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The Edwards campaign is trying to spin their second-place finish by saying 70 percent of caucusgoers voted against Hillary Clinton tonight. That, they say, means change beat experience.
They're right, but not because Clinton lost, nor because Barack Obama won. Change beat experience months ago among Democrats when Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, and Chris Dodd were all ignored by the electorate. Those three second-tier contenders never caught much traction—in Richardson's case he actually lost momentum—because Democrats clearly don't care about a political, legislative, or diplomatic résumé.
Hillary Clinton, after all, still ran on a change message. Sure, it may have been ineffective compared with her hyper-change, hyper-hope competitors, but it was still a message of change. Among the three change candidates, Clinton was the most experienced, and she lost. Democratic voters had already narrowed down the change-experience spectrum to eliminate the candidates who equated experience with electability. Then, within that smaller spread of change candidates, the most experienced person lost.
Experience didn't lose tonight. Hillary Clinton did.
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You can bet Mike Bloomberg's TV was on tonight, and I doubt he liked what he saw. Bloomberg—and the rest of the third-party potentials—can't be happy that Barack Obama turned out so many independent voters in Iowa.
Obviously, the independents only turned out in Iowa. New Hampshire has a much prouder tradition of independents, and the real test for Obama is getting a convincing majority to caucus vote* for him rather than McCain. But Iowa could be the first sign in a nationwide trend of Obama-independents. If that's the case, third-party candidates are screwed (besides a possible Ron Paul bid).
Third parties do well when independents are disillusioned with polarized politics and want a middle ground. It seems independents think Obama occupies that territory, and Huckabee spoke like he wanted to in his victory speech.
Also of note, with Bloomberg, Clinton, and Giuliani all weakened, the 2008 presidential race no longer runs through New York.
UPDATE Jan. 7: A reader politely informed us that New Hampshire residents don't caucus; they vote.
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Here's Mike Huckabee giving his acceptance speech, flanked by future Secretary of Defense Chuck Norris:
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Bill Richardson, who got two percent of the delegates in Iowa, just sent out this laughable spin:
"We
made it to the final four," Richardson said. "My staff and volunteers
worked their hearts out to get us here. Now we are going to take the
fight to New Hampshire."
Richardson received 7 % of the vote in entrance polls. After
watching the results at a rally in Des Moines, he boarded a plane for
New Hampshire.
Sure, he made it into the final four -- in a three way race. And who cites entrance polls once the exit polls -- i.e., the election results -- are already available?
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GRINNELL, Iowa—It’s Obama. He got 21 delegates, Edwards got 10, and Biden got six with help from Dodd and Richardson supporters.
“The caucus is not over yet,” caucus chair Don Smith reminds the crowd, even as everyone starts putting on their jackets. There are delegates to allocate! Names to ratify! Policy positions to write! Still, he just phoned in the results.
Hillary’s people are disappointed, and surprised. Her precinct captain, Teresa McCall, predicted the senator would get 10 delegates. But a campaign intern, Arianna Barusch, points out the campus wasn’t too hot on Hillary in the first place. Keep in mind that the famous Hillary “plant” was a Grinnell student. After that, Hillary decided not to come speak on campus, which sealed her fate.
So, it’s Obama here and, from what Wolf Blitzer is telling me, everywhere else, too.
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GRINNELL, Iowa—A gaggle of kids is hovering over a table covered in snack food. The spread was set up by Hillary supporters but has since been abandoned.
“This is the beauty of politics,” says Griffin, 10, shoving an open bag of Doritos in my face. “Free chips.” I notice he’s wearing an Obama sticker and ask him if he should really be stealing Hillary’s chips. “She’s not viable anyway,” says a lady standing nearby.
A boy named Sam, 13, also has an Obama sticker on his jacket. He says he likes Obama’s plans to fix greenhouse gas emissions. I ask how if his views differ from his friend Griffin’s. “I have knowledge, he doesn’t,” he says.
At that point, a third child comes up and points to his shirt, covered in buttons and stickers for different candidates. “I support everyone!” he squeals.
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A quick thought: Are any of the second-tier Democrats going to exceed 5 percent? As of now, Politico is showing Richardson at 2 percent, Biden at 1 percent, and Dodd, Kucinich, and Gravel at zero percent.
