The Comeback Queen

HNN, 3-6-08

(first published in the Montreal Gazette, March 6, 2008)

Clinton knew it was do or die. All the campaign staffers and the media agreed that without a big win Tuesday, the campaign was over. The ultimately winning strategy entailed putting the media and the opposition on the defensive, and tempering this negativity with the right pop-culture flourish.

While the above describes Hillary Clinton’s impressive comeback this past Tuesday, with decisive wins in Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island, it also describes Bill Clinton’s incredible comeback in 1992. Bill Clinton became the “Comeback Kid” by scoring impressively – not even winning – in the New Hampshire primary after being devastated by Gennifer Flowers’ reports of her lengthy affair with him, and by the scandal surrounding his creative feints to avoid being drafted in 1969. Perhaps the defining moment in Clinton’s turnaround occurred on Ted Koppel’s “Nightline” show. Smoldering just enough, he delivered a line a consultant fed him: “All I've been asked about by the press are a woman I didn't sleep with and a draft I didn't dodge.” Later in the spring, when Governor Clinton’s poll numbers sagged yet again, he donned cool sunglasses and whipped out his saxophone to play some tunes on “The Arsenio Hall Show.” Once again, his approval ratings soared.

Hillary Clinton became the Comeback Queen this week by making these familiar moves from the Clinton playbook. She jumped on a Saturday Night Live skit accusing the press of coddling Barack Obama, by sarcastically suggesting that reporters should offer her rival a pillow to make him comfy during their debate. She was so pleased with Saturday Night Live’s assistance, she guest-hosted days later. And while pummeling the press for handling Senator Obama with kid gloves, Senator Clinton and her staffers roughed him up over his friendship with a shady Chicago operator, over his NAFTA two-step, wherein one of his advisers supposedly reassured the Canadian embassy not to worry about his anti-Free Trade demagoguery, and over his general inexperience, especially on national security matters.

Exit polls showed that most of the voters who decided in the last two weeks chose Hillary Clinton. In Ohio, exit polls showed that Midwestern voters thought she would make a better Commander in Chief than Barack Obama by 57 percent to 40 percent. Those kinds of numbers suggest that Americans do not have a problem with a woman at the helm and that much of the opposition she has encountered is more aimed at her specifically, than at women in general.

Ironically, while following her husband’s lead, Hillary Clinton shrewdly kept him under wraps. Unlike in South Carolina, where Bill Clinton overestimated how loyal African-Americans would be to him when faced with the first African-American candidate in history with a real shot at the White House, the former President was relatively subdued in Ohio and Texas.

Senator Clinton re-learned what she had realized throughout her senatorial career: that Bill Clinton simply commands too much attention, and undermines her claim to be an independent national leader – even when he is not overplaying his hand. Senator Clinton also re-learned the lessons of 1992 – and much of the White House years – Americans do not want a husband-wife co-presidency. Voters recoiled when the Clintons pitched “two for the price of one” on the campaign trail in 1992. Hillary Clinton saw that her poll ratings sagged when Americans feared she was overstepping, and that her popularity as First Lady increased when she kept to more traditional First Lady-like roles.

John McCain and his fellow Republicans are delighting in their opponents’ predicament. The Democrats now have two strong candidates with legitimate claims to be considered the most viable nominee. And both candidates have masses of supporters who risk being deeply disappointed – and alienated – if their candidate loses. Barack Obama still retains a slight yet possibly insurmountable lead in the number of delegates won in the Democratic parties’ particularly complicated nominating process. But having won New York, California, Texas, Ohio, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey and with a strong lead in Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton now can claim that she holds the key to winning the states with the biggest electoral vote totals, and some of the most critical swing states for the November general election.

Once again, the curse of the Clintons worked its black magic – negative campaigning swayed the electorate. Predicting electoral outcomes has proved to be a tricky business this campaign season. But it is a reasonably safe prediction to make that, in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s wins and Barack Obama’s losses on Tuesday, both are going to be tempted to keep going negative. Hillary Clinton has already drawn blood, and has no choice but to continue trying to drain excitement and credibility from the Obama phenomenama.

