You have to love Mike Huckabee because, if nothing else--

--the man is honest.

Asked if he saw any cost to staying in the race, Mr. Huckabee thought for a moment before answering: no.

“I have nothing else to do,” he said with a smile.

...Dave Barry once wrote that if there were ever a politician with an honest slogan, such as "Harlan Frubert: Basically, He Wants Attention," he'd quit his job to work for that campaign. We are not so far off the mark here...

Farewell to Mittens

It is with great sadness that I bid a fond farewell to Willard Mitt Romney, who suspended his presidential campaign today. Mittens was an inspiration to us all, especially those of us who someday want to become Republicans. So I leave you with this poignant reminder of a younger, happier Mitt (not to mention Teddy K), whose success in politics and life is a shining example of the power of really good hair to make everyone forget about your record.

A thought about the "divided" Democratic Party

I realize that for many of us hyperpolitical types, the Obama-Clinton contest looks like a HELLACIOUS APOCALYPTIC DEATHMATCH that will tear the party asunder, make small children cry, etc. But is it not equally possible that this close margin -- 48.7% to 48.4% if you aggregate yesterday's votes -- is a result of Clinton and Obama being functionally identical? You would get just that same result by flipping a coin 15 million times...

...as opposed to Republicans, who are actually splintering along real ideological lines. McCain seems poised to win despite minimal support from conservatives, and the absolute visceral hatred of the right wing; meanwhile, evangelicals are stubbornly clinging to Mike Huckabee no matter what their leadership tries to tell them, and you have to assume that lots of those people -- critical to GOP strategy since the Reagan years -- are willing to go down with the ship. In any given scenario, between now and the Minneapolis convention some critical portion of that party will be marginalized.

So when you hear analysts saying that the GOP is ready to rally around John McCain, while Democrats face a bitter and damaging struggle between two frontrunners, I think they've got it exactly backwards. Democrats are fighting over a miniscule and arbitrary difference in image, one that can be easily healed with a few kind words in Denver (only the most passionate Clintonites or Obamaniacs would really think of leaving the party); Republicans face existential crisis. Despite the illusions produced on Super Tuesday, and the scorched-earth campaigning that's likely to come, our position overall is still much stronger than theirs; I wouldn't worry too much about a protracted nomination battle damaging our general-election prospects. Just sit back and enjoy the ride...

Yay, Mittens!

Here's to our good friend Willard, who just picked up 34 delegates in the Nevada primary. (Or, at any rate, Politico's called it for him.) South Carolina results will come out later today, but the polls are showing Mike Huckabee and John McCain at the top of the race, and Mittens hasn't graced the state with his beautiful hair. For whatever reason, Romney was the only big name in the GOP field to campaign much in Nevada, even though it has more delegates than South Carolina. Hopefully this means more great attack ads:

Five races, five winners

This primary season is never going to end.

...I look forward to Dennis Kucinich's surprise win in Nevada...

UPDATE (January 17): It has been brought to my attention that I forgot Wyoming. You know what? Fuck Wyoming. Empty-ass little state, with the funny hats and the voting irregularities and the messing up my pithy blogposts. Fuck Yellowstone National Park too.

"Do you want this primary season to be over? Or do you want this primary season to be hilarious?"

I nominate this video, promoting Michigan Democrats for Mitt, as the highlight of the 2008 campaign season. Awesomeness.

UPDATE: Also, Mitt Romney is such a ridiculous stereotype. Emphasis mine:

Mr. Romney, who has invested most heavily in capturing the Republican delegates to be selected through Tuesday’s Michigan primary, spent the morning speaking to more than 2,000 students at Grand Blanc High School. Though the size of the crowd was impressive, few were old enough to vote and the assembly was mandatory for students.

