If you recall my last article, the prognostications were 50% correct. I figured Huckabee’s star would fall flatter than today’s Stock Market, but I figured wrong. He prevailed in Iowa. That was then. But time tends to not only heal all wounds but also open new vistas, and now we can be certain that Huckabee was but a blip on the political landscape.
As Florida’s primary (January 29) and Super Tuesday (February 5) beyond that loom at our doorstep, where does that leave us with our presidential politics?
The latest sparring between Barack and Hillary ensures that Hillary will officially capture the Democratic Party nomination in late-August. The heir apparent will become the candidate of choice. As soon as Barack Obama went on the offensive – being defensive about attacks from Hillary and her high-profile surrogate, Mr. Black President Bill -- he lost the high ground. He may regain it. Anything is possible, but I doubt he will succeed. His problem, as pundits wiser than I have stated, is that he had no surrogate of his own to respond to the Clinton surrogate, who is a former President. When the candidate is the only prominent voice speaking against the opposing camp’s attack dog, then the balance of power becomes imbalanced. Obama needs to be perceived as above that fray.
Even if most objective observers concede that the Clintons’ mendacity is as swift and lengthy as the Mississippi River, Obama’s getting off-message to correct false assertions gain him not one iota of leverage in the shoot-‘em-up world of hard-knuckle politics.
Despite critics’ exposure of and comments about the nature of the now-legendary Clinton political machinery and its chicanery, Hillary will win Florida and score big on Super Tuesday, essentially allowing her to coast to the nomination. Obama may pick up South Carolina this Saturday, but so what? The presumptive-pick will prevail, even if she had to endure some early bumps on the road to this summer’s Democratic Party convention in Colorado.
Our Republican brethren have a much more confusing, yet interesting, set of circumstances. Recent (Monday, January 21) Rasmussen and Survey USA polls differ on whether McCain or Romney wins Florida, but both put Giuliani in second or third place. Of course, this will effectively end his candidacy, the one which was never intended to begin until Florida, but was always –- by that time -- too late to be competitive. I wonder. Who advised Rudy that sitting out the early rounds and being ignored by the public and the media was a sensible strategy? Remind me not to seek his or her advice.
The Quinnipiac poll of Tuesday, January 22, even has McCain and Rudy in a dead heat for New York, and the one for Wednesday, January 23, has McCain edging out the Manhattan Mayor for the New Jersey contest. This is clearly an ominous development for Giuliani. I think folks can stop ordering “Rudy is Right for Us” bumper stickers immediately. Of course, polls vary daily, especially based upon how the questions are phrased. Nevertheless, I believe Rudy will fall flat and his ‘nationwide,’ large-state strategy will be exposed as fatally-flawed. I wish him better luck in 2012. I suspect he has learned much this time around.
Although the polls are now shining warmly upon McCain, I believe he is still the dark-horse front-runner, assuming such paradoxical phraseology is even grammatically acceptable. Far too many folks, especially in the conservative talk radio medium, possess such deep-seated hatred towards McCain that Romney is still looking as the most likely person left-standing after the Republican Convention in Minneapolis in early September.
I doubt I will pontificate any further on these matters between now and the vaunted Super Tuesday contests. Any need to comment will depend upon how crazily things evolve after the South Carolina Democratic primary and next week’s Florida fiasco.
If everything holds the course I anticipate, we will know by late February if Hillary will be ordained as the Democratic choice and whether or not the Republicans will host a brokered convention.
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Fred W. Apelquist, III, M.Ed.
Approximately 675 words.
© January 23, 2008
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