The Ashford Zone Blog

You almost have to feel sorry for the guy:

He flatlined in Iowa and he’s struggling in New Hampshire, but Rudy Giuliani shook off the early-state blues Thursday as only he can.

“None of this worries me – Sept. 11, there were times I was worried,” Giuliani said.

I get the sense that if you asked Rudy where he wanted to go for lunch, he’d say something like: "You know, I totally skipped lunch on 9/11.  I wasn’t really that hungry.  That said, Arby’s."

I put it up here not because it’s topical and of historical significance, but because it really is a good speech.

It reminds me of why I was drawn to the guy in the first place.

FYI — Here’s what I posted on June 14, 2004:

President Obama

Sounds like the leader of some distant "third-world" country, no?

Nope. We might be talking about "U.S. President Barack Obama" 20 years from now (or less). The bright new wunderkind of the Democratic Party is getting all kinds of good press, and deservedly so.

Starting in November, and until he decides to move onward and upward, you’ll be hearing much about Senator Obama.

Ezra Klein, who is not Obama’s biggest fan, summed up the reactions of many of us to Obama’s speechifying abilities:

Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don’t even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. The other great leaders I’ve heard guide us towards a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal, and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence. […] [S]o much as I like to speak of white papers and scored proposals, politics is not generally experienced in terms of policies. It’s more often experienced in terms of self-interest, and broken promises, and base fears, and half-truths. But, very rarely, it’s experienced as a call to create something better, bigger, grander, and more just than the world we have. When that happens, as it did with Robert F. Kennedy, the inspired remember those moments for the rest of their lives.

The tens of thousands of new voters Obama brought to the polls tonight came because he wrapped them in that experience, because he let them touch politics as it could be, rather than merely as it is. And for that, he deserved to win. And he deserves our thanks. The politician who gets the most votes merits our congratulations. But the politician who enlarges our politics and empowers more Americans to step forward into the public square deserves our gratitude. And we, in turn, deserve to permit ourselves to feel inspired, if only for a night.

It’s true.  Now, I don’t think a candidate’s rhetorical gifts stand as a good reason to vote for him/her.  And I’m still uncommitted, myself.  But even if Obama isn’t one’s first choice, there IS something terribly exciting — and hopeful — about the fact that a black man named "Barack Hussein Obama" was the first choice of a predominantly white population in a flyover state in a post-9/11 world.

Here it is:

1. Swarm the state with surrogates; she has a deeper network in New Hampshire than any other state.

2. Two rallies a day; lots of retail events; lots of television interviews.

3. Find some way to go negative against Obama. Some Clinton advisers and aides say that the campaign have a storehouse of opposition research — old and new — that they’ll use against Obama. In Iowa, being directly associated with negative attacks is seen as uncouth and un-Midwestern; in New Hampshire, rude remarks are as welcome as questions and answers.

4. Claim that Clinton never had a shot in Iowa because of the state’s historical bias against women (it’s only one of two to never have elected a woman as governor or member of Congress); that Edwards had cornered the Democratic vote and that Obama ran against the Democratic party and cornered the Democratic leading independents; that for a New Yorker to receive 25 percent of the vote or her is impressive (although.. I distinctly remember an HRC mailing calling her a Midwesterner).

By the way: Since 1972, four of nine Democratic nominees have finished second or worse in Iowa; but those four all finished first or second in New Hampshire; the calendar was much more drawn out in those cycles.

5. Point to Clinton’s strength in New York, California and Florida; point out that Obama is bad in debates and that in contests that don’t rely on retail politicking, she has an edge.

6. Run against the idea of John McCain as the Republican nominee; in other words, who’s better to face McCain: Clinton or Obama?

7. Women, women, women. Playing the gender card again.

8. Have really, really good debate performances.

My thoughts:

(1)  I don’t think going negative on Obama (#3) is going to play well in New Hampshire.  If my Mom is any representative indication (and in this particular case, I think she is), Hillary already has a "mean bitch" problem in New Hampshire (if not nationally).  Picking on the black guy who beat her in Iowa isn’t going to win Hillary any admirers.  (Obviously, the negative attacks on Obama will be done through Hillary surrogates, but still….)

(2)  I agree with Ygleisus re: #6.  I think people will be more jazzed about seeing Obama (the new guard) going up against McCain (old guard).  More so than Hillary (old guard).  [UPDATE:  I think McCain is already putting his foot in his mouth.  Here he was in Derry, NH last night]:

(For those of you with dial-up and/or no interest in seeing the video, McCain posits that America should be in Iraq for 100 more years.  "Why not?" he says.)

