Iowhatth'hell?

[sigma7]

Huckabee wins -- not altogether surprising, but by a suitably intimidating margin. This redraws the Republican battle lines significantly. Thompson doing surprisingly, too. Democrats clustered, as expected in the Edwards/Clinton/Obama troika; I imagine Obama to pick up the anybody-but-Hillary vote after Iowa and has the most to gain from the loss of competition outside the unholy trinity.

I'm just glad something's frickin' happening after months of empty meaningless blathering. Give me the empty meaningless happenings.

Comments

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Oh, things will happen quickly; after tonight you've got:

8 - New Hampshire Primary
15 - Michigan
19 - Nevada caucus
26 - South Carolina Primary
29 - Florida Primary

Admittedly it's unclear on the Democratic side what the impact of Michigan and Florida will be, since they've been stripped of delegates for moving their dates up too far.

But then, you've got February 5th, which has gone beyond "Super Tuesday" to "Tsunami Tuesday"

Alabama, Alaska caucus, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado caucus, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho caucus, Illinois, Kansas caucus, Massachusetts, Minnesota caucus, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico caucus, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah

Basically, on 2/6, it's either all going to be over (and ghu only knows what they'll find to occupy their time for the following six months until the conventions) or else it'll be the closest race in decades with, particularly on the Dem side due to those Michigan and Florida delegates, a real chance of a political party convention actually having meaning for the first time in at least 40 years ('68 Dem was notable for many reasons including candidate assassination at a late stage in the campaign; I don't know off hand if the '56 conventions actually decided anything; I'm sure '64 didn't, and don't think '60's did).

[bedsitter23.livejournal.com]

Thompson, Rudy, and McCain all pretty much skipped Iowa, but Thompson did at least show here a few times and air a few more commercials.

I imagine Barack takes a win by 6-7% over Hillary as they are now predicting. With Iowa's "second vote" for the "nonviable" candidates, those Dodd and Biden voters are going to Obama.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

I figured there would be some shift of support from second-tier candidates toward Obama, but I grossly underestimates. My earlier predictions on MightyGodKing.com:

Obama 32
Edwards 30
Clinton 28
Miscellaneous 10

Huckabee 24
Romney 22
McCain 20
Guiliani 15
Paul 13
Thompson 6

I missed the totals by county miles, and I severely (mis-)underestimated Thompson....

Hillary's got to take this as a shot to the teeth, and I'd put Mitt on Suicidde Wattch. If the Huck can keep a fraction of this momentum going into New Hampster, it's going to be...interesting.

[patchsassy.livejournal.com]

I wish I understood this whole politics thing (or...rather had some sort of interest in politics in general so I could get excited about it). I would be pleasantly surprised to see Obama win the Democratic vote (when is the primary election, by the way?) because I think after the debacle that was the Bush administration (and with Congress being democratic now as well), I think we're going to have a Democratic president.

With that being said, I can't vote in the Kansas caucus anyway because I'm not registered to vote (I can't vote in DK county anymore because I'm not a permanent resident and I decided not to register in Riley county because I'm only going to live here for probably another five months, which is before the general elections anyway).

[iamstillthemoon.livejournal.com]

*giggles at unholy trinity*

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

I wish we had a primary in Kansas and not a caucus. I have a decidedly minority viewpoint, but at least in a primary my vote gets counted...in a caucus I'd be told I have to vote for someone else, and my real vote would never matter in the least.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure when the Kansas caucus is -- aha, February 5, sayeth Google -- but being a Democratic voter in Kansas is often an exercise in futility, so I'm not used to even being a participant in American democracy. (That said, I think my days as a Democrat are behind me, but that's another story.)

As the saying goes, you've got 40% of the country who'll vote for Satan as long as he's a Democrat, 40% who'll vote for anyone who's a Republican, and 20% who actually really base their votes on the merit of the candidate. That said, Huckabee is polarizing enough to scare away a good chunk of that 20% (Romney too, but certainly not to Huckabee's degree), and only Hillary has a similar effect on the Democratic slate, so yeah, I'd say it's pretty clear the next president's going to be a Democrat.

Obama needed a big early win to prove his viability, and I think this will help him solidly as the non-Hillary candidate. Edwards has a strong base that Obama will eat into, I think, but it's very much centered around Edwards and his populist agenda, and that's at least not an anti-entity. Obama-Edwards '08, I'm guessing.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

It's hard for me to think of a worse VP choice for Obama than Edwards, at least that'd be considered at all viable. Because other than being a white male, Edwards brings zilch to an Obama ticket.

Primary issues Republicans would bring up against Obama would be general lack of experience and specific lack of foreign experience. Edwards has what, four more years of an undistinguished Senate term than Obama and is not known for international knowledge/experience.

And we've seen how Edwards does as a VP candidate...not well. He didn't carry his state in 2004, and Chaney's generally felt to have won their debate.

If he wants to go with another candidate for VP, Richardson's probably his best bet with respect to filling in holes. Honestly not sure whether from a national perspective having what's perceived as another minority on the ticket would matter, or whether it would matter more than the Hispanic vote Richardson might help with.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten the Cheney/Edwards debate. In retrospect, he's lucky to have gotten away from the podium alive. (I meant Edwards, but I guess it works both ways....)

I figured it'd be part-reward for his finishing and also a statement to the base that the Edwards agenda wouldn't be forgotten. Then again, Edwards defectors will go...where else? Certainly not Huckabee -- really, nobody except McCain will be able to draw Dems away from whoever their candidates happen to be (though Hillary could have a repelling force, were she included).

Richardson's pull on this Hispanic vote is a good point, especially given Huckabee's recent Bible-thumping. I want to hope that if Obama gets the nod that there won't be a fear-of-a-non-white-planet effect, but humanity has let me down before.... (I think Al Gore's happier now blowing up golden Death Stars in the 31st century to come back to the fold, and I think everyone's good with that, too. Lieberman? Not on your life. Kerry, same, but less with the crazy.)

It's an intriguing question. I don't see Obama not being on the Democratic ticket, one way or the other -- the other person, however, makes for some interesting theories.

[adele87.livejournal.com]

Bill Richardson was my favorite democrat, and Guliani my favorite republican....however out of the 3 dems you mentioned, I like Edwards the best.