Obama has to figure out how to be aggressive enough to show he is tough – on the campaign trail as well as in the Oval Office if he wins – without being so nasty that he loses the aura of hope he has built up with his Yes We Can message of healing. And even though the Clintons scored some points against the media, sending reporters scrambling to prove that they had not been too soft on Obama, political reporters must be thrilled. They were the big winners Tuesday, as this already most compelling election season just received a new surge and a guarantee of continued excitement – and front-page coverage.

America's Shame: The Absurd Primary System

HNN, 3-5-08

Just as the 2000 election deadlock between George W. Bush and Al Gore highlighted all the dysfunctional elements in America’s general electoral system, this titanic battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is showcasing all the absurdities of the system for nominating presidential candidates. It is not much of a partisan statement to say that the Democrats seem to have an even stupider system than the Republicans. Hillary Clinton’s victories in Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island guarantee that the system is going to get tested in ways it has never been before. As Clinton and Obama get closer and closer to the Democratic National Convention, the strains on the system – and the Democrats’ remarkably un-democratic approach to nominating standard-bearers -- will show more and more.

I have already complained about the outrageous way millions of voters in Florida and Michigan were disenfranchised, merely to satisfy petty dictators from the small, unrepresentative states of New Hampshire and Iowa. Now, the fact that the Democratic Party poohbahs in their wisdom decided that the delegates who were properly selected in the Florida and Michigan primaries should not be counted is going to take on dramatic significance. Hillary Clinton, who was wrong to buy into the Florida and Michigan boycott, is going to argue for the rights of those voters to be heard. Obviously, this has less to do with a newfound appreciation for democracy and more to do with, shock of all shocks, advancing her self-interest.

Similarly, the difficulty explaining the Texas prima-caucus, combining New Hampshire-style beauty contest general voting with Iowa-style caucusing, also demands scrutiny. From poor people who had to leave work early or spend precious resources to get to the voting booth, to overstressed executives who had to carve time out of their overscheduled days, voters are going to wonder why they bothered participating in a charade, if their votes don’t count fully.

Ironically, one of the features many people criticize about the general election may help solve another one of the primary problems. This morning, the Clinton people are feeling frustrated that their big wins in crucial states like Texas, Ohio, New York, California and New Jersey have not had the impact they should. Moreover, Hillary Clinton’s success in these big states – along with Florida and Michigan – make her a surprisingly compelling candidate, despite the awful campaign she has run. A winner-take-all approach in those states would have drastically changed this race – and given Hillary Clinton at this point at better chance at overtaking Obama in Pennsylvania. If most states on Election Day are going to be winner-take-all, and if the Electoral College is going to continue favoring the large states, maybe the nominating systems needs to be aligned with the electoral system by becoming winner-take-all too.

Finally, the fact that this Democratic nomination is going to be decided by the super-delegates is particularly tragic. Thanks largely to Barack Obama, there has been a populist energy and excitement in this race that has not been seen in at least sixteen years – since the previous Clinton first ran (that guy named Bill, currently under wraps as the Hillary Clinton campaign tries to avoid more embarrassment). Both Democrats have to think about how to win without losing the ardent supporters of their primary opponent. A feeling of “we wuz robbed” by the elites and not by the people, will not be conducive to the party healing the aftermath of such a knock-down, drag-out nominating contest will require.

From a perspective of democratic theory, the super-delegates face a fascinating super-conundrum. What should be the basis of their vote – their district’s expressed desire, if they represent a particular locale; their state’s expressed desire; the overall leader in delegates; the overall leader in popular votes – which could be different; the overall leader in states’ won – which could also be different; the candidate to whom they are closest or from whom they have received the most favors in the past; the candidate they think most likely to win in November; or the person they think will make the best president? This is the kind of question that could launch a dozen fascinating dissertations – but should not, in a functioning democracy, have to be posed.

One of the most sacred acts in a democracy is the act of voting for your leader. This popular input should carry over into the nominating process. We need clean, clear, direct, above-board primaries and general elections. It is a source of great sadness to me that I have to write the following words: the United States is failing that fundamental democratic test. Whoever wins in November, let us hope that he – or she – undertakes to fix this Rube Goldberg system for electing the President of the United States of America.

