Where Are They Now?

The conventional wisdom, of course, is that Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama were the big winners, and that Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton were the big losers last night in Iowa.

But is that really so?

To some extent, all of those who participated last night were winners in the sense that they participated, and put it on the line.

In American politics, we love a guy or gal who mixes it up. And in modern Republican politics, one of the enduring frustrations is that our political leaders often seem too willing to give up in a fight, especially a policy fight. Too many of them appear to always be looking for the compromise position that will end the fight, rather than slugging it out to a reasonable solution. When I hear a candidate say, "I'm the candidate who can work with Democrats," it gives me pause! That is the earned rap on John McCain, and is why he is often jokingly referred to as Senator McKennedy.

On the other hand, the frequent weakness of Democrats, is that they never stop fighting, including amongst themselves -- "even for an eggshell."

Quick quiz! Name the Democrat contender this year who said -- or ever implied even once -- "I can work with the Republicans." Still thinking? Forget it!

Lurking in the background of this years Presidential race, is the perception that a few of the Republican players simply gave themselves a bye in the early rounds. If you take it to a baseball analogy, they literally announced in advance that they would skip the first couple of innings! Rudy Giuliani, and to a somewhat more limited extent, John McCain fit into this category. Rudy's strategy is to win the nomination, by selectively marshalling his resources for only certain key geographic fights, and his campaign manager gets a little testy when challenged as to why this doesn't send a message that he really doesn't care about the places he is already foregoing.

But what does it say about his willingness to fight the good fight in the General Election? What does it say about a Republican candidate who is unwilling to compete in a primary or caucus that is either exclusively limited to Republicans, or heavily weighted by them? You have to have a strategy in the general that will give you a victory in the battleground states. But in the primary?

There is more than a bit of perceived arrogance in that attitude, and it is surely something that will linger into the General. In fact, to some extent it contradicts Rudy's main claim, which is that he is best positioned to beat the Democrat nominee in the fall, who he has said will be Hillary Clinton.

Well, not in Iowa, you won't, Rudy! Nor in New Hampshire -- which actually has a small piece of coastline. They were both states that were competitive in 2004. Why should someone who wants to the the President of the United States not at least take a shot at a showing in all of the States? Rudy is being so selective, he even risks being derisively tagged as the "bi-coastal" candidate.

So, neither Romney nor Clinton were losers last night in their willingness to fight.

Who will win in New Hampshire on either side, is very much up for grabs.

As to the history of the "carry-over" effect -- Iowa to New Hampshire -- there is simply no real pattern there, except in the case of sitting Presidents running for re-election.

Remember former President Bush having the "big mo" coming out of Iowa in 1980? Ronald Reagan won in New Hampshire and the primary race was all but over. Remember eight years later in 1988 when Bob Dole won in Iowa, and then lost to Vice President George Bush in New Hampshire by eight and a half points a few days later? Dole left New Hampshire an angry man . . . "Stop lying about my record!" . . . and lost the race.

The Romney campaign now points out that no one has failed to obtain at least 18 points in Iowa and go on to win the nomination and the Presidency. Some will say that is splitting hairs a bit, but there is that factor of being willing to put up a convincing fight, even in defeat, that will factor into the overall primary campaign, and to some extent affect the general.

As for former governor Mike Huckabee, he had a very impressive but very focused victory, with the bulk of his caucus-goers being evangelical Christian participants. Last night on CNN Bill Schneider noted that Huckabee attracted only 14% of the non-evangelical participants in Iowa last night.

Here is from the AP story.

More than half of GOP voters said they were born again or evangelical Christians, and nearly half of them supported Huckabee, according to entrance interviews by The Associated Press and the television networks. Romney led among non-evangelical voters by 2-to-1 or more.

And from the CNN analytical coverage:

In Iowa, entrance polls of caucus-goers showed that 3 out of every 5 Republicans were self-described born again or evangelical Christians. Huckabee beat Romney by better than 2-to-1 in this voting bloc. Among the rest of Iowa's Republican electorate, however, Huckabee finished a distant fourth behind Romney, McCain and Fred Thompson.

In New Hampshire, social conservatives are not as influential. This potentially opens the door for Romney to regain the upper hand or for McCain to repeat his 2000 victory.

The Arizona senator will find himself in a two-front battle: against Romney for the hearts and souls of GOP voters and against Obama for the state's unpredictable and sizable independent electorate.

So, does John McCain go through this weekend boasting, "I'm the guy who can work with Democrats," in order to try to fight for those independent voters with Obama?

Or, is he now the guy between Mount Monadnock and a hard place?

Looks like it's time to head north and get a closer view!

Susan Estrich Sez, "Make Our Day!"

In a quick 17 second clip, prominent Democrat political operative Susan Estrich commented thusly last night on Fox News Channel.



Here is the rough transcript of the clip posted on YouTube by bcompton33:

"Huckabee. Huckabee could win tomorrow here in Iowa. Huckabee is the Democrats' dream! Now, he's the kind of candidate who can do very well in the Iowa Caucus, (and) taps into something, but he - can Republicans nominate Huckabee? Honey, I'm dancing at the Inaugural Ball!"

Susan recently referred to Huckabee derisively as the "Jenny Craig of Republican politics" -- with her apologies to Jenny -- suggesting that many Democrats were frothing at the mouth over the prospect of running against him.

Of course, the gravelly-voiced pundit -- with apologies to Mike Gravel -- hasn't always been the greatest of prognosticators. Perhaps it was also seeing the latest Iowa numbers of her favored candidate, Hillary Clinton, beginning to resemble a sudden downward swirl, that prompted an immediate need on Susan's part to be overly enthusiastic about something!

