Author: Greg Saunders

Okay, so my predictions were mostly wrong, but there were a lot of genuine shockers last night.

Obama – Despite any pre-caucus polls predicting a victory, his win was a remarkable achievement. I’m still shocked that he was able to drag his coalition of young people and undecideds to the caucuses.

Amazing speech, but I’m still leaning towards…

John Edwards – A strong finish, but he wasn’t able to sneak up the middle between Obama and Clinton. His campaign gambled so much on Iowa that even with a strong second place finish the lack of a win pretty much ends his campaign. He’ll definitely try to use his victory over Clinton to gain some momentum going into New Hampshire, but Edwards’ chances of winning are all but dead. With Obama’s victory, I thin Edwards is going to start bleeding support, which will be more bad news for…

Hillary Clinton – Yikes. What a disaster. Front runners aren’t supposed to come in third place in a two-person race. Though Edwards beat her by a hair, a mathematical fluke adds insult to injury by making her loss seem worse at first glance, even though there aren’t that many delegates between the 29% and 30% showings of Clinton and Edwards. She needs to destroy Obama to regain her footing, but Obama’s got the momentum now and doesn’t have to worry about retooling his campaign strategy in the next four days. To be honest, I’m relieved to see her lose because I think she’d have the hardest time beating…

Mike Huckabee – It was an easy call, but I still can’t see him winning the nomination. The campaign against Huckabee by the GOP establishment is going to be nasty and he doesn’t have the rural, conservative voters to fall back on in New Hampshire. It was easy to see why Iowa Republicans preferred his folksy personality to the robotic Ward Cleaver of the race…

Mitt Romney – He did better than I expected, but considering the amount of money he’s sunk into this race, his loss was a huge blow. I could still see him turning things around in NH, but mostly because the Republican establishment wants a candidate who won’t rock the boat and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be…

John McCain – He should have been the “not one of those religious nuts” candidate, but couldn’t catch up in time. I predicted he would win mostly because I expected a bigger loss by Romney and never in a million years would have guessed that McCain would be splitting the “not a front-runner” support with a surge from….

Fred Thompson – Where the hell did that come from? Were the second rounds in the caucuses filled with people saying “He’s an actor like Reagan!”. Very weird. Speaking of weird…

Ron Paul – Impressive finish. He even kicked Rudy’s ass. When I saw that he came in fifth place, the first thing I thought of was Joe Lieberman’s boast that he was in a “three-way tie for third place”. So it looks like Paul’s got some “Joementum” now.

With the Iowa caucuses hours away, here’s my guesses as to how the primaries will play out. Although these are simply guesses tinted by my own biases and unsupportable by empirical evidence, I’ll resist the urge to label these “conventional wisdom”. Since I’m the same guy who called “bullshit” on a poll predicting a Kerry win in Iowa four years ago, take the following with a grain of salt.

On the Democratic side, I think Edwards is gonna take Iowa in an upset. The first round of caucusing may resemble the polls we’ve seen, but I think Edwards is going to be a much more attractive second pick candidate than Clinton or Obama. I can’t imagine Hillary would be a popular second round pick. People already know a lot about her and have made up their minds before caucusing. Of the top three, I think her support is as solid as it’s gonna get. Obama, on the other hand, is a much more charismatic presence on the campaign trail, but I doubt that his caucus-going supporters will be able to impress undecideds with platitudes about “hope” and “change”.

Another thing working in Edwards favor is that Iowa has been framed as a two-person race for a while between Clinton and Obama. The caucuses four years ago were also a two way race between Dean (who placed a distant third) and Gephardt (who dropped out that night). If this year plays out the same way, Edwards could sneak up the middle as a choice that combines some of the most appealing qualities of the top two. While he hasn’t been around Washington as long as Clinton, his role in the 2004 campaign gives him a one-up in the “experience” area against Obama (whose last election was against a candidate nobody expected to win). On the other hand, when it comes to Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” campaign-style, Edwards campaign is every bit as status-quo shattering and would provide just as great a contrast with the Clinton campaign.

If Edwards does win in Iowa, I think it’ll mark the beginning of the end for Obama. For one, it would give the press a new storyline about the Obama campaign being a well-funded hype machine that couldn’t translate its enthusiasm into votes (like Dean in ’04). Moreover, it’ll give the Edwards campaign a breath of fresh air and go a long way towards establishing him as the “not-Hillary candidate” (though I could easily see the same working in reverse if Obama beats Edwards).

On the Republican side, I think Ron Paul is going to win because he’s the only candidate that cares about the constitution and freedom. Also, his supporters rented him a blimp.

Okay, let’s try this again…

On the Republican side, I think Huckabee is going to probably win Iowa by default. More important than Huckabee winning, though, is that I think Mitt Romney is going to get crushed. Not just because he’s a transparent phony who’s trying to buy the election (which caucus-goers will resent), but he really sucks at pandering to his base. He’s terrible at it. For example, check out how he slammed Huckabee earlier today :

Mitt Romney, who is spending the final day before the caucuses jetting around Iowa, is hitting rival Mike Huckabee for abandoning the Hawkeye State on caucus eve to make an appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

“Well, frankly my focus is on the caucuses here in Iowa. I think Mike is more concerned about the caucus in Los Angeles,” Romney told voters at Bettendorf Middle School.

