Let me take a brief moment to look back at the results of that little presidential quiz I took a few weeks ago:
- Giuliani 9
- Edwards, Kucinich 7
- Huckabee, Richardson 5
- Clinton, Dodd, Hunter, McCain, Romney, Thompson 4
- Biden, Gravel, Obama, Paul 3
Of course, as the travelling circus has moved on from Iowa, I don't really get to pick one of the four anyway; the next time the circus comes to town, there will be only two to choose from. But which two?
My guess, for what very little it is worth, is that on the D side of the scale Clinton will eventually wrestle down the nomination, though it will turn plenty nasty and ugly before she beats Obama into submission. Yes, Obama has Youth and Hope and Beautiful People swooning at his every mellifluous word, but my 4.5 decades of exposure to life and politics don't see good wishes and happy thoughts triumphing over the naked will to power. I suspect a lot of bright-eyed Obama supporters are going to come out of this election cycle very disillusioned and cynical, as Politics As Usual steamrolls "Yes We Can."
Over on the R side, I have a hard time believing that McCain can actually get the nomination, regardless of how well he's doing right now. At least, if what I'm being told about McCain is true – that he's basically a rogue RINO with zero party loyalty, a Republican Joe Lieberman with anger management issues – well, if the Republicans allow someone who Isn't Really A Republican to get the nomination, that doesn't say a whole lot for their nominating process, does it?[1][2]
An interesting commonality between Obama and McCain[3] is that they seem to represent a desire on the part of a big chunk of the electorate to go beyond "the establishment", beyond "politics as usual". They are both firmly bound within the establishment, of course; but the desire is notable. It seems as though more people than usual across the political spectrum are feeling that life in the US is somehow out of joint, and in response they are attempting to cut the Gordian knot of business-as-usual with someone they think will be different. The American electorate is like a wounded beast; it lashes out. Not in any coherent manner, mind you, but it lashes out just the same.
So that means I predict my choice, ultimately, will boil down to Clinton vs. Romney.
Host: do you still want the blow on the head?Woman: Yes, yes.
Host: I'll offer you a poke in the eye.
Woman: No! I want a blow on the head.
I don't know what I'll do when that comes to pass; not yet. My prediction, at this point, based on nothing but a sinking feeling in the gut, is that Romney wins. That's not a prediction made with any enthusiasm; it's just what I feel is going to happen.
[1] Or maybe it just means that the core party faithful are losing their hold, as less-partisan Rs are getting fed up. Maybe McCain really is the face of the Republican Party, circa 2008.
[2] McCain is not a household favorite at the Casa Fleck y Breen. Type "McCain" in the search box at the upper right to get some idea of why.
[3] Oh, yeah, and that Paul guy, too.
A thought occurs – Hillary Clinton is the Windows Vista of presidential candidates. Think about it: both in the works for years, both presumed inevitable and unstoppable, and both remarkably unable to dent the marketplace.
UPDATE. Yet another beautiful analogy bites the dust. Oh, well... at least Edwards came in third.
but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair."Gee, Mr. Klein, show a little more enthusiasm there, ok? But thanks for clearing up the Obama-vs.-Jesus confusion.
UPDATE: Dissention in Klein's comments: Not the Messiah, but a bodhisattva.
I joined a long line of independents waiting to change party registration. I am now a Democrat (it burns! it burns!). After undergoing the transformative operation, we joined another line, which terminated in a seated group of the elderly people who always seem to run all things electoral, waiting behind a folding metal table. I signed my name and was given a small, blank square of paper. "Hang on to that!" I was told. (We never did anything with them.) We filed in little groups into the school's auditorium – which was packed, standing room only.
The first order of business was to get an exact count of caucus-elegible people in the room (there were a number of little kids running around – I assume they didn't get counted). The whole business was run by three elderly women, who had each row stand up in succession and count off from one end to the other: "One hundred thirty! One hundred thirty-one!" Every so often someone would mess up the count; the women in charge would roll their eyes – Can't you people count? – and pause until the counter got the number right. There were 625 of us – a record-large crowd, apparently. The bizarre rules of the game stipulate that a candidate needs to get 15% of the crowd to be considered viable; less than that, and the candidate's supporters either leave or join up with a more popular candidate. So there was a momentary hush as the women on stage calculated 15% of 625 (94, rounded). Any candidate unable to drum up 94 supporters was doomed.
