Gravity seems to be cranked up a notch or two this morning, and NPR is screaming an endless flow of Iowa blather. So Governor Mike Huckabee and Senator Barack Obama fly out of Iowa having come out on top. Here are a couple of thoughts.
Sigh. The winning Republican candidate in the Iowa caucuses is a former Baptist minister. I suppose that in the friendly confines of the corn fields of Iowa, Mike Huckabee is a fine choice. He has executive experience, being the former governor of Arkansas, which is a plus (although that experience didn't seem to help Jimmy Carter very much). Now, Governor Huckabee heads to New Hampshire where there is a lot less corn and Senator John McCain and Governor Mitt Romney are waiting. I guess this is where we see if Governor Huckabee's campaign has legs.
My beef isn't with Governor Huckabee, it is with the 2008 version of the Republican Party. I wish the Republican party were a little more "big tent" and not controlled by people for whom abortion and religion are so important. We almost have a three party system these days. We have the Democrats, the evangelical Republicans, and we have old-school (Goldwater?) Republicans like McCain, and Gulianni. You would think that there would be a large group of people who would want to get behind a party that is fiscally conservative and moderate on social issues.
On the Democratic side, I see three good choices. John Edwards impresses me with his optimism and energy. Senator Obama seems to have demonstrated that his message has weight with his showing in Iowa. If he can do that well in a conservative state, I would expect that his campaign may continue to have voters jump on the bandwagon. And then there is Hillary. If Hillary were a man, would she be a non-Mormon version of Mitt Romney? She seems unflappable as a candidate. I am excited about having candidates other than rich white men. I can't figure out how much of the resistance to Hilary is anti-female versus people who bristle at Hillary's personality (which is she were a man, I don't think her lack of warmth would be an issue). It will be interesting to see how Senator Clinton rebounds from Iowa and how her message plays in New Hampshire.
So now we have five days of New Hampshire news. Can the Romney and Senator Clinton camps afford another below-expectation finish? How will Governor Huckabee play in the Northeast?
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