iowa and lead to Fredsters switching to McCain on caucus night itself, making the story not the Romney comeback in Iowa (which I expect to happen) but the bi-state turnaround of the McCain campaign."

Meanwhile, Townhall's Jonathan Garthwaite recalls two other GOP politicians who were once thought to be strong presidential contenders: "Politicians like George Allen and Bill Frist must look at the no-frontrunner-everyone-huddled-around-15%-so-far-uninspiring skirmish for the nomination and think, what could have been..."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Dem Race, According To Trippi

In an interview with RCP's Tom Bevan, Edwards advisor Joe Trippi offers his view of the Dem race (which Mark Penn would undoubtedly disagree with):

"Basically the entire party, I think, is in revolt against the status quo, against Clinton. We have 29-30% are saying 'let's keep things the way there are' and 70% of the party is saying 'we want change' whether it's Barack Obama or Edwards fighting for change."

LEST WE FORGET: Can't Stop The Rock

Chris Rock, performing at Madison Square Garden, offers his thoughts on the WH '08 candidates:

On Barack Obama: "[George] Bush [bleeped] up so bad, now people are like, 'We don't want another white guy in the White House'...but Barack don't realize he's the black candidate, talking in measured tones like he does."

On Hillary Clinton: "I think America's ready for a woman president...just not that woman. Being married to somebody doesn't make you good at their job. I've been with my wife 10 years now. If she got up here right now, y'all wouldn't laugh. At all. You get on a plane tomorrow, you want the pilot's wife flying you?"

On Rudy Giuliani: "Everyone says Giuliani was great on 9/11. Great on 9/11...What about 9/10?"

Posted by Ian Faerstein at January 3, 2008 01:11 PM