This doesn't mean only 2 percent of Iowans voted for Richardson and 1 percent for Gravel. These aren't popular-vote percentages we're seeing; it's the number of delegates assigned based on meetings where the candidates exceeded 15 percent. So, it's very probable that the top Dems are basically going to run the table. That doesn't show weakness among the second-tier, but weakness in the caucus system.
But average Americans watching CNN probably won't understand this. That means they'll think they're crazy to like the second-tier guys, since Iowans pooh-poohed them. Plus, the second-tier candidates now have to find a way to spin these low numbers and explain the caucuses to residents from other states. The average South Carolinian doesn't care about the nuances of caucus law—they just know Joe Biden only pulled in 1 percent or 2 percent in Iowa. Talk about not being viable.
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GRINNELL, Iowa—So, Hillary isn’t viable. Neither is Biden, Richardson, or Dodd. You know what that means: deal-making time.
Biden’s people break off to discuss merging with other groups. If they decide to form a big “uncommitted” delegation of 73 or more people, they can then allocate their 10 or so delegates to each candidate proportionally. One Hillary supporter (and husband of her precinct captain) named Brad McCall asks Biden’s point person how many delegates they would give Hillary if Team Hillary joined them. The answer: none. Hillary’s people say eff that and bounce.
As they’re leaving, a lurking Edwards precinct captain pounces. He offers them one delegate in return for their support. Hillary’s people seem interested, but ultimately decide not to join them. Same thing happens when Obama’s people offer them five delegates in return for their support. Hillary’s people reject that, too. McCall explained the reason: Even though it would get Hillary more votes at the state convention this summer, it would give Obama momentum tonight. Better to have no delegates in June than to help Obama rocket through the early states.
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GRINNELL, Iowa—It’s 6:59. The doors are now closed. Don Smith, an older guy serving as the caucus chair, comes to the podium in the gym and asks supporters for each candidate to separate into bunches.
He tells us there are 484 people caucusing. Fifteen percent of that is 72.6, which means that a candidate needs 73 people be viable. The Obama group clearly meets that requirement. Same with Edwards. Hillary is looking iffy.
Smith sends the Biden supporters across the hall to the school theater, where they’re supposed to sit in the seats and be counted. They file out silently. It looks like a perp walk. Five minutes later, they’re back. Smith apologizes: “I misestimated what I thought the count would be.” Turns out Biden has only 51 supporters—not viable.
OK, here come the numbers. Bill Richardson has 26. Edwards has 102—not bad. Hillary Clinton has … 44! Not viable!
Barack Obama rakes in 240. The crowd cheers. Smith calms them down: “This is a caucus, not the Jefferson Jackson dinner.”
Then the stragglers: Dodd has eight. Kucinich has 13. “We had one for Gravel, and I’ve lost track of where she is.” Laughter. This doesn’t sit right with Smith: “I think we need to respect people who are for any candidate and not treat it as a joke.”
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GRINNELL, Iowa—I swing by the groups caucusing for Biden and Richardson. A lonely female Biden supporter is looking for a sticker. “Do you guys have any stickers?” “I have a button,” says an old lady.
One Biden fan, Vera Cousins, says she doesn’t know who her second choice is. “It was going to be Chris Dodd, but he’s even lower.” Edwards or Obama will have to do, she says.
The Richardson folks say they expect to be viable in the second round, once supporters have gone to their second choices. A Obama supporter and Grinnell student, Greg Swanson, drifts over to chat with his Richardson-loving friends. I ask if they can stay friends after this. “We’re all Democrats here,” he says. “I saw an Edwards supporter sitting with his wife at the Hillary table.” I ask Swanson if the NRA hat he’s wearing is meant to be ironic. “Yes, it is,” he says.
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GRINNELL, Iowa—About 150 students have come in from out of town. Out of a student population of 1,500, 85 percent of whom are from outside Iowa, that’s not a whole lot. But since only a few hundred people are caucusing, the out-of-towners do make a difference. The school has opened up its gym, where they’ve laid out sleeping bags and blankets for the night.
One of them is Mikel Shybut, who’s here to support Obama. He drove over from Nebraska since “this might be the last chance I have” to caucus as first in the nation. I ask him if he thinks it’s unfair that one state is so influential. “Yeah. But since it’s my state, I’m not complaining.”