In a somewhat disjointed speech at the school, Mr. Romney struggled at times with how to engage his teenage audience, starting off with an analogy from a decades-old game show, “Let’s Make a Deal,” about the choices the students faced. Then he trotted out some of his favorite anecdotes, including one about Mike Eruzione, a hero of the 1980 United States Olympic hockey team.

Dressed in a suit and tie, Mr. Romney talked variously about “inflection points” in American history, urged the students to get married before having kids, and warned teenagers about getting “hooked” on drugs, saying “your life’s income and your happiness quotient will actually go right down to the basement.”

"Now kids, you might think it's 'hip' to go 'hang' with your 'pals' and 'smoke reefer' while you listen to 'Puff Daddy' and the 'Rolling Stones'. But do you know who your real pal is? Jesus! Would Jesus 'smoke reefer'?"

...In fairness to Romney, though: Let's Make a Deal was great.

Looking to the next states

My favorite thing about this race, post-N.H., is that now we get to hear from states that aren't tiny and cold and 98% white. I was afraid that the two early states would exercise their monopoly and pick at least one nominee; but no, we got four contests and four different winners. (For the record, this hasn't happened since 1988 -- when New Hampshire voters looked at Iowa's choices of Dick Gephardt and Bob Dole, pondered a while, then collectively said "Fuck that, we want New Englanders." The result was Bush vs. Dukakis, the worst election ever.)

On the Democratic side, we have Nevada and then S.C. -- neither race can really be predicted, because they've never been early states before. We have no idea how voters there will respond to the national situation, we don't know what organizational tactics will move them, and we certainly don't know who will turn out. Polls are almost worthless in these states (especially Nevada, which is facing a caucus for the first time, so turnout will be completely unpredictable). We'll pretty much just have to wait and see what happenes there. Boring!

But the Republican contests are eminently predictable. Their two big ones coming up are Michigan and South Carolina -- both of which have polls coming out today that starkly contradict the conventional wisdom. Michigan, which is widely seen as Romney's firewall, per Strategic Vision today actually favors McCain (!?) by nine points, with Romney and Huckabee struggling for second. Meanwhile in South Carolina, the conservative Southern stronghold where Huckabee will presumably concentrate his fire, Rasmussen has in the lead... McCain (?!?!!?), 27%-23% Huckabee, with Romney and Thompson back. Neither of these places should be McCain territory; Michigan is an economically collapsing state that should be responsive to Huckabee's populism (see his latest ad there, which is all about the failing economy), plus Romney's dad was governor there in the 60s. And South Carolina is the deep south, the Strom Thurmond south (please download that song), the place where McCain 2000 was eaten alive by Karl Rove. But there you have it; McCain leads both.

The kicker? Both of these polls were in the field before McCain won N.H., which presumably would give him an even further boost in the standings.

Now, it's quite possible that these polls are outliers; they don't jive at all with earlier data (MI, SC). But it's not hard to imagine that in recent weeks, McCain has been quietly gaining, presumably both from the media tongue-bath he's been getting and from disaffected Romney supporters. If -- if -- we can confirm these numbers, I think you have to say that McCain is now the GOP national frontrunner. Again.

But there's many a slip between the cup and the lip. No matter how many poundings he takes from less annoying candidates, Mitt Romney will keep pouring his money into the game probably through Feb. 5; and if he and Huckabee both have to train their fire on McCain (rather than previously, when McCain and the Huckster were basically a tag-team against Romney), watch out for an anti-McCain backlash. Add that to the Giuliani factor in Florida (remember him?), plus a restive conservative base that still can't make up its mind, and it's quite likely that this race will become a giant Republican clusterfuck that rages on relentlessly for months. It is difficult for me to express my sheer giddiness about that. It's like Christmas.

So that's why I prefer the Republican race to the Democratic one. We have two frontrunners (two and a half if you count John Edwards), all of whom basically agree on almost everything. Republicans have four frontrunners who represent completely different wings of the party, plus Ron Paul. No contest. I'm going to go make some popcorn...