Well, since I blog about politics a lot, I guess I would be remiss in not throwing in my two cents on the Iowa results.  Here then are my random disjointed thoughts:

(1)  Obama’s win and what it means.  I wasn’t at all surprised by this, nor was I surprised by his margin of victory.  (He didn’t trounce Edwards and Clinton, but his victory was more substantial than many thought — Obama 38%, Edwards 30%, Clinton 29%).  There were signs yesterday morning that Obama had surged in the past 24 hours.

Obviously this is good news for Obama.   The publicity, the money, etc.  I don’t, however, think this translates into a "wave", as some pundits are suggesting.  This is the political equivalent of scoring a field goal in the first ten minutes of the first quarter.  It shows you can play; it doesn’t give you any trophies.

Encouraging is the news that Obama won primarily because of the turnout among young voters.  How won every age group under 44, and lost every age group over 44.  Young voters usually talk a lot about voting, but traditionally fail to show up in droves.  This time was different.

As an aside, I haven’t read/seen much news or analysis yet, but one thing I’m struck by is the lack of attention given to Obama’s race.  I’m sure it’s being mentioned parenthetically, but I find it reassuring that not much fuss is made to the fact that he is the first African-American to blah blah blah.

(2)  Edwards in second and what it means.  Edwards has been campaigning in Iowa for four years.  In that light, his second place win is good, but not great.  I think he really needed a win, both in Iowa and New Hampshire in order to sustain himself throughout the entire campaign.  Of the top tier of the Democratic candidates, I think his climb will be the steepest.  Sadly, Edwards will not get much mileage out of this, as the "stories" will be alternatively about the Obama win and the Clinton "loss".

(3)  Clinton’s third place finish.  She can spin all she wants, but the Iowa results have killed the myth — so strong just four weeks ago — that a Clinton nomination is an inevitability.  Iowa’s third place finish, while not surprising, puts a lot of pressure on the Clinton campaign to win New Hampshire.  Fortunately, she’s still far ahead there and while I expect her lead to diminish, I think she’ll hold out.  She’s got buckets of money and an incredible organization, and I don’t expect her to disappear before the convention.

(4)  The also-ran Democrats (Dodd and Biden dropping out).  The thing is, I’m convinced that none of the supporters for Dodd, Biden, Kucinich, and Richardson are pro-Hillary.  As these lower tier candidates drop off one-by-one, their supporters will gravitate toward Edwards or Obama.  And if Obama consistantly beats Edwards in New Hampshire and other upcoming primaries, these supporters will mostly go into the Obama camp.

(4)  Huckabee win.  Heee heee ha ha ha ha ha ha!  I love it.  Unfortunately for Huckabee, this is the nadir of his campaign.  Oh, he might pick up South Carolina and a few other states, but New Hampshire?  No way.  The Christian coalition ain’t what it once was, and it never was big in New Hampshire.  [Note: According to exit polls, 60% of all Republicans who attended Iowa caucus were born-again or evangelical Christian]

Furthermore, Huckabee is despised — despised — by the neocon conservatives (the "secure America" crowd) and fiscal conservatives to the point where many of them will not vote for Huckabee in the general election.  The only reason Huckabee won in Iowa was because the neocon and fiscal conservative factions of the GOP were unable to unite around any other single GOP candidate.  As the choices become clearer, Huckabee’s star will fall rapidly.

If you’re looking for a blueprint for the Huckabee trajectory, think Pat Robertson in 1988.  Iowa voters put the evangelical candidate into a surprise second place.  Bush Sr., of course, ended up taking the nomination.

(5)  Romney’s second place show.  As expected.  He got thumped, but he stays viable.  A win in New Hampshire — which is expected — will make him the GOP frontrunner.

(6)  Thompson’s impressive third place finish.  I still get the sense that this guy doesn’t want to run, so he’s probably a little pissed that he did so well.  That said, I don’t think he’s going to go much further.

(7)  McCain.  Mere fractions of a percentage behind Thompson, McCain is in it for the long haul.  He will do well in New Hampshire and be the only candidate to give Romney a run for his money throughout the campaign.

(8)  Guiliani.  The beginning of the end.  Seriously.  He came in at 4%.  Ron Paul got 10%.  Now, it’s true — Rudy didn’t campaign in Iowa, and he didn’t campaign too hard in New Hampshire.  A questionable strategy, because now he will look like a serious loser for a few weeks.  Putting all his eggs in the Florida basket (whose primary is January 28) probably won’t pay off.

(9)  Turnout and Democratic energy.  This may be the most significant showing from last night, and it has to do with parties, rather than canddidates.