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GRINNELL, Iowa—People are just starting to trickle into the Harris Center here at Grinnell College, where I’ll be observing the caucus here for the next couple of hours. It’s a college town, obviously, so students and faculty are expected to be a big part of the turnout.
The Grinnell population is overwhelmingly Democratic, and Obama seems to be the most popular Democrat. The Republicans on campus can be “counted on two hands,” says one student.
This precinct, Grinnell’s Ward 1, has the most delegates of any precinct in Iowa: 37. The reason is that delegates are allotted based on previous turnout. In 2004, when the caucuses fell during the school year, Grinnell students caucused in droves. As a result, they now have 30 percent more delegates than the next most delegate-rich precinct. So in a sense, these caucus-goers have a lot more power than most.
Don Smith, the precinct captain, gives me a bright green Post-It sticker that marks me as an observer. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to participate,” he tells me. “This process really depends on the honesty of people.”
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Entry to Trailhead's first-ever contest has closed. Here are the percentage breakdowns of where the candidates will finish tonight, according to Slate readers. These are the percent of readers who think the given candidate will finish first, second, or third in the caucus.
Dems
|
Edwards
|
Clinton
|
Obama
|
Biden
|
First
|
21%
|
16%
|
63%
|
0%
|
Second
|
32%
|
42%
|
26%
|
0%
|
Third
|
44%
|
41%
|
11%
|
4%
|
|
|
|
|
|
GOP
|
Giuliani
|
Romney
|
McCain
|
Huckabee
|
First
|
1%
|
35%
|
1%
|
63%
|
Second
|
0%
|
62%
|
5%
|
33%
|
Third
|
7%
|
3%
|
72%
|
3%
|
(Not listed are Fred Thompson (9% of readers think he'll finish third) and Ron Paul (6% of readers think he'll finish third. Neither had any first or second place predictions.
With Chris Wilson and Jon Rubin.
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For every candidate who moves one step closer to the presidency tonight, there will be several whose lust for the White House will be squelched. Starting today, we'll keep track of whose candidacy is most likely to bite the dust. Think of it as a Bizarro Power Rankings. This is the pre-caucus edition; we'll have another one up after the dust settles tomorrow.
Dead on arrival
Democrats
Chris Dodd--Dodd has had more success in the Capitol than on the trail in the last few months. A strong third or fourth at the caucus is the only thing that could revive his campaign, but even those chances are low. Joe Biden has soaked up all of Dodd's potential support. Look for a concession speech coming to a CNN near you.
Republicans
Fred Thompson--Thompson's advisers say he'll drop out (which Thompson denies). Thompson has never appeared to want in. Unless he finishes in second, this is a done deal. The biggest question surrounding his campaign is whether his concession speech will just be a live shot of him taking a nap.
The walking dead
Democrats
Bill Richardson--Richardson has made a play in New Hampshire, so he'll probably last until at least Jan. 8. But there isn't a plausible scenario where he gets the boost he needs. Richardson has more money than the other second-tier candidates, so third-place finishes are adequate, not momentum-changers. For Richardson, there's no way forward without a stunning first- or second-place finish tonight.
On life support
Democrats
Joe Biden--Biden has made 83 percent of his stops in Iowa. If he's going to get a boost anywhere, it's in the Hawkeye State. But he'll need to place third to stave off the vultures. And even then, he may enter New Hampshire as a member of the walking dead.
John Edwards--Edwards has further to fall than Biden, and in some ways is even more likely to do so. Anything but first would cripple his chances at a national nomination, because it would create the Obama-Clinton matchup the press has been waiting for. With that said, we won't see a concession if he doesn't win.
Republicans
Mitt Romney--Romney isn't giving a concession speech, either. But he is screwed if he doesn't finish in first. No Iowa means no positive buzz in New Hampshire; no momentum in New Hampshire means no way to overcome devastating editorials in the New Hampshire Union Leader; no New Hampshire means no Michigan; no Michigan means no South Carolina; no South Carolina means no Florida; no Florida means no competition against Rudy Giuliani on Feb. 5. Yeah, this is about as must-win as it gets.
Mike Huckabee--One win in Iowa can shove him way down on this list. No concession speech tonight, but things get awfully dicey for him without a win in Iowa. Evangelicals will turn out for him in all of the primaries, but he needs more than just his built-in base.
