Iowa

Jake a.k.a. Anonymous asked me to offer my thoughts on the Iowa Caucus as well as some prognostications about the future. I don't consider myself much of a political strategist. In terms of politics, most of what I write concerns my personal reactions to the candidates, their ideology, and their policy proposals. I'm not entirely sure what effect the candidates are having on others (before I see the results, of course). Maybe that's my Asperger's at work! Whenever I watch Dick Morris, Laura Ingraham, or Newt predicting how races will turn out, I nod my head in agreement, wondering if I could ever come up with the brilliant thoughts that they just presented. But I'll give it a shot. Some of what I'll say has been said before by more qualified pundits, and some will be my personal reactions. In the latter case, just picture me being in that group that Frum interviews on Fox News!

Is the Iowa Caucus important? I don't think that it's absolutely determinative, for there have been candidates who won it but did not go on to win their party's nomination. Edmund Muskie (1972), George H.W. Bush (1980), and Bob Dole (1988) are examples. At the same time, the Iowa Caucus can give a candidate momentum and weed out opponents. When a person wins the Iowa Caucus, he is thrust into the limelight. He is no longer one average Joe among a bunch of other average Joes (or, in Hillary's case, Janes), but he becomes a winner with a name and a face. And people like to vote for winners. The Iowa Caucus allows politicians to test their viability as candidates, as they determine whether or not they have vote-getting capability. There is a reason that Joe Biden and Chris Dodd dropped out after doing poorly last night.

If it's so important, then why did Rudy blow it off? Maybe he thought it was a lost cause. He'll eventually have to convince at least some of the pro-life community to support him if he is to win the nomination, since the Republicans have not had a pro-choice candidate since, well, Ford, I guess. But Rudy may have thought that Iowa was too tough a crowd, and that he'd do better in states that didn't have so many Christian conservatives. While there are Christian conservatives (e.g., Pat Robertson) who support him, many of them probably prefer someone like themselves, such as Huckabee, a former pastor. And perhaps Rudy assumes that he already has enough momentum to win in the other states and thus doesn't need Iowa. After all, he was America's mayor.

Does Huckabee's Iowa victory presage him winning the nomination? After all, not all of the country is like Iowa, which has a lot of Christian conservatives. To his credit, Huckabee does have an appealing genuineness about him, for he comes across as a nice, humble, down-to-earth guy, like Reagan. Yet, there's an edge to him. According to critics, he has a temper, and he punished political opponents in Arkansas who didn't support his policies. If this side comes out more in the campaign, he may win over the Rudy-types who long for a tough guy to scare off the terrorists.

Although he has received criticism from Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Laura Ingraham, I think that a lot of conservatives will vote for him in the primaries because he's reliably pro-life (unlike Romney). Sure, he supports big government, but conservatives voted for George W. Bush in 2000, knowing all about the domestic programs he wanted to get passed. Conservatives often vote for politicians who talk about balanced budgets yet never produce any. Reagan and the two Bushes are cases in point. On immigration, Huckabee's record is poor, but so are those of the other candidates. He may have to do some more convincing on that issue, but the endorsement of the Minutemen's leader certainly doesn't hurt. Neither does Chuck Norris' endorsement, for that matter.

Indeed, there have been times when Huckabee has put his foot in his mouth, but I don't think that will cause him permanent damage. Like Clinton, he seems to be intelligent and glib enough to talk himself out of the holes he's made (e.g., his gaffes, his record on taxes, etc.). I'd like to hear him account for the gifts he received and the prisoners he released as Arkansas Governor, but I foresee him offering us some explanation in his soothing, articulate, and personable manner. The bottom line is this: I think there's a good chance that Huckabee will win the GOP nomination.

But how about the Presidency? I'm not sure whom the Democrats will put forward as their candidate. I was talking to a Democrat cab driver today, and he was shocked that Hillary finished third. Maybe people want change. They want fresh blood, not a Presidential sequence of Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton. But I have a hard time believing that the entire country will prefer a candidate with so little experience, and I mean Obama and Edwards here.

If the race is between Huckabee and Obama, I think that both candidates will have advantages and disadvantages. Huckabee (like Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II) will have more executive experience, but Obama's opposition to the war will most likely be his (Obama's) asset. Contra Rush Limbaugh, I believe that one reason the Democrats won in 2006 was public disappointment with the Iraq War. Huckabee has tried to distance himself from Bush's foreign policy, but (as far as I know) he still wants to see the war to completion, which, for him, means American victory. Americans may be more war-weary by then. Sure, the surge seems to be working at the present time, but we can't keep that many troops there forever, can we? What is to prevent a comeback in insurgency once we started removing the troops? There is obviously a limit to the military option, as far as I can see. Huckabee should endorse at least some political solution to the Iraq crisis, such as the three-state idea that Brownback and Biden are always touting.

So I'm proud of Huckabee, since I always root for the underdog. I also liked seeing Chuck Norris' beaming face as Huckabee gave his victory speech. Can Huckabee be President? That would be nice! We'll see.