In 2000, the last time there was a caucus in both parties, Republicans turned out 87,000 voters, while Democrats produced 59,000.  Last night, the Republicans produced around 115,000 voters — an impressive 30% increase.  But the Democrats produced an incredible 236,000 voters.  That’s even more impressive when you consider that the Democratic caucus process involves hanging around for a couple of hours (while Republicans basically just point to a candidate and leave).

What does this mean?  It means that people are really interested in this election and in change.  And they are particularly jazzed about the Democrats. 

Look, for example, at voter turnout for BOTH parties compared:

356,000 total

Percentage of total vote

24.5% Obama
20.5% Edwards
19.8% Clinton
11.4% Huckabee (R)

Hillary, who came in third, got nearly twice the number of votes as Huckabee, who came in first.  In a moderately conservative state!  No wonder many conservatives believe the GOP is in total disarray.

(10)  Now what?

Countdown to New Hampshire: 4 days
Countdown to Michigan: 11 days
Countdown to Nevada and SC GOP primary: 15 days
Countdown to SC Dem primary: 22 days
Countdown to Florida: 25 days
Countdown to Tsunami Tuesday: 32 days
Countdown to Election Day 2008: 305 days
Countdown to Inauguration Day 2009: 382 days

Politico reports:

Several Republican officials close to Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign said they expect the candidate will drop out of the race within days if he finishes poorly in Thursday’s Iowa caucus.

***

“Without a solid third-place finish, there’s no point in going on,” a Thompson adviser said Wednesday. “It was an honorable race, and he turned out to be a good candidate. The moment had just passed.”

Thompson never struck me as terrible interested in running anyway.  Others noticed it as well, lending credibility to the characterization that Fred would be a "lazy" president. 

Anyway, the quote from his advisor seems to guarantee a fourth place finish.  Why would anyone vote (or caucus) for a man who is contemplating an end to his campaign?

This will leave Republicans with one less unappaetizing candidate.  I suspect it bodes well for McCain, who will probably get the Thompson approval.

The explanation:

The purpose of the caucus vote is to select delegates to attend a county convention — each caucus sends a certain number of delegates, based on the population it represents. The delegates at the county convention in turn select delegates to go to the congressional district state convention, and those delegates choose the delegates that go to the national convention.

The Republican caucus voting system in Iowa is relatively straightforward: You come in, you vote, typically through secret ballot, and the percentages of the group supporting each candidate decides what delegates will go on to the county convention.

The Democrats have a more complex system — in fact, it’s one of the most complex pieces of the entire presidential election. In a typical caucus, registered democrats gather at the precinct meeting places (there are 1,993 precincts statewide), supporters for each candidate have a chance to make their case, and then the participants gather into groups supporting particular candidates (undecided voters also cluster into a group). In order for a particular group to be viable, they must have a certain percentage of the all the caucus participants. If they don’t have enough people, the group disbands, and its members go to another group.

If you’ve followed along so far, it may be worthwhile to note that Kucinich told his caucus participants to go to the Obama group if (as expected) the Kucinich groups turn out to be not "viable".

I should also note that, unlike the Republicans, the support for a particular candidate is shown by raised hands.  In other words, the vote is not secret.

The percentage cut-off is determined by the number of delegates assigned to the precinct. It breaks down like this:

• If the precinct has only one delegate, the group with the most people wins the delegate vote, and that’s it.
• If the precinct has only two delegates, each group needs 25 percent to be viable.
• If the precinct has only three delegates, each group needs one-sixth of the caucus participants.
• If the precinct has four or more delegates, each group needs at least 15 percent of the caucus participants.

Once the groups are settled, the next order of business is to figure out how many of that precinct’s delegates each group (and by extension, each candidate) should win. Here’s the formula:

(Number of people in the group * number of delegates)/ number of caucus participants

For example, say a precinct has four delegates, 200 caucus participants, and 100 people support John Doe. To figure out how many delegates you assign to John Doe, you would multiply 100 by four, to get 400. You divide 400 by 200 and get 2. So John Doe gets two of the four delegates.

The media reports the "winner," based on the percentage of delegates going to each candidate. This isn’t exactly accurate, since it’s actually the state convention that decides what delegates go to the national convention, but more often than not, there’s a clear statewide winner after the caucuses.

I print that for your information, because I still am not sure what the fuck it means.  It all seems needlessly complicated. Carpetbagger agrees:

In “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” King Arthur and his knights come across Camelot, and at least initially, couldn’t be more pleased. After thinking it over, and considering exactly what goes on inside Camelot, Arthur concludes, “On second thought, let’s not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.”

I’ve come to think of the Iowa caucuses in the same light.