My Vast Left-Wing Experience

Hey! Hillary has apparently decided she's had it with voters' questions, at least out in Iowa.

What happened to the Conversation With America? You'll remember . . . "Let's chat!"

According to a story by Peter Nicholas in the LA Times today, it now seems to have not-so-subtly morphed into something like, "Okay, everyone zip it! I have some very important generic pap I'd like to share with you, so I can get out of here." Of course, she didn't really say that . . . but the point is she is not saying anything, including to potential caucus goers who she wants to turn out for her, as well as to the press!

From the story:

Before the brief Christmas break, the New York senator had been setting aside time after campaign speeches to hear from the audience. Now when she’s done speaking, her theme songs blare from loudspeakers, preventing any kind of public Q&A.

She was no more inviting when a television reporter approached her after a rally on Thursday and asked if she was "moved" by Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Clinton turned away without answering.

Her daughter, Chelsea, had the same reaction when a reporter approached her with a question.

Hillary Clinton’s no-question policy didn’t sit well with some of the Iowans who came to see her speak.

"I was a little bit underwhelmed," said Doug Rohde, 46, as he left her a rally in a fire station in Denison. "The message was very generic -- and no questions."

One other thing is for certain . . . the story doesn't explicitly say so, but you can be damned sure hubby BIll wasn't there. No way she could have shut him up! Which may have everything to do with why he was NOT present for the purposes of recitation.

Maybe that huge storehouse of left-wing experience she so often alludes to has taught her that when push comes to shove, they're all a bunch of emoticons out there in the left fringe, and that asking their opinions is really a waste of time. She knows what she wants to do. What do you think the chances are she doesn't want to get into details?

On Christmas Day Patrick Healy published a piece that appeared in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, focusing on Hillary's endlessly repeated claim that she is the one with the strength and experience. The article could not have made the Clinton campaign very happy.

It begins:

As first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton jawboned the president of Uzbekistan to leave his car and shake hands with people. She argued with the Czech prime minister about democracy. She cajoled Catholic and Protestant women to talk to one another in Northern Ireland. She traveled to 79 countries in total, little of it leisure; one meeting with mutilated Rwandan refugees so unsettled her that she threw up afterward.

But during those two terms in the White House, Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National Security Council meetings. She was not given a copy of the president's daily intelligence briefing. She did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia, Haiti or Rwanda. And during one of President Bill Clinton's major tests on terrorism, whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal dragged on.

In seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton lays claim to two traits nearly every day: strength and experience. But as the junior senator from New York, she has few significant legislative accomplishments to her name. She has cast herself, instead, as a first lady like no other: a full partner to her husband in his administration, and, she says, all the stronger and more experienced for her "eight years with a front-row seat on history."

The entire article is well worth reading and demonstrates that there is a real gap between Hillary's claims of experience now, and her actual role at the time.

It seems to be a consistent Clinton pattern.

Take for example, the two of the matters she actually did have an active role in running during Bill's eight years in office. Both were complete failures. One was the still-born attempt to radically socialize our medical care system, or HillaryCare. Now, suddenly, former President Bill Clinton takes the blame for the failure of that effort.

The other was known as "Travelgate," the first major scandal of the Clinton Administration. After closely examining the case file, Byron York at NRO nicely summed up the incident back in 2003 when her autobiography, Living History, first appeared. He notes that she clearly attempted to cover up her active behind the scenes efforts in that matter, including lying under oath. But as he notes, in her book she blamed it all on a "partisan political climate," and actually asserted that Ray had exonerated her!

Well, yes, it was among other things a partisan political climate, but it was one created by Hillary when she tried to railroad and force out all the Travel Office employees in order to install Clinton cronies!

As York noted back in 2003:

The First Lady's statements, under oath, were patently false. And indeed, at the end of the investigation, independent counsel Robert Ray determined that "Clinton did play a role and have input in the decision to fire the Travel Office employees and that her testimony to the contrary was factually false."

Yet Ray declined to prosecute, saying that "insufficient proof exists to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Clinton ... knowingly gave false material testimony."

All that was ancient history — until the publication of her autobiography Living History back in 2003. Now, the former First Lady not only claims the independent counsel exonerated her, but also blames the enduring controversy on a "partisan political climate."

York's article also contained the link to Special Prosecutor Robert Ray's final report of the investigation. As to the Travelgate matter, Ray ultimately concluded that she had lied under oath when questioned about her active role in the matter, but he concluded that there was probably insufficient evidence to prosecute her for knowingly lying under oath.

Maybe the reason Hillary has so much difficulty convincing anyone she has any credible real world "experience" that qualifies her to be our head of state, and Commander in Chief, is that most people assume that what she means is that she has demonstrated her skills by actually running a few things. But she never ran any credible form of enterprise in her entire life!

What she has done is to consistently play the left-wing partisan political operative throughout her entire adult life, even when the time came to set aside politics and work within an Administration for the common good.

In other words, Hillary arguably has "vast left-wing experience" going for her, but little else.


UPDATE: 5:40 pm: Looks like AOL has posted a HotSeat poll question raised by John Hinderaker of Powerline . . . "Does Hillary Clinton have the experience needed to be president?"

Actually, it looks like Scott (at Powerline) was the one who raised the question, but John posted the description of the AOL HotSeat survey, here. He notes that at least earlier, the voting was going strongly against her.

UPDATE: 1:42 PM 12/31 Chelsea stiffs a nine year old reporter who has gotten interviews all across the specturm.

From the story:

Do you think your dad would be a good 'first man' in the White House?" Sydney asked, but Chelsea brushed her question aside.

"I'm sorry, I don't talk to the press and that applies to you, unfortunately. Even though I think you're cute," Chelsea told the pint-sized journalist.

Could be she really doesn't have anything to say.