dajafi wrote:[I'd be happy enough to support Edwards, but I don't think he'd be an effective president--which, we tend to forget in this idiotic culture, is really the point. I'm pretty sure Clinton won't be effective, as I define it--accomplishes a major goal and leaves the country in clearly better shape than they found it. (The only recent successful presidents by this standard are Reagan and probably Bill Clinton.) Obama would have a chance to succeed. Maybe McCain. Nobody else on the Republican side.
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pacino wrote:

Warszawa wrote:

dajafi wrote:If I had to bet in the Iowa Democratic race, it would be on Edwards:

A new McClatchy-MSNBC poll in Iowa shows a statistical dead heat in the Democratic presidential race and a big shift in the Republican race.

John Edwards leads with 24%, followed by Sen. Hillary Clinton with 23% and Sen. Barack Obama with 22%. Edwards has the momentum since the last poll in early December gaining 3 points, while Clinton lost 4 points and Obama lost 3 points.

Key finding: Mirroring other surveys, Edwards gets the most second-choice support. When Richardson, Biden, Dodd, and Kucinich supporters are realigned, the poll has Edwards leading with 36%, followed by Obama and Clinton tied at 26%.

After initially liking Obama the most, lately I've been leaning more and more towards Edwards. (although it doesn't matter since I'm not a registered democrat ). I don't think he has the presence of Obama or whatever Hillary is supposed to have, but I like his message the most and I think he is the most electable in a general election.

Is that politico speak for he's a white dude?

dajafi wrote:

Warszawa wrote:or whatever Hillary is supposed to have

If you figure out what this is, and if it isn't "two x chromosomes" or "celebrity," please run, don't walk to the computer and let me know.

The problem with Edwards is that he accepted public financing, so if he's facing any of the Republicans except I think Huckabee, and maybe McCain, he'll get pounded and defined during the Buyer's Remorse Primary from February through the conventions.

I'd be happy enough to support Edwards, but I don't think he'd be an effective president--which, we tend to forget in this idiotic culture, is really the point. I'm pretty sure Clinton won't be effective, as I define it--accomplishes a major goal and leaves the country in clearly better shape than they found it. (The only recent successful presidents by this standard are Reagan and probably Bill Clinton.) Obama would have a chance to succeed. Maybe McCain. Nobody else on the Republican side.

On the other hand, the one thing I'm very confident Edwards would do is start to restore some of the balance in the labor market between workers and companies. He'd make the National Labor Relations Board, currently a cesspool of anti-union bile dedicated, like the rest of the Bush administration, to upward redistribution of wealth, actually support workers for probably the first time since at least Carter. His Department of Labor would punish violators of workplace law. He'd push (and probably could win on this) some expansion of access to lifelong education and pensions--measures that won't represent Bolshevism but could help to better position people to earn more and pursue careers, not just low-skilled, low-wage jobs. That's a very big deal to me, and might outweigh his likely struggles to pass major domestic legislation (e.g. healthcare, environment).

jerseyhoya wrote:The problem with accepting public financing is the Republican candidate can possibly outspend Edwards by a huge margin between March and the convention.

That's when you get the 527s stepping up to fill the void, but the campaign can't control the message that they put out, so they're at their mercy.

No one has exploited the politics of fear as intuitively as Clinton. Her deepest fear has long been of Republicans. She believes deep down that they command a majority and has long practised a politics that seeks first to neutralise the enemy before attempting anything positive herself. This is the scar tissue of the Reagan and Newt Gingrich eras – with the biggest wounds her 1993 healthcare debacle and the impeachment nightmare of her husband’s second term. Her biggest appeal to her party is that she can withstand the attacks from the right. And as long as they fear the Rove Republicans more than they believe in themselves, she wins.
...
This leaves one viable candidate on either side. They are the least afraid and the most hopeful. They are Obama and John McCain, the Republican senator and Vietnam war hero. Yes, McCain’s experience has emerged as a great strength in an unstable world. But what remains impressive about his candidacy is that he has taken positions that are more forward-looking than many of his younger rivals.

McCain is the only Republican eager to address climate change. Faced with a Republican base furious about illegal immigration, he stuck to his view that illegal immigrants needed to be assimilated and even defended a bill that he authored with Ted Kennedy, the Democrat senator, to achieve this. He also bravely said that America does not need to torture prisoners and that the war in Iraq can be won. As the candidate of honour, he also became a candidate of hope – especially in Iraq. He has seen his numbers surge recently in New Hampshire and, if he can prevent Romney getting momentum, he still has a chance to pull it off.

Obama, of course, based his entire candidacy on the title of his campaign book, The Audacity of Hope. The fearful have every reason to look elsewhere. If you do not believe that a black man can be president; if you do not believe that America can risk talking to Iran’s leadership or withdrawing from Iraq without losing the wider war; if you think it’s naive to hope that the polarising culture war of the past 40 years can ever end; if you doubt that a man with a name like Obama who once attended a secular madrasah in Indonesia can ever win a majority of US votes, you really should vote for Clinton.

Obama knows this and directly confronts it. In the final days his appeal is disarmingly simple. “The question is, do you believe in change?” he asks. “The question is, do you believe deep in your gut we can do better than we’re doing?”
...
After following this race for an almost interminable preamble, all I can say is that I can’t imagine a more constructive race than one between Obama and McCain. The odds are still against it. But it is more imaginable now than at any time in the past year.

pacino wrote:Huckabee's a real piece of work. He's either incredibly devious or incredibly pious. He said he decided to run a positive campaign and, just to show he actually meant business, he released a negative ad to the media which they made but he decided not to use.

TenuredVulture wrote:

pacino wrote:Huckabee's a real piece of work. He's either incredibly devious or incredibly pious. He said he decided to run a positive campaign and, just to show he actually meant business, he released a negative ad to the media which they made but he decided not to use.

As a Baptist (once saved, always saved) it's quite easy for him to be both. Having spent a lot of time around Baptists, most are either antinomian or bad casuists.

1) Second choices will matter. I predict that the winner of the caucus won't have the most raw voters who caucus on Thursday, but will be the candidate who converts the most second choice votes.

2) Entrance polls will matter. Let's say, for example, that Hillary Clinton loses the caucus but wins the entrance polls. She will spin all night that her campaign attracted the most voters to the polls, which is at least as good as a tie. Obama could try this, Edwards really has to win to stay alive.

3) Party crossovers will matter. The DMR poll isn't blowing smoke, plenty of independent and Republican voters are going to caucus for Democrats. And the more pathetic Republicans look this week, the more will take the plunge.

4) Organization will matter. Iowa caucuses are renowned for civility, but that might not hold up this year. There are simply too many paid political operatives on the ground with too much at stake. Some of these meetings will get heated. (Okay, I say this because I raised my voice quite a bit in Bettendorf four years ago when serving as an Edwards precinct captain and some people were taken aback. This year, I suspect it will get a lot more heated.)

5) Iowa won't matter. Okay, it has to matter somewhat given all the stakes, it will knock out at least half the field. But I predict that the winner of Iowa will lose New Hampshire five days later and will suffer Dick Gephardt's 1988 fate.

The order ... Edwards, Obama, Clinton, Richardson, Biden, Dodd, Kucinich. And it will be the last state John Edwards ever carries.

pacino wrote:I never understood the importance of Iowa or NH. So we basically let some people in a bunch of rural towns and two small cities basically decide who the two major candidates will be for president?