Gem from last night's GOP debate

I just noticed this, but I thought it was great. Here are the Republicans talking about Barack Obama:

John McCain to Mitt Romney: "We disagree on a lot of issues... But I agree you are the candidate of change."

I had to think about that one for a second, but he got Mitten there.

Post-caucus analysis

You've all suffered through enough of my own 'analysis' that I won't subject you to any more of it, but some interesting insights on last night's caucus victories for Obama and Huckabee.

Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics calls it a victory for "authenticity," on the grounds that Romney and Clinton's respective rebrandings as a lifelong conservative and a change agent simply didn't fly with Iowa voters. Bevan points out that this could be especially tough for Romney since John McCain stands in for Mike Huckabee as the 'authentic' candidate in New Hampshire.

Bevan also draws probably the most conclusive lesson, which is that Ann Selzer knows what she's doing. Selzer polls Iowa for the Des Moines Register, and she took a lot of flak for the latest Iowa poll, which had Obama at 32%, Clinton at 25, and Edwards at 24. The Clinton and Edwards campaigns had both slammed Selzer's poll for its turnout model: the poll's sampling proportions were based on the assumption that a large number of independents and first-time caucusers would turn out. Both of those campaigns argued that such a level of turnout was totally unprecedented, which it was, and that it wouldn't happen, which it did - as Rob pointed out, over 220,000 people turned out for the Democratic caucuses, an improvement of about a hundred thousand people over the 2004 caucus. Moral of the story: Ann Selzer knows Iowa.

Patrick Healey at the New York Times calls it a rebellion against the party establishments and suggests that the "inevitability" narrative cultivated by Clinton and (perhaps to a lesser extent, given his mediocre showing in national polls) Romney simply didn't work out. In the Democratic race, Healey also suggests that Obama's victory in Iowa, whose population is 95% white and largely rural, and where women supported him in greater numbers than they supported the female candidate, could show good things about his electability.

The Times' Matt Bai on Bill Richardson's spin of the final results:

Until last night, I thought the most creative spin I’d ever heard from a losing candidate came from Joe Lieberman, who declared, after finishing fifth in New Hampshire: “We’re in a three-way tie for third!” But then I got the e-mail from Bill Richardson in which he exulted, after garnering 2 percent of the vote: “We made it to the Final Four.”

Well, yeah, I guess that makes sense, if the Final Four consisted of Duke, North Carolina, Florida and the Maharishi University of Management. Sometimes it’s just better to say you lost and move on.

On a yay-Democrats note, Group News Blog (via Blue Hampshire) points out that each of the top three Democratic candidates did an awful lot better than Mike Huckabee:

Percentage of total vote 24.5% Obama 20.5% Edwards 19.8% Clinton 11.4% Huckabee

In less-publicized election night news, David Schraub covers the special election for the Minnesota State Senate, in which the eight precincts in Northfield, home of Carleton College (great school), St. Olaf College (great choirs), and a Malt-O-Meal factory (great Marshmallow Mateys), collectively made it a landslide for the Democratic candidate.

Finally, my earlier prediction was totally off-base: Kansas beat Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl last night, 24-21. Incidentally, let me just express my utter amazement that on the night of a major bowl game, only one television in the entirety of Uno's bar area was showing the Orange Bowl; the rest were showing caucus results.

As promised, none of my own analysis - but I am quite curious for comments on Iowa, especially from those of you in non-Obama camps. Does Hillary need New Hampshire to take the nomination? Will Mike Huckabee go anywhere, or will Romney come back in New Hampshire, or will McCain play Romney's weakness to his advantage? And what cabinet positions are Chris Dodd and Joe Biden going to get?

Have at it, and for those of you involved in the various campaigns, I'll see you in New Hampshire.

Caucus predictions, round 3

Since Eric and Raul have already offered their predictions for tomorrow's Iowa presidential caucuses, I'll throw my hat in the ring and make it official: Virginia Tech over Kansas by seven points.