The Giulianomaly

HNN, 1-31-08

A few election cycles ago, reporters started to notice that voters were becoming way too self-conscious and savvy. When speaking to television reporters, more and more American citizens tended to speak in the kind of fifteen-second sound bites that actually appeared on the news. Moreover, when reporters asked about a particular candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, more and more voters tended to handicap the candidate’s chances, rather than assess the candidates’ governing abilities. All the talk about Rudy Giuliani’s failed Florida firewall and foolishness in skipping Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina reflects this unfortunate modern tendency – caused, of course, by reporters themselves – to so focus on the horserace and forget about the actual purpose of the exercise.

The relevant fact about Giuliani’s stunning fall from popular-front runner in the polls throughout most of 2007 to primary failure in 2008 is this: the more voters got to know Rudy Giuliani the less they liked him. Giuliani’s campaign suffered from exposure not inattention. At the end of the day, the questionable business deals, the Clintonesque sloppiness in family matters, the heavyhanded governing approach, all hurt Giuliani. Voters sensed, correctly, that Giuliani combined the worst traits of America’s two recent presidents. Like President Bush, Mayor Giuliani is a divider not a uniter; and like Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani’s private immorality undermines his appealing, even self-righteous, public persona. In short, in this case, campaigns did exactly what they are supposed to do – allow voters to meet candidates, assess them and reject those who are unsuitable.

In many ways, the greater anomaly that needs to be explained is Giuliani’s sustained popularity in 2007 rather than his 2008 collapse. The short answer – 9/11 -- offers a warning to the Democrats and helps explain John McCain’s surge. Although Joe Biden’s classic line, that all Giuliani needs in a sentence is a noun, a verb, and 9/11, offers a clever counter to America’s current national security obsession, millions of Americans remain very concerned about terrorism. Millions seek a leader who will fight Islamist terrorism vigorously and effectively. Rudy Giuliani was popular because he has strong national security credentials but enough distance from the Bush Administration not to be defined by Bush’s failures to find Osama Bin Laden or stabilize Iraq. John McCain may be the Democrats’ worst nightmare as a candidate because he, too, is strong on defense but weak on loyalty to Bush.

Even though it was Rudy himself and not his strategy that did him in, Giuliani’s need to resort to that strategy reinforces the message that the primary process as currently constituted is ridiculous. The Iowa-New Hampshire monopoly on starting the nominating process should end. Florida’s Democratic delegates should be counted, and both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama should apologize to each and every Florida Democrat for following their national party’s ridiculous rules and refusing to campaign in the nation’s fourth most populated state. Another, less flawed, candidate like Giuliani could also have been compelled to ignore the small, heavily-rural states of Iowa and New Hampshire. During the next president’s first hundred days, he – or she – should strike a commission to fix America’s electoral system. The recommendations should of course cover the voting questions that persist from the 2000 electoral deadlock and still have not been addressed adequately. But the insane hold the little states of Iowa and New Hampshire have on the world’s most powerful country and most important democracy should be lifted, so that better candidates than Rudy Giuliani do not suffer from the caprice of the electoral calendar as many believe he did.

Are the Democrats Ready to Stop Being Clinton Enablers?

HNN, 1-27-08

En-a-ble (transitive verb)

1. provide somebody with means : to provide somebody with the resources, authority, or opportunity to do something.

It is hard to tell which moment from the recent South Carolina primary was more dishonest. The conventional wisdom is pointing to Bill Clinton’s dastardly, underhanded, too-clever-by-half, playing of the race card to type Barack Obama as “the black candidate” rather than the surprising and refreshing alternative candidate to his wife’s overhyped, no longer-so-inevitable candidacy. The ultimate expression of Clinton’s calumny came on Saturday when the former President ever-so-innocently, and oh so graciously said: "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

Nevertheless, I believe that an even more dishonest moment was the sustained shock, shock, among both the Democratic rank-and-file and the punditocracy that Bill Clinton was involved in such dastardly, underhanded, too-clever-by-half tricks. Let’s face it. The Democratic party enabled – and in fact applauded – these tactics throughout the 1990s, as long as he usually pulled them on Republicans. Anyone who has watched the Clintons in action, and especially Bill Clinton when he is in full throttle, has to recognize the patent: comments that are as brilliant as they are pathological; comments that appear to be gracious and are in fact nasty; comments that simultaneously zero in on an opponent’s weakness and yet offer up a heavy dose of truth, rooted in a cynical but accurate taking of the political temperature.

