Saturday, January 05, 2008
John F Kennedy had to prove that a Roman Catholic could win in 1960, but the Catholic factor has not been an issue ever since.
Obama will have to prove that a black man can win the same way. Next Tuesday’s primary in New Hampshire could be vital because that will be a regular ballot
SENATOR Barrack Obama won the Iowa primary because the caucus system can be ideal for candidates whose supporters are energised. The turnout was up by over 75%, which was phenomenal, and he won 57% of those aged under 30.
Most people do not even know how the caucus system works. There were meetings in each of Iowa’s 1,800 voting precincts at pm on Thursday. Voters essentially declared their party allegiance by choosing to attend the Republican or Democratic caucus held at the same time in different places.
Think of how difficult it is to get the vote out and then realise that the caucus required people to attend the meeting at a certain place at 7 pm. Only the most committed were ever going to go to the trouble of attending.
As a graduate student in Texas in 1972, I had very strong views on the Vietnam war. George McGovern was the main anti-war candidate and I was invited to a meeting at which the caucus system was explained.
Each of us present was asked to get about six people who would vote for McGovern to attend the caucus meeting at the polling station at 2pm on the day of the primary.
Normally only about 20 people would show up and they would be polled openly as to their presidential preference and their views would be taken to represent the views of the whole electorate for the area. All the polling stations reported the results of the caucus meetings; those were added up and the overall result thereby determined. It was stone age stuff.
The regular party hacks thought the usual 20 would have no problem controlling things, but more than 100 students descended on the meeting and nearly all of them were for McGovern, so he swept the area. But the regular party hacks argued that McGovern would need more than the support of youthful enthusiasts to win in November, and so it turned out after he won the Democratic nomination. Richard Nixon beat him in 49 of the 50 states.
One of the most positive signals from Iowa is that the racial issue is no longer of much importance to younger voters.
Some 95% of people there are white, but until a black person is elected to the White House there will always be those who will say that a black candidate is not electable.
John F Kennedy had to prove that a Roman Catholic could win in 1960, but the Catholic factor has not been an issue ever since. Obama will have to prove that a black man can win the same way. Next Tuesday’s primary in New Hampshire could be vital because that will be a regular ballot. More than twice as many people voted in the Democratic than the Republican caucus in Iowa this week. This could suggest that some Republicans may have voted in the Democratic caucus.
Republicans tend to hate Bill Clinton more than they like any of their own. And there is only one American they hate in this world more than Bill Clinton, and that’s Hillary. Those Christians who are to the right of God — of whom America has so many — cannot forgive Hillary Clinton because she seems to have forgiven Bill.
The ends to which the Republicans went in their efforts to get rid of Bill Clinton were frightening.
He was only the second president in US history to be impeached. For what? The whole world knows what happened with Monica Lewinsky, but she was a consenting adult, and her big complaint was that he would not consummate their affair. His main accusers had consummated affairs.
Newt Gingrich, the speaker of the House of Representatives, later divorced his wife while she was dying of cancer so he could marry the other woman.
Henry Hyde, the chief inquisitor as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was exposed for having had an affair with a young married woman with children, and he broke up her marriage.
This campaign is only starting, but it has already had it share of mistakes. Sometimes a careless response can destroy a campaign.
At the start of the 1968 primaries, Governor George Romney of Michigan seemed to have the inside track for the Republican nomination. He tried to excuse his previous support of the Vietnam war during the New Hampshire primary by saying Lyndon Johnson had brainwashed him.
That was a real no-brainer. Who wanted somebody who could be brainwashed for president? Romney bombed out.
His son, Mitt, the former governor of Massachusetts, finished second in the Republican caucus in Iowa this week. He seemed to shoot himself in the foot with a botched play for support from the gun lobby by portraying himself as hunter.
He joined the National Rifle Association (NRA) as a ‘lifetime’ member last August.
"I’ve been a hunter pretty much all my life," Mitt said. But when this was ridiculed, he changed his tune a bit.
"I’m not a big game hunter," he admitted. "I’ve always been, if you will, a rodent and rabbit hunter."
In the end what message was he trying to send with all this — vote Romney to get rid of rats and rabbits? He not only shot himself in the foot, but he then put his foot in his mouth during a recent debate in South Carolina. He was asked about closing the American concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell had called for Guantanamo to be closed "not tomorrow, but this afternoon."
In a naked attempt to woo right-wing voters, the liberal Romney replied: "Some people said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is we ought to double Guantanamo." In the process he has probably halved his own chances.
SENATOR John McCain made a dreadful television gaffe in the current campaign. He has always seemed like a kind of contradiction. He has appeared anti-war, but nobody could attack his own war record.
Unlike Bill Clinton or George W Bush, McCain actually fought and spent many years in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. He was asked recently what message he would like to send to Tehran. He sang his response to the tune of the Beach Boys’ song Barbara Ann, which goes "bar bar bar bar Barbar Ann". His tuned reply was "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran".
That is just what the world needs in the White House — a bomber with a sick sense humour! Just think how that plays in the Middle East.
Senator John Edwards, who was John Kerry’s popular running mate in 2004, has been trying to appear as a populist candidate fighting for ordinary Americans, but he was hurt by the disclosure that a recent haircut cost $400, which his campaign paid.
"What happened is embarrassing to me," he admitted. "It was obviously a mistake to have the campaign pay for it."
Poor John compounded his problems with his explanation. He missed the point — the average American to whom he is trying to appeal cannot understand the extravagance of a $400 haircut.
He had a folksy TV add in Iowa featuring a laid-off worker talking about his first meeting with the senator. "He grabbed my seven-year-old son by the hand," the man explained. "He dropped to one knee and then he looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘I’m going to keep fighting for your daddy’s job. I promise you that.’ "
And then I threw up.
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