The enigmas
Democrats
Dennis Kucinich--Kucinich will last until at least California, and probably much further than that. He didn't drop out of the 2004 race until July, so he's in this for the long haul, whatever that means in this case.
Mike Gravel--I kid, I kid. But seriously, the beauty of being off the radar in every state means that no loss is a crushing blow.
Republicans
Duncan Hunter--What's the straw that breaks this camel's back? He'll most likely be excluded from the debates in New Hampshire, which means other debates can exclude him. He wasted his chance to distinguish himself after his doppelganger, Tom Tancredo, dropped out.
Not going anywhere
Democrats
Hillary Clinton--Yeah, right.
Barack Obama--He's fired up. He's not ready to go.
Republicans
John McCain--McCain has little to lose and everything to gain tonight. His people have to be giddy about how the Huckaboom/bust political economy has played out. Plus, he was already on the verge of death this summer. Lazarus doesn't go down without a fight.
Rudy Giuliani--Ironically, we already know there's no chance Rudy Giuliani drops out after tonight.
Ron Paul--The man is going to be a third-party candidate. Unless he's not. Unless he is. Who the hell knows, anymore? Either way, he's not leaving any time soon.
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Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, per Politico:
Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who is backing Hillary Rodham Clinton,
just told me Clinton’s secret weapon in Iowa: the Asian and Pacific
Islander community here...“Many of them are boat people,” Vilsack said, referring to Vietnamese
refugees who came to this country in the years after the fall of Saigon
in 1975. “We, in Iowa, opened up our hearts and homes to them.”
Oy. Tom, buddy, some friendly advice: Four years after the Democratic nominee got "swiftboated" out of the White House, you don't want to call Vietnamese immigrants "boat people." Especially on Caucus Day.
Meanwhile, the article goes on to say there are no more than 4,000 "boat people" in
Iowa, but doesn't seem to illuminate why any of them would be inclined
to vote for Clinton. Only that they'd vote for Democrats.
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DES MOINES, Iowa—There’s a lot of talk here about how seriously Iowans take their caucuses. But that doesn’t include everyone. Hence the T-shirts that say, “Iowa: Our Caucus Is Bigger, Better, And Comes Before New Hampshire.”
This and other caucus-themed T-shirts are cropping up in Iowa this season, mostly from a local clothing store called Smash. "It's like Urban Outfitters, but half the price,” says Mike Draper, the guy behind Smash and its online counterpart, TheSmashSite.com.
Draper says the caucus shirt idea came up in a bar a year ago. A friend thought it would be funny to have a T-shirt that said “Rock Out With Your Caucus Out.” Draper wrote him a $100 check on the spot.
Since then, they’ve sold $35,000 worth of caucus material. MTV hired them to design their “Rock the Caucus” shirts, and they’ve also created designs for Clinton, Obama, and Richardson supporters. In Clinton’s case, a few staffers said they wanted “Hill’s Angels” T-shirts, so Draper made a mockup with skulls and wings, a la Hell's Angels. Apparently that wasn’t what Hillary’s people had in mind. “They wanted more like Charlie’s Angels,” Draper said, so they redid it (above).
One Richardson supporter sent in a design for a shirt saying, “Bill Richardson: Most electable, Not a polarizer.” Not the zingiest slogan in the world. “We asked if they wanted us to redesign it for them," Draper said, "but they were like ‘No, this looks good,’ and we’re like, ‘All right brother.’ ”
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DES MOINES – At a speech last night at Hoover High School, after nearly a year of breakneck campaigning, Barack Obama sounded tired. His voice was hoarse. He looked a little pale.
People were still screaming. But it felt like there was a disconnect between his words and the crowd’s reaction. Non-climactic lines were met with climactic cheering. The roar often drowned him out, emphasizing the disproportionality of it all. It’s like they were screaming not because Obama had made a compelling point, but because they wanted to scream.
In dozens of conversations with Iowa Democrats and undecideds over the past few days, it’s become clear to me that most people are going with their gut. John Edwards and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have policy differences—which make for rhetorical battles about universal vs. non-universal health care or combat troops vs. non-combat troops—but they don't diverge enough to split Democrats ideologically. So most voters go with whoever appeals most viscerally. Edwards supporters enjoy his combative style. Hillary devotees admire her experience and competence. Obama fans love his talk about changing politics itself, whatever that means. People will agree or disagree with certain policies, but when you ask why they support Candidate X instead of Candidate Y, their answer is often, “I trust him,” or “I just like him.”