What is most disturbing about Bill Clinton’s Jesse Jackson analogy is that it just might be true. As someone who saved his presidency by playing to the American people’s baser instincts, Bill Clinton has an uncanny nose for the American gutter. Just as it was premature for the Obamaniacs to pop the champagne and expect a cakewalk after Iowa, it is premature to expect a waltz to the nomination after South Carolina. It is indeed very possible that despite all the idiocy claiming Bill Clinton was “the first black president,” the demographics of South Carolina, and the identity politics of the Democratic Party were the key factors in Obama’s victory, as hundreds of thousands of African-Americans streamed to the polls inspired by the first serious black contender for a major party nomination. Exit polls show that Obama won 78 percent of the black vote, while Hillary Clinton and John Edwards split 75 percent of the white vote.

I write these words with a heavy heart because I want Obama’s poetry to be true and for Bill Clinton’s reading of the electorate to be wrong. I love the politics of possibility and of non-partisanship that Obama is evoking so effectively as opposed to the politics of cunning and calculation that Clinton is playing. Still it is unfortunate but true that you could argue pretty convincingly that Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire by mobilizing the women anxious to see the first woman president, and that Barack Obama won South Carolina by mobilizing the African-Americans anxious to see the first real black president, not some poseur taking a punchline far too seriously. (The origins of this “first black President” line came from a rant of the Nobel-prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison in the October 5, 1998 issue of The New Yorker. I remember thinking it may have been the single dumbest line I read during that festival of idiocy known as the Clinton impeachment; nearly ten years later, we see that the line was dumb and destructive because too many Clintonites took her stereotype-laden riff far too seriously).

Now, of course, the big question for the Clintons is what next? What does Hillary Clinton do in the week-and-a-half remaining that can make her the super-duper winner on Super-Duper Tuesday? For starters, as I argue in a Newsday op-ed this morning, Hillary Clinton has to remember that American voters already rejected the idea of two Clintons for the price of one, back during the 1992 election. She has to go back to doing what she did so effectively during two Senatorial campaigns and in her first term as New York’s Senator. She needs to keep Bill Clinton involved but not overly engaged, so that she can shine in the spotlight, so that she can be the one dominating the room. The 2008 Democratic presidential campaign cannot be a 1990s Clinton nostalgia tour. Hillary Clinton has to win – or lose – this campaign much more on her own than as the wife-of America’s fascinating but flawed ex-President.

Obama and Edwards are Libeling HRC on MLK -- and Distorting History

HNN, 1-13-08

[Mr. Troy is Professor of History at McGill University, and the author, most recently, of Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady and Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s. He is a member of the advisory board of HNN. ]

Not surprisingly, as the Democratic race heats up, it is getting ugly, and silly. Senator Hillary Clinton is on the defensive, accused of disrespecting Martin Luther King, Jr., on the eve of King’s birthday celebrations, and just before the heavily African-American South Carolina primary. One of Senator Barack Obama’s supporters, the New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, with no explanation or accompanying quotation, accused Mrs. Clinton of “taking cheap shots at, of all people, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” Senator John Edwards chimed in too, equally histrionically. No matter who we support, historians should be appalled – and should object strongly – to this distorted and demagogic charge.

On Fox News the other day, Senator Clinton said: “Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done.” Obama’s people pounced, accusing Hillary of discounting King’s centrality to Civil Rights. Obama himself has denied his campaign fed the attacks against what he made sure to call “unfortunate” and “ill-advised” remarks. Edwards also joined the pile-on, telling more than 200 people at a predominantly black Baptist church: ''I must say I was troubled recently to see a suggestion that real change that came not through the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King but through a Washington politician…. Those who believe that real change starts with Washington politicians have been in Washington too long and are living a fairy tale.”

