Posted by
Michael A. Minton on Friday, January 04, 2008 2:31:11 AM
Well, Iowa turned out to be pretty much what I expected. For the Democrats, I expected Obama to win, and I even called for Edwards to beat Miss Hillary, which, as I write this at 1:22 a.m. (eastern), he has done by one percentage point. As for Obama…what a blowout! I’ll bet Hillary’s top blew all the way back to New York, and her body will spend the rest of the night trying to catch it!
There were no real surprises, at least for me, on the Democrat side of things. Obama, Edwards, and Clinton took the top three slots. Biden and Dodd, who never stood a snowball’s chance in the first place, called it quits. So now it is off to New Hampshire, where Hillary will have her work cut out for her to stop the momentum that is the Obama Express.
My Republican predictions were just a hair off, but if I had boxed my win and place tickets, I would have hit that trifecta too. At this hour, it appears to have gone: Huckabee-34%; Romney-25%; and McCain and Thompson seem to have split third at 14% each.
The Republican Caucus surprised me on a couple of fronts. I really thought Romney would have a better showing. I thought he did an excellent job letting people know how his experience in the private sector would give him an edge on domestic issues like the economy; you know, budgets, employment, and the stock market. I also think he was pretty strong in making his case about his foreign policy; regaining trust from those in the world who have lost faith in America’s credibility, while still not backing down to global threats to American security.
I guess that kind of stuff just doesn’t resonate as well with folks who are so-called values-voters. Iowa is a tough sell for anyone who is not Baptist, or at least professes to be. In my opinion, Romney did a wonderful job with his speech “Faith In America,” where he adamantly stated that, while his faith would advise his presidency, it would not dictate his policies. He made it clear that the church’s authority ended where the president’s authority began.
Of course, there are those who don’t mind having a presidential candidate whose religion dictates their policy, so long as the candidate’s religion gels with theirs. I think it is important to know, deep within, that we are called to a higher purpose than just serving self, and I think Mitt got that message across brilliantly. I just don’t think a Mormon is going to carry Iowa, and I was wrong to think differently yesterday.
The true shock of the Iowa Republican Caucus was the fact that Fred “whichever-way-the-wind-blows” Thompson took as big a chunk of the pie as did Sen. McCain. I can see the Christian conservatives rallying behind Thompson. When the rumor mills first started buzzing back in August and September, I was on board. I would have backed the former senator 100%.
However, the lackadaisical manner in which he has run his campaign (if one may call it that) has long ago turned me off. And if it hadn’t, his comments over the weekend that becoming president wasn’t all that important to him would have. As I said in my article yesterday, I want my president, whether Republican or Democrat (preferably Republican) to actually want to be the president.
My Lord, people, we are talking about the most powerful position in the world. Do we really want to elect someone who basically says “I don’t want to be president, but I’d make a dandy one if I were?” How could such a laissez-faire attitude get 14 % of the vote?
At any rate, it is off to New Hampshire for the Republicans too, where it seems to be coming down to a dogfight between Romney and McCain. Although it will certainly be interesting to see where the Caucus win in Iowa puts Huckabee in that mix.