So now we did the famous shuffle: all the supporters of a given candidate gathered in some part of the auditorium, but it was so full that moving around was difficult. The Biden supporters had to meet out in the hall; Richardson's, Dodd's, and Kucinich's groups met up on stage. It was a festive, party atmosphere; Kucinich had all of 6 supporters, but they got a huge round of applause just for not giving up immediately. Two things were immediately obvious; (1) Obama had more support than anyone, and (2) the only contest was going to be between Clinton and Edwards for second place. After the first round of totting up supporters, it was clear that everyone besides Obama, Clinton, and Edwards was doomed.
So now came the second part of the festivities; people from the larger groups would wander over to the too-small groups, and try to talk their members into joining one of the larger groups. Obviously, I was no use in this... "Uhh, vote for Hillary because she's... well, she's not John Edwards. Yeah, that's it." Everytime someone split off and joined another group, the people in the joined group would cheer and clap wildly. During this time, I thought about the caucus system, and decided that it was probably constructed by a bunch of bored farmers who just needed something to do in the wintertime. They could have just had a straight up and down ballot, but instead, decided to construct an elaborate social event out of the process... because it is intensely social, friends, neighbors, their kids, all gathering for a big gabfest and talking, talking, talking.
For about half an hour, the doomed candidate's groups gradually shrank (except for Richardson's group – they stood in a tight block on stage, radiating a what-are-you-gonna-do-for-us vibe). Those of us without the enthusiasm to go and evangelize for our candidate sat and waited; the woman next to me alternately checked her Blackberry and her cell phone. I saw two co-workers and my next door neighbor over in the Edwards group.
Eventually, the coordinators called time, and said that all the non-viable candidate supporters had to make up their minds; the Richardson group now split, streaming people into the Clinton and Edwards groups mainly. It was time to do a second head count. From my counting, it was clear that Obama had a commanding lead, and that it was going to be a squeaker between Clinton and Edwards... 260 for Obama... 174 for Clinton... no, 177 for Clinton, they forgot the three women on stage... and 180 for Edwards. The Obama and Edwards groups went wild. The Clinton group sat quietly. The woman next to me looked up from her Blackberry, said, "Edwards??", and made a sour face.
But on the Democratic side, there is one outcome that I really don't want; I really don't want Edwards to win, or even come in second, if possible. And the race is looking very tight. If I woke up Friday morning and the blowdried pseudopopulist comes in better than third, I will hang my head in shame knowing that I didn't do my little electoral bit to stave it off. So, despite the drawn-out idiocy of the Democratic caucus process, I think that I may have to go, after all, just to try to prevent that outcome.
Whom to vote for? Obviously, it has to be either Clinton or Obama. It's not much of a choice; I don't care for either one, any more than I care for... Romney or Huckabee. But given the choice, I'm thinking of going for age and guile over youth and hope – so Clinton it is. Maybe. Until I change my mind again. Twenty-one hours to go!
As others have pointed out, the Iowa caucuses are, or should be, a joke. Like the August straw poll, they seem to have a lot more to do with gaming the system (by making sure your supporters are overrepresented – by any means necessary – in the tiny group of people who actually turn up to caucus) than getting any real sense of popular support. Neither Moira nor I have any enthusiasm worked up for any of the candidates, of any party; we haven't been making any plans to go to the caucuses at all. But, what's that poor, bedraggled thing tugging at my coat hem? Ah, it's my emaciated sense of civic duty! Mister Dave, you've got to go and vote! You've just got to! Ahhh, ok. Maybe.