Predictably, as her surrogates attack Edwards and Obama for demagoguery, Senator Clinton is back-pedaling furiously. Alas, by the time Clinton finishes her damage control effort, she will probably join Obama and Edwards in distorting the truth.

In fact, Hillary Clinton gave a pithy, accurate summary of an incredibly complicated period of time. She started with Dr. King as the visionary. She acknowledged Dwight Eisenhower's disinterest and John Kennedy’s limited impact in implementing that vision. And she credited Lyndon Johnson with his great skill in translating Civil Rights leaders’ grand aspirations into lasting – and significant – Civil Rights legislation.

Moreover, it was perfectly appropriate for a presidential candidate to draw the lesson “it took a president to get it done.” One of the president’s central tasks, especially when spurred by passionate reformers like King, is to convert the high wattage energy of the moral crusader into a more standard and less combustible current for widespread domestic consumption. Edwards’ assumption that this process puts the dreaded “Washington politician” at the start of the process rather than the end of the process, is a willful distortion. Obama’s claim that this description somehow “diminished King’s role” is an ignorant misrepresentation.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was one of the twentieth century’s most influential Americans. Putting his accomplishments in context, suggesting he could not have done it alone, does not diminish him in any way. In fact, by placing him in the proper context, by treating his achievements accurately and proportionately, we give him the respect he – and the millions who fought for justice with him – deserve.

P.S. Whatever high mark she earned with her MLK-LBJ summary, Hillary earns a "C" in history for her remark on Sunday when speaking to black parishioners at a Presbyterian church in Columbia, S.C. She said: “Many of you in this sanctuary were born before African-Americans could vote." Unless she was speaking to the oldest congregation in history, of people born in 1849 or earlier, she needed more subtlety in that formulation. The fifteenth amendment, ratified in 1870, gave African-Americans the vote -- although it took the Voting Rights Act (thanks to LBJ again) and the Civil Rights movement (thanks to MLK and others) for this right to be enjoyed fully with minimal harassment.

Related Links

HNN Hot Topics: Election 2008: Primaries

Artifacts: When does it help to cry in New Hampshire?

HNN, 1-9-08

As Hillary Clinton's tearful moment becomes historical and political legend, it is worth remembering the famous or infamous moment in the 1972 campaign, when Edmund Muskie cried - -or wiped ice and snow from his eyes -- as he defended his wife's honor. His campaign crashed after that and this supposed moment of weakness was blamed. Of course, in the intervening 36 years, it's become far more acceptable for men to cry in our culture. Still, Hillary's tear-stained rise and Muskie's tear-stained fall raise fascinating questions about gender expectations, leadership models, and how much vulnerability we want to see in leaders, if they are male -- or female.

Making Elections Real Events not Pseudo Events

HNN, 1-9-08

Perhaps the best thing that happened in the marginal, unrepresentative Iowa caucuses was that Senator Barack Obama defied all that media speculation about Senator Hillary Clinton’s “inevitability.” Perhaps the best thing that happened in the marginal, unrepresentative New Hampshire primary was that Senator Hillary Clinton disproved all that media speculation about Senator Barack Obama’s momentum. The results for Republicans were similarly surprising, with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee supposedly coming from “nowhere” to win in Iowa, and Senator John McCain “coming back” to win after pundits pronounced his candidacy dead. The 350,000 citizens who caucused in Iowa and the half a million or so New Hampshirites who voted in their state’s Democratic and Republican primaries reminded the pundits that even in modern America’s “mediaocracy,” the power remains with the people.

The late historian Daniel Boorstin coined the term “pseudo-event” to describe the modern media’s bizarre Alice-in-Wonderland distortions of reality. Pseudo-events are moments staged for the cameras and to shape the ensuing coverage, reducing the actual participants to props. The media gabfest about the campaign, which injects idle speculation about who’s hot and who’s not between the candidates and the citizens, is a massive sustained exercise in turning America’s most sacred democratic event into a tawdry pseudo-event.