I also predict, with one hundred percent certainty, that this is a really silly mascot:

On a related note, Mitten Romney has come out with an ad turning Chuck Norris against Mike Huckabee, and I just don't know what to think:



Hence, my final prediction of the night: Chuck Norris does unspeakable things to Mitt Romney for that ad. If you try to put words in Chuck Norris' mouth, Chuck Norris will probably return the favor by putting his foot in your ass.

In seriousness? I have no idea what's going to happen. There are an infinite number of potential variables affecting who shows up to caucus (to be expected in a system in which even the chairman of the state Republican Party can't caucus), from the Orange Bowl to the weather (currently predicted to be not too terrible) to whether someone's kid gets sick that day. I don't believe that any one candidate will sweep in either race, and barring that outcome, I don't think Iowa will resolve the fight between Clinton and Obama. If there is no large margin of victory, the impact of Iowa will, I think, consist in two things: (1) how the mainstream (and early-state) media spins the result, and (2) how the campaigns use the Iowa results to motivate supporters, raise money, and turn out volunteers in New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.

The first factor is rather frustrating for me. I'd guess that, even if, say, John Edwards wins Iowa by something small like two delegates, a New York Times headline reading "John Edwards Wins Iowa" would generate at least some of the momentum that's supposed to come with an Iowa win. This might be a biased fear of mine - I spent my summer campaigning for Barack Obama, at a time when the mainstream media was busy anointing Hillary Clinton as Frontrunner-for-Life. This has changed quite a bit since this summer - because, I think, of Obama's surprising second-quarter fundraising totals - but I remain worried that any oversimplification in the media's interpretation of Iowa results could have an undue impact on New Hampshire and subsequent primaries.

As for the second, well, this is where ground organization comes in. I find it interesting that most media/blog coverage tends to focus on national-level strategy, debates, gaffes, etc., and that most discussion of the nuts-and-bolts field operation doesn't go any deeper than numbers of offices, staffers, and the like - though maybe that's a function of the news I read. But in the absence of a really conclusive Iowa victory, I think local field operations will have a pivotal role to play in New Hampshire, at least in the Democratic field.

Markus and perhaps other astute observers will notice that I've left John Edwards out of these predictions. Some comments on that: First, don't feel hurt since this entire post is totally specious, except for the Chuck Norris bit. Second, I've neglected Edwards since I don't follow his campaign particularly closely. My impression is that he doesn't have enough of a ground organization in New Hampshire to carry his candidacy past that state in the event that he comes in third or worse in Iowa. However, I don't know much about any campaign but my own in NH, and maybe he's built it up since I was there last.

Requisite disclaimers: My opinions are my own and neither Barack Obama nor his campaign necessarily endorses any of my predictions, particularly regarding the Orange Bowl. Apologies to my Kansas-connected friends. Chuck Norris, please don't hurt me.

Big News on the Republican Front

No, its not about the Huckabee Jesus-ad, but about the man who brought us this other advertising gem of the primary. Tom Tancredo may drop out of the race tomorrow. The big question, though, is if he drops out, who will he endorse? I'm hoping this guy:

Smelly Toad '08!

Re: Huckabee (and Huckaphobia)

Will and Rob have a zeitgeist going this morning about Mike Huckabee (seven minutes apart! damn dudes!) and how "scary" he is. It's true that Huckabee is quite radical on social/religious issues, but that's not the whole story; I want to present an alternate perspective in which Huckabee's rise is a very good thing for both the Republican Party and the nation.