Any decent Republican strategist would see Huckabee’s caucus-eve trip as a golden opportunity to bash Hollywood and kiss Iowans asses by referring to their neck of the woods as the “real America”, but the best Romney could come up with was some clumsy statement about “the caucus in Los Angeles”. Huh??

Another thing working against Romney is that he’s a Mormon. Although most conservative voters would have a hard time admitting to a pollster that they think the LDS church is a weird (I prefer to think of it as a fanfic version of Christianity), I think a lot of Iowans who might otherwise vote for Mitt will find convenient reasons not to support him. While his flip-flopping may be the official reason for his fall, I think old-fashioned religious bigotry will be his undoing. Since he decided to make his faith a selling point in the campaign, his downfall will be hilarious to watch. Live by the cross, die by the cross.

The other big news on the GOP side will be McCain having a surprisingly strong showing in Iowa that will position him to win New Hampshire and turn the GOP primary into a two-man race with Huckabee. Giuliani’s irrelevance in the early primaries will leave him virtually shut out of the press coverage aside from the occasional “Where are they now?” piece. Like the Dems four years ago, Republicans are in an “anyone but ____” mode and will ultimately go with the candidate they think has the strongest chance of beating the Democrats. That’s why I think “Maverick” McCain is going to beat Huckabee because the corporate whores who own the GOP won’t allow the nominee to be some hick who might raise taxes.

…then again, I could be wrong.

There’s something that puzzles me about some of the reactions and reactions-to-reactions that have followed the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. There seem to be these unspoken rules that it’s unseemly for presidential candidates to use this crisis to draw contrasts with each other and that the American media shouldn’t make this story “all about us” by linking it with domestic politics. The notion that discussing politics in the wake of Bhutto’s death is out of bounds is ridiculous. She was murdered by her political opponents, so unless you knew her personally (thanks for the reminders Sen. Clinton), any discussion of the assassination is inherently political.

When you’re president, you don’t get to pick and choose which crises you get to get to respond to (unless you’re George W. Bush), so at the very least, the candidates for the presidency better have something to say about Bhutto’s death. Considering that we’re only looking at 6-8 viable candidates for the next leader of our country, if any of these candidates have a reaction that highlights their differences, then it’s all the better for those of us who are trying to decide who to vote for. I’m not saying this to attack or defend any specific comments. If anything, some of the more crass reactions are as illuminating as the more substantive discussions of foreign policy. If a candidate’s reaction to this news is a tactless and substance-free attack on their opponent, then it’s good to know that about a candidate before stepping into the ballot box.

There are many reasons to bash traditional media outlets, but examining the effect that Bhutto’s assassination might have on the presidential race isn’t one of them. When the American media is reporting to the American public how the most important story in the world will effect the choice of who will be our next leader (a process that begins in less than a week), this doesn’t cheapen or trivialize the death of Bhutto, it adds context and highlights the importance of the issue. Most Americans probably didn’t know or care about Pakistani politics a week ago, but it’s an important lesson to the America people that this slain promoter of democracy was running against a military coup leader who’s considered a key ally to the United States.

Bhutto’s death will have a profound effect on international politics. There are key differences between the foreign policy positions of our current leader and those of the men and woman who are trying to replace him. Considering that presidential contests are largely decided on trivial differences, using an international crisis to highlight something more substantive than an expensive haircut or where a particular candidate went to elementary school is a good thing.

One of the more hilarious quirks about religious life in America is the strange obsession with numbers. This story my friend Ross sent me the other day is a perfect example :

If you turn to the Bible — Isaiah Chapter 35, Verse 8 — you will see a passage that in part says, “A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.”
art.

Now, is it possible that this “highway” mentioned in Chapter 35 is actually Interstate 35 that runs through six U.S. states, from southern Texas to northern Minnesota? Some Christians have faith that is indeed the case.
. . .
Some of the faithful believe that in order to fulfill the prophecy of I-35 being the “holy” highway, it needs some intensive prayer first. So we watched as about 25 fervent and enthusiastic Christians prayed on the the interstate’s shoulder in Dallas.

They chanted loudly and vibrantly, making many people in the neighborhood wonder what was going on. They prayed that adult businesses along the corridor would “see the light” and perhaps close down.

Did somebody forget to tell them that the “I” stands for Interstate, not “Isaiah”? It seems so bizarre that the fruits of the Interstate Highway System would take on some sort of religious significance, while equally important infrastructure improvements like Rural Electrification Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority barely get any mentions on the pulpit. Then again, there’s a dark side to I-35 getting the same sort of devotion that’s normally reserved for curious-shaped potato chips and Christ-like water stains.

Jacobs also points out that perhaps there is a link between the area near this highway and tragedies that have happened in history, such as the bridge collapse on I-35 in Minneapolis last August and the assassination of JFK 44 years ago near I-35 in Dallas. That’s why prayer certainly can’t hurt, she adds.

Now, it’s only fair to say most people, the religious and the non-religious alike, don’t buy any of this, but none more than the owners of some of the adult businesses along I-35.

Highway to Heaven? More like Highways of Agony.

I dunno what it is about CNN, but they’ve been veering more and more into the realm of the trivial and embarrassing lately. This headline on their homepage is the kind of that would make US Weekly blush :

Is CNN still a news organization or is it now just a forum run by gossipy soccer moms? If it’s the latter, it would definitely explain this poll question that they posted on CNN.com last month :