Of course, rather than apologizing for their inaccurate predictions, reporters reward candidates for exceeding the false journalistic expectations. Thus Senators McCain and Clinton became “comeback” kids on Tuesday, having bounced back from reporters’ premature eulogizing – and pollsters’ seemingly authoritative predicting.
Thanks to the citizens of Iowa and New Hampshire, the Democratic race is shaping up as a clash of the titans, led by but still not yet limited to Senators Obama and Clinton. Even though she lost in Iowa, Hillary Clinton remains the beneficiary of one of the greatest modern political machines. Clintonites not only know how to win – they know how to lose, nimbly turning setbacks into opportunities for comebacks. And even though he lost in New Hampshire, Barack Obama remains a dazzling political talent, a silver-tongued, honey-smooth, hope-generating political thoroughbred. Both his Iowa victory speech and his New Hampshire concession were rhetorical gems, while Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire victory speech had a lumpy, clunky quality that suggests that she has not yet learned from her husband or her chief rival how to sweet-talk the American people.

For all the obvious political talent displayed on the Democratic side, the foreign policy experience of Senators Clinton, Obama and Edwards is perilously thin. As First Lady, Hillary Clinton went on foreign trips but she rarely made policy. Claiming she has considerable foreign experience is like a bleacher bum presuming he can master center field – watching, even from up close, is not the same thing as playing. Barack Obama’s foreign policy experience – having spent part of his childhood in Indonesia – is even less impressive, akin to presuming that just because you love ice cream you know the recipe for making it taste so good.

It is disturbing how irrelevant a healthy recognition of the Islamist threat appears to be for Democrats. John Edwards, for one, went so far as to dismiss the “war on terror” as merely a slogan. Only a few short years ago, that kind of thinking would have been derided as so “September 10,” meaning buried in yesterday’s delusions. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, for all the Republican candidates’ flaws, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have at least pitched their campaigns on national security credentials and concerns.

Inevitably, the next few weeks will bring on even more idle speculation, journalistic oversimplification, and candidate confrontations. But amid all the cheesy spectacle of the American nominating campaign, the people’s input makes the whole carnival profound. Thanks to the ornery, swim-against-the-tide, expectation-defying citizens of Iowa and New Hampshire, these campaigns have become very real. With luck, the process will not only be empowering democratically but will result in a quality leader capable of meeting America’s challenges. There are no guarantees, but as Obama has shown, hopes themselves can be not just inspiring, but transforming.

Iowa: the snap of a starter's pistol not the roar of a rocket launcher

HNN, 1-4-08

[Mr. Troy is Professor of History at McGill University, and the author, most recently, of Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady and Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s. He is a member of the advisory board of HNN. ]

The people have spoken: “Obama and Huckabee Triumph,” the headlines are blaring. Well, to be accurate, a small unrepresentative sample of the people spoke. The Iowa caucus is more like the snap of a starter’s pistol than the roar of a rocket launcher. Nevertheless, Democratic Senator Barack Obama and former Republican governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, will enjoy a boost in momentum and fund-raising, especially because reporters choose to magnify minor Iowa victories into major national statements.

Even if they win no other contests, the emergence of Obama and Huckabee shows how wide-open both party fields are. Not since 1920 have Americans experienced a campaign with neither the president nor vice-president running in any way or any time (Harry Truman initially hoped to run in 1952, Dawes was a presidential hopeful in 1928). None of the candidates worked for George W. Bush, further proving the Administration’s unpopularity -- and the difficulty these days of launching a campaign for executive leadership from the executive branch (except the White House). Moreover, before his stirring debut at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, few Americans had heard of Barack Obama. Even though Mike Huckabee governed Arkansas from 1996 to 2007, he was nationally unknown until months ago, when his wisecracks started attracting attention in the televised candidate forums.

Obama’s rise, even if it proves fleeting, shows America making progress toward burying racism. Americans seem more worried that Obama is too green – inexperienced – than too black. Obama’s emergence is also the story of celebrity politics, especially because the talk show goddess Oprah Winfrey embraced Obama so enthusiastically. Obama wants to represent a national yearning for healing, appealing as a constructive centrist promising to end the Clinton-Bush baby-boom generational squabbling.

