What’s Next?

Before we start calling the nominations today, it’s always worth remembering that Iowa only significance is its effect on the New Hampshire primary (an effect either amplified or diminished with the far shorter period in between this year, depending on how you argue it). After all, Bill Clinton received only 3% and went on to win the nomination. That said, the actual results are hugely significant in what they set up for the future.

A Clinton victory in Iowa would have likely meant a Clinton nomination as it would have restored the ‘inevitability’ narrative that unsurprisingly fell apart when the campaign really kicked off in the last month. Despite the endless commentary of pundits last summer was really only a pre-game, which Clinton hoped she could use to cement herself as the nominee in the public conciousness and let that carry her through the contest. Unfortunately at some point the campaign started believing it’s own myth and wasn’t nearly fast enough responding to Obama, who was only a non-entity last year because he was saving his money for when it really counted. It’d be interesting to see breakdowns of how significant second-preferences were in Obama’s win, I suspect they were significant because third-parties wanting to keep their candidate viable can’t give Clinton a victory as that would make her the indisputable front-runner, whereas Obama in first place potentially keeps the race open to other candidates, however unlikely.  [Update: Nope, I was wrong on that. If entrance polls are to be believed Obama only gained as much as Clinton from second preferences, most second preferences went to Edwards].

I’m personally a sceptical about an Obama presidency. He proclaims himself as The Change, yet also says that his would be a ‘reaching out’, bipartisan administration. Now this sounds fantastic…until you actually think about it. Compromise is a noble skill, but not one that lends itself to remaking the country. “We will change the Status Quo by asking the Status Quo nicely” doesn’t have a great ring to it.

It’s all very well to say partisanship is tearing the country apart but crying partisanship does imply that both sides are fighting, whereas the current ‘post-partisan’ Democrats running Congress seem to interpret bipartisan as ‘doing whatever they ask us to do without getting anything in return’. Aside a notable reduction in pork money (which was cut in half in the last year) and similar fiscal benefits (fiscal conservatives tend to be quite happy about divided government), this Congress has failed to implement any of the six points they campaigned on at election. They can on some level be forgiven for this, divided government makes the normally difficult process of passing federal law near impossible, but it does show how ineffectual trying to find ‘compromise’ is. Their continuous scale down of the pull-out of Iraq was impressive: “Bring them home! Ok, you can have the money if you promise bring them home sometime! Okay, you can have the money, but you be nice next time we want something eh? Oh I guess you’re right, we are fiscally irresponsible to try to give health care to children, we’d better stop that! What, more war money? Okay…but I want you to know, we feel very, very bad about this.” They’ve been as bipartisan as possible and have nothing to show for it but a disillusioned base. So I don’t think we can blame partisanship for all of America’s problems, in this instance, it’s more apt to blame Republicans.

So I’m disappointed that Edwards didn’t win Iowa, because whilst he isn’t dead yet, his strategy depends on a strong early rally that could carry him through the early states. He might still be in with a chance if he comes second to Obama again in New Hampshire and a few more primaries after, if Clinton status as front-runner becomes discredited we could end up with a new two horse race between Obama and Edwards, but with less than a month before most of the states have voted, but I’m just not sure there’s time for that dramatic a shift in the race.

Some however are already declaring him out of it:

He’s [Obama] made Hillary Clinton, with her wonkish, pragmatic approach to politics, seem uninspired. He’s made John Edwards, with his angry cries that “corporate greed is killing your children’s future,” seem old-fashioned. Edwards’s political career is probably over.

I don’t think ‘corporate greed is killing your children’s future’ sounds old-fashioned, I think it sounds…well, truthful. Yes Edwards sounds angry, but if these abuses of power don’t make you angry, they really should. I don’t think you get powerful corporations to hand back their power by sitting them around a table and asking them nicely. Obama really seems to believe that through nothing greater than sheer force of personality and being relentlessly reasonable he can persuade people to give up power and do something to their direct disadvantage. The ability to persuade is an excellent quality to have in a President and there’s no doubt that Obama can be formidable in that area, but if people are not willing to be persuaded then just being ‘The Persuader’ isn’t what’s needed.

I’m sure Obama has it in him to be a good president (even ignoring the incredibly low standard the current incumbent has set). He could probably can run a decent government and restore America’s reputation around the world, but I think there are better agents for changes running in this race and his would be a presidency that in retrospect will be far less than promised. I would be happy to be proven wrong.

New article on the beeb about the how the US presidential race remains very open on both sides. Of course, after making this point the only people talked about are the traditional frontrunners…. Clinton and Giuliani. Sure Edwards and Huckabee are mentioned too, but only as the worst case scenario situation that would draw Bloomberg into the race. Fantastically informative guys!

Having missed out giving any the New Year predictions, I present my incredibly vague predictions for the US Presidential Campaigns.

1. At least one of the nominees will not be Clinton, Obama, Giuliani or Romney.
2. There will be at least one independent candidate on the Ballot in November.
3. There will be no back-stabbing or filthy campaign tricks and the next President of the United States will walk into the Oval Office scandal-free and nothing bad will happen ever again.
4. Ever.