First of all, I should point out that Huckabee's not going to get the nomination. Rob's point about organizational strength is quite true (not to mention, Huckabee lags significantly in financial support), and historically, the late-rising Republican underdog never actually wins anyway (see McCain 2000): unlike Democratic races, where momentum is usually king, Republican races inevitably wind up nominating the choice of the party establishment. In this case, that's fairly obviously Romney, and I'm confident in predicting -- famous last words -- that his cash and overwhelming organizational strength will pull out a stronger-than-expected second or first in Iowa, a big win in NH, and roll from there to the nomination. (For the record, I think Giuliani's national-primary strategy is horseshit. It has been tried before and it never works. Besides, his numbers are sinking like we knew they would anyway, so I woudln't worry about it.) Even if Romney were to somehow weaken: considering his lack of cash, Huckabee can't campaign everywhere, so he has to hope for a McCain spoiler win in NH, Giuliani strength on Feb. 5, and consequently a delegate split that leads to a brokered convention (about which David Freddoso has written a must-read article for National Review). And a brokered convention, which means that party insiders will be the ones pulling the strings, certainly doesn't favor an outsider populist like Huckabee. So I just don't see how he wins.

(On the other hand, I put no stock in these general-election matchup polls that say Huck would lose badly to Dems; Huckabee's name recognition is way too low for those numbers to signify anything. Same with those polls that say Romney's an easy target -- it's just low-information voters picking the candidate they've heard of. Huckabee could easily put up a serious fight.)

But his meteoric rise in the GOP polls is important in and of itself. And that tells an encouraging story about the state of the GOP electorate: it's pissed with its leadership. Huckabee, remember, is the one candidate who emphatically is not part of the Republican elite; he's not a rich CEO, he's not a city slicker, he's not a Hollywood actor, and he's not a Washington swamp-thing. The Club for Growth despises him, Robert Novak has vetoed him, even the leadership of the religious right is uncomfortable with him; Huckabee's a total outsider. And I think that is what's powering his rise: Republican base voters are fed up with what they've got (understandably), and are looking for a conservative insurgent. It's a mirror image of the dynamic that gave us Howard Dean '04, who rose just as quickly, and who looked just as wacky to conservatives as Huckabee does to us.

There are two good things about this:

• First, it's the harbinger of an all-out Republican civil war (since, unlike the easily-cowed DLC types, I don't think the economic hard-right will go quietly) that would consequently guarantee Democratic control of everything for decades.
• Second, it's a sign that grassroots Republicans (who are still, after all, Americans) are not as tied to low-tax free-market lunacy as their leadership would suggest, and are perfectly willing to support a candidate who talks sense on the economy. Though he's weak on the particulars of issues -- FairTax? Come the fuck on -- he's at least demonstrated a commitment to fair trade, fighting poverty, supporting health care and the social safety net, etc. That's tied right up with his religious identity and sits at the core of his candidacy; they are unquestionably good things to believe.

So I have absolutely no problem with a continuing Huckabee surge; I encourage it, in fact. (And not to toot my own horn, but I should point out that I called this four months ago. Shoulda put money on it!) Christianist nutbar or not, general election threat or not, Huckabee's continuing presence can only be good for our politics.

Garrett Smacks the IOP in Today's Crimson

Read read read read read:

On its face, the IOP purports to support exactly what the misty-eyed memoirists of the activist Sixties want Harvard students to be doing. In the style of the civic-minded academy, it implores Harvard students to “examine critically and think creatively about politics and public issues.” The entire circus operates under the spiritual aegis of President John F. Kennedy ’40, who, one imagines, looks down with rolled-up sleeves and a winning smile upon the IOP’s noble young activists.

Marketing, however, can’t gloss over the truth forever. What transpires down at the end of JFK Street is not the catalysis of idealism but rather a sort of cotillion for political nerds. It absorbs every freshman looking to exercise their obligations as a citizen and churns out a mixture of political technicians, professional hand-shakers, and disillusioned burnouts.

[...] the IOP inculcates a worrisome catechism of centrism in its followers. The maxim of political involvement IOP-style is to mold yourself into just the right mixture of sensible sentiments and professional suavity. Of the nineteen members of the IOP’s Student Advisory Council, for example, only four choose to identify as “liberal” or “conservative” on their Facebook profiles. Nine, apparently, have no political views whatsoever.