And that’s why, over the past few days, it’s been less about message than about turnout. The last Des Moines Register poll predicted higher turnout among independents than ever before—every single one of which is a potential Democratic supporter. (Some campaigns say the poll's estimate overshoots; tonight we’ll find out.) As a result, the Democratic candidates have held 195 events in Iowa since Monday, trying to clasp as many hands and look into as many faces as possible.
But even if one candidate wins by as many as, say, four percentage points, remember that’s just a few thousand Iowans. For all the hoopla surrounding this caucus (for which we are plenty guilty), any victory hailed as “decisive” is still just the result of a few thousand gut feelings. Of course, that’s democracy.
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There is a Chris Dodd lookalike roaming Des Moines. He was first spotted at a rally for John Edwards at the Steelworkers Local 164 on
Jan. 1. Then yesterday, at the see-and-be-seen bar Centro, someone said that Chris Dodd was in the dining room and he'd been there for several hours. When the finally walked out, we saw it was not Chris Dodd, but possibly the closest anyone could be to Chris Dodd without actually being Chris Dodd.
The real Chris Dodd, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found.
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Months before caucus mania descended on the country, various story lines were floated by the political media to try and create a little drama. But now that the caucuses are upon us, it's worth a look back at the story fads that turned out to be useless.
- The early caucus: Not too long ago, Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina, and Florida all competed in an arms race to be one of the first primaries in the nation. But now it's Jan. 3, and Iowa and New Hampshire are still voting first, albeit a few weeks earlier than usual. Big whoop. We should have trusted in some political form of game theory all along.
Russell Crowe John Nash has New Hampshire's back.
- Organge Bowl: Pundits also decried a Jan. 3 caucus date because they thought Iowans wouldn't caucus if the Orange Bowl was on at the same time. Considering candidates' turnout models are inching higher and higher, that seems like hogwash. Plus, who wants to watch Virginia Tech and Kansas in Florida? (Besides Rudy Giuliani.)
- Fund raising: Unbeknownst to everybody (except Ron Paul supporters), the fourth fund-raising quarter ended at midnight on New Year's Eve. But the media barely cared. That's because the fund-raising story lines—while somewhat insightful—are created mainly so the media have something to write about in the dog days of the campaign. Now that there are real stories involving real votes, the media have turned their back on their former muse. Moreover, candidates have barely mentioned their fourth-quarter hauls, in fear that the media will care if their opponents subsequently one-up them.
- Giuliani vs. Romney: The Republican race used to be the Romniani show, yet both of the candidates are hobbling into the primaries. Romney and Giuliani used to bicker with each other over taxes, line-item vetoes, and immigration at the debates. But looking back on it, that was all a red herring. At this point, it's more likely that one of them will ask the other to be his VP. Now, Romney and Giuliani will only go head to head if both candidates can last through Florida and Feb. 5, a scenario that's only possible if Romney wins Iowa and Giuliani stays relevant.
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Biden's campaign just sent out this release, probably because they're sick of getting asked about it:
“There are no discussions underway and there will be no deal with any campaign. We believe Sen. Biden is strong enough on his own. Everyone knows that Sen. Biden is a popular second choice for the supporters of all the other campaigns. We remain confident that Sen. Biden will surprise folks this evening.”
The funny thing is, the statement suggests that Biden isn't making any deals in which he would take supporters from non-viable candidates. When in reality, seeing as he polls in the single digits, any deals he makes would more likely be with a frontrunner like Clinton or Obama, in which he would throw his supporters their way. He should be more worried about losing his supporters to a leading candidate than drawing supporters from non-viable candidates like Dodd, Kucinich, and Gravel.
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Nothing like washing that turkey sandwich down with a good ol' fashioned contest. Enter Trailhead's primary prediction competition to win the respect of all of your Trailhead peers. Visit the original post for the rules, or figure it out yourself by downloading the spreadsheet, filling out your name and predictions, and emailing it to TrailheadContest@gmail.com. Entries must be received by 5 p.m. today.
Giddy up.