Huckabee’s rise is tied to another modern American political story, the rise of the religious right. Huckabee played to Iowa’s evangelicals, calling himself a “proven Christian leader” in some television ads. This crass appeal violated some of the delicate unspoken rules in the admittedly gray area where religion and politics overlap. Huckabee’s implicit, even more disturbing, appeal contrasts him as a true Christian, and thus a true American, with his runner-up in Iowa, Mitt Romney, a Mormon, whose candidacy has stirred some bigoted anti-Mormonism.

On the losing side, Romney and Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton may have suffered the biggest blows among the serious contenders. But both hope to rebound in New Hampshire next Tuesday. Both also now have a chance to show how they bounce back from setbacks with grit and grace. Reporters love comeback stories, as much as they love Cinderella stories, and reporters often knock down candidates to set up those comebacks

Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, among others, have gone from relative obscurity to the presidency in a flash. But victory in Iowa does not guarantee the nomination. In 1980 George H.W. Bush beat Ronald Reagan in the caucuses but still lost the nomination. Iowa triumphs can launch a candidacy to the party nomination but do not guarantee general election victory, as John Kerrey learned in 2004.

So, yes, some of the people have spoken. But there is a lot more jawboning and stumping, speculating and voting, that must occur before the Democrats and Republicans nominate their respective nominees and the American people pick their next leader – 11 months from now in November 2008. All we can predict is more – more speculating, more campaigning, and, thankfully, more voting from other parts of the country.

Stop The New Hampshire/Iowa Monopoly

HNN, 12-5-07

History teaches that the world we know had to be invented. No matter how natural today’s realities or yesterday’s stories appear to be, specific historical forces produced them. Americans often reveal the charming yet frustrating tendency to forget the contingent, random, nature of so much of our democracy. Many fundamental rituals which we now see as sacred are actually political improvisations – and some of them are quite new.

Party hacks should remember this lesson as they deprive party members in Michigan, Florida and other states of their democratic rights to select the presidential nominees. On Saturday, the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee punished Michigan Democrats for holding their party primaries on January 29 by stripping Michigan of all its 128 delegates and 28 superdelegates. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have imposed similar penalties on Florida for planning a January 14 primary.

These strong-arm, dictatorial tactics are mostly intended to protect the early voting and caucusing prerogatives of New Hampshire and Iowa. For more than two decades, the non-representative voters of these two states have had a disproportional impact on choosing the nominee. It’s become a big business in those states. Their state leaders squeal like pigs at the Iowa fair – and shriek like a rookie skier mistakenly whizzing down a double diamond in New Hampshire’s White Mountains – any time another state hones in on their turf. But the truth is that the voters of major states like Michigan, Florida, and California have long been rendered irrelevant in the nominating process by arbitrary scheduling quirks.

To see just how absurd this whole thing is – the origins of the early Iowa caucus have to do with a broken down mimeograph machine (kids, ask mom and dad – or maybe gramps and gramma what these things are). Back in 1972, when pc neither meant “personal computer” nor “Politically Correct,” a broken-down offset printing press forced Iowa Democrats to hold their precinct caucuses in January. The early date would give them enough time to duplicate and distribute the results during the various rounds of voting the caucus required. This arrangement made their vote the first in the nation.

Four years later, Iowans promoted their early caucuses to candidates and journalists. “I knew each wanted to be where the other was,” the Democratic state chairman, Tom Whitney, would recall, identifying the symbiotic relationship between candidates and the media.

One candidate who took advantage was Jimmy Carter. Carter worked Iowa intensely – and his slate of delegates received more than twice the votes of any other candidate’s. Moreover, Carter did “Better Than Expected.” Even though this procedure was merely the first step of many in choosing 47 of 3,008 delegates for the 1976 Democratic convention, reporters were looking for a winner – and found Jimmy Carter. [For formal sourcing of this story, check out Gil Troy, See How They Ran: The Changing Role of the Presidential Candidate, revised ed., (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 234]

A logical system would push off Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida, Michigan and the rest of them for a few more months. But if New Hampshire and Iowa have the right to start in January, other, more, larger, and more representative states should be allowed to as well – and citizens in those states should not be penalized for wanting to have some input in this important and complicated choice, especially this year.