But for whom? As I noted, enthusiasm here in the Casa is lacking. At best, I can muster up "Well, an X presidency probably wouldn't be disastrous..." but that's it. There's no one to caucus for. I tried out this handy-dandy candidate selector, just to see if there was anyone who claimed to represent my views. It's a bunch of multiple-choice questions apparently pulled from candidate position papers, so of course my preferred answer to many of the questions would be "None of the above", as the offered choices aren't what I'd prefer.* Complete alignment with a candidate results in a score of 45, but I never got more than a 9 for any candidate. I tried running through it several times, as Squishy Liberal Dave, as Caveman Conservative Dave, as Aspergery Libertarian Dave. The combined ranking of candidates looks like:
- Giuliani 9
- Edwards, Kucinich 7
- Huckabee, Richardson 5
- Clinton, Dodd, Hunter, McCain, Romney, Thompson 4
- Biden, Gravel, Obama, Paul 3
So, position-wise, I guess I kind of agree with Rudy on things, more so than with anybody else. But in terms of personality and temperament, would he make a good president? Reports are mixed on that one. So my enthusiasm, it is blunted. Dulled, No, actually, if my enthusiasm for Mr. G. could be analogized to cutlery, it would be an old butterknife, or maybe one of those plastic jobs.
But maybe I'm looking at this wrong. How about if I caucus against someone? So I could go to the Democratic caucus, and support someone other than John Edwards, probably Obama or Hillary!, just to drain support away from him. There's the ticket! Except that the Democratic caucuses are a procedural nightmare. Just... stupid. There's no other word for it. I am not going to put up with that. The Repubs, on the other hand, have a straight-up, secret ballot. And they're caucusing within walking distance of our house. Hmmm..... a quick party affiliation change may be in order....
Until then, though, time to drink some champagne.
*Also disregarding the possibility that the candidates don't really believe the positions they are espousing. Or that the selector isn't misrepresenting the candidates' views.
- 1 Edwards sign
- 1 Huckabee sign (Sorry, but "Huckabee" as a name has the lowest gravitas-quotient of any recent candidate. It sounds like it ought to be a Teletubbies spinoff: "This Saturday morning, it's The Huckabees! Chaos and comedy erupt when Baby Huckabee loses her dolly, and Happy Huckabee and Mopey Huckabee learn a heartwarming lesson about sharing..." Trivial and petty, I know. But still...)
- 1 "I support George W. Bush" sign (Now there's one quixotic personality.)
UPDATE: Is the Register having an effect? 2 new Clinton signs have sprung up just today...
But, they may be somewhat counteracted by an Edwards sign, 2 new Huckabees, and a big Tancredo sign on the way to Lowe's (which has a miserable assortment of Christmas trees this year, btw).
Regarding my disdain for the Huckabee moniker, the Ranting Offspring says that for her, Tancredo is the guy with the greatest name-ickiness factor. "It sounds like some kind of horrible food", she says. We debate what kind of food a Tancredo would be. I think something like Beef Liver Tancredo. She says something more like Refried Tancredo. I suppose Huckabees could be some kind of candy, probably little stale-tasting gummy things that get caught in your teeth.
- 4 Clinton signs
- 3 Obama signs
- 2 Ron Paul signs
- 1 Romney sign
And it's not as if we have any kind of excuse, either... there have been repeated sightings of just about all of the presidential candidates within 3 miles or so of home, and we couldn't be arsed to drag ourselves out to see any of them. And the fabled Caucuses... yeah, right. Like we're really going to drag ourselves out in the freezing cold – no, make that sub-zero cold – to hang out with a bunch of politics junkies and pretend we actually are enthused about any of the candidates – not bloody likely, bucko*. The fact that we're both registered as independents probably doesn't help either. (The more I think about it, the more the attention given to the Iowa caucuses seems absurdly disproportionate; the state is small, the electorate atypical, and the actual caucus-goers a tiny and highly-skewed fraction of this small, unrepresentative state. But I'm sure that's been commented on elsewhere.)
So, just because I don't want this "political" blog to be nothing but a collection of my inane ramblings and Moira's Kennewickiana, here is an actual exclusive Alien Corn Iowa political insight:
While loitering in the local Radio Shack today, I overheard the sales clerks talk about Mitt Romney. Mostly it was along the lines of, "Didn't he do something weird with his dog?", followed by talking about his being Mormon, followed by a comparative theological discussion of who was weirder, Mormons or Seventh-Day Adventists.
Uhh, that's it, that's all I've got. Oh, and a guy two doors down the street has a Romney sign in his front yard. (Not many people in this neighborhood do political signs.) My conscience feels much better. Thank you.
*Four years ago, I thought about going to the Demo. caucus and being for Lieberman, but the neurons that formed that thought were never able to recruit any motor neurons to follow up on the idea. But hey, I almost briefly thought about getting involved.