And having a corral for the political set on JFK street means Harvard mirrors a problem endemic to the nation: the consigning of civic duties to a self-contained class of “political people.” This flies in the face of the very notion of democratic society: that we are all political people. Political mobility is a sentiment which needs to boil through everyone who comes to Harvard College, a trade school of citizenship.

Absolutely right. Plus Garrett is much more intellectual and pragmatic about it than I can ever bring myself to be -- my solution to this problem has never grown much past "burn the motherfucker down", which for the record is also how I feel about the Crimson, the final clubs, and the GODDAMN NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS -- so you should really just go read his piece.

Though I would add that the IOP is ultimately not a cause of our political inertia so much as a symptom; there is a whole social and economic order that demands just those centrist sycophants the IOP churns out. (Let's not pretend the Dems are innocent on that front either.) After all, the all-inclusive "democratic society" Garrett proposes does not coexist well with a capitalistic one...

...For a palate cleanser, make sure also to read Jarret's fun column comparing the GOP presidential race to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -- though I do think Jarret seriously underestimates the impact of Ron Paul. He has a blimp, people! A BLIMP! HOW CAN HE LOSE??!?

Rudy's slipping in the polls? Iran's not evil? Quick, men! To the time machine!

Look what the cat dragged in:

Yes, Rudy Giuliani's latest ad is all about Iran--- but not the Iran you're thinking of, with the nuclear disarmament and protesting students and other such annoying complexities. (Completely true: that declassified NIE report sank a CNN special planned for the 12th called "CNN PRESENTS: We Were Warned -- Iran Goes Nuclear". Darn reality, always ruining a good story!) No, Giuliani wants to talk about the Big Evil Retro Iran of 1980, a presumably safer choice and certainly a more perfect foil for his macho Reagan fantasies -- emphasis on "fantasies". Giuliani really wants us to think that "Rambo" Reagan being in office for an hour caused Iranian terrorists to burst into tears and lay down their arms. It'd be poignant if it wasn't so fucking retarded.

The brilliant Phil Nugent explains the real facts and context very well. All I want to point out in addition is that this follows a pattern I've seen among Republicans for years: that for some presumably psychological reason, they have absolutely no idea what decade it is. The concept of historical context simply eludes these people. Just as they do not understand the difference between TV and real life, conservatives likewise do not grasp the difference between the past and the present; hence this totally earnest attempt to pretend it's still the age when gas cost $1.20 a gallon and Ron Reagan rode around on his horse. To a man, they see nothing wrong with this escapist drivel; I fully expect Mitt Romney to respond with an ad invoking the Miracle on Ice. (And Fred Thompson, who's been doing the Cold War thing for some time, will probably just keep pedaling backwards until he winds up raving about pinkos and the Apollo program. But then, it's Fred Thompson, so nobody will notice.)

---ON THE OTHER HAND, if Giuliani really wants to cast this election in terms of 1980 -- when, if you remember, the incumbent party was soundly defeated due to a clearly failing economy, a disastrous foreign policy and a widely mistrusted leadership -- I suppose I wouldn't really have a problem with that...

Every time Robert Novak is frightened, an angel gets its wings

Huckabee is campaigning as a conservative, but serious Republicans know that he is a high-tax, protectionist advocate of big government and a strong hand in the Oval Office directing the lives of Americans. Until now, they did not bother to expose the former governor of Arkansas as a false conservative because he seemed an underfunded, unknown nuisance candidate. Now that he has pulled even with Mitt Romney for the Iowa caucuses and might make more progress, the beleaguered Republican Party has a frightening problem.

A Republican who supports universal health care, energy independence, and fair trade -- that is to say, a guaranteed-winner election platform? Run away, Novak! Run away!

(From Novak's column today. Via Drudge, not that he needs the traffic.)