Something for Iowa near no-show Rudy Giuliani to ponder as he watches the caucus returns tonight: “In the history of the Iowa caucuses, no candidate who has finished worse than third among the candidates has ever gone on to win the nomination,†reported ABC News. Then again, there has never been an election season in which so many big states are holding primaries so early. Super Duper Tuesday on Feb. 5 will include California, New York and other states in which Giuliani hopes to do well.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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27 Comments
If Giuliana bombs out in BOTH Iowa and NH I think he will be toast. The focus will be on the handful who come out near top in those states.
Isnt he expected to pretty much bomb in IA/NH anyway? I thought that is why he chose to focus on FL.
He is taking a big chance, but it sounded like he doesnt have much to lose anyway from the latest reports. He might pull it off, but I wouldnt bet money on it.
In my 40+ years watching politics, one theme has emerged: never take anything for granted. I have seen sure chances lose big time and I have seen extreme longshots win. While both cases have been rare, they do happen. Running mate choices can get wild and change the mix.
Voters are strongly influenced by recent events. A major event, positive or negative, before a primary can swing voter choices. They are also influenced by slights, real and perceived.
It would be ironic if he would have won IA/NH but lost enough voters to lose both states by snubbing them.
See, I have this pet theory about Iowans, based on the 90 days or so I lived there and a parade of clients I’ve worked with ever since.
If the Des Moines Register’s banner headline some morning is, “MOTHER SHIP ARRIVES! Iowans Return to their Home Planet!” I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised.
Iowa is a different place. Traditionally they’ve had excellent elementary and high schools and a tremendous number Iowegians are proud they’ve never been to college. They’re generally well-read and intelligent; it’s just formal eduction isn’t always a priority if you’re destined to get in the pig bidness.
Iowans talk like earthlings, walk like earthlings, generally even look like earthlings… but they’re different from earthlings. (Okay, the “looks like” thing might be a stretch. Everyone in Iowa looks like Radar O’Riley… even the men.)
I was at a company Christmas party when I was in Iowa. It was at the boss’s home. And about an hour into the party the group of employees and spouses split up to the very opposite sides of the house. And it dawned on me. I was from Kansas, the people in the room with me were from Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri… and all of the native Iowans were clustered together in the Kitchen. Plotting, I assume.
It’s like the law or something that every house in Pella, Iowa have a fake plywood windmill lawn ornament. Except during caucus years, the biggest single most popular annual event in Iowa is the girls’ high school basketball tournament. Show up in Des Moines on Girls’ State Tournament weekend and just try to find a hotel room. There’s a neighborhood in Waterloo where all the John Deere executives live and every one of them — *every* *one* of *them* — is painted kelly-green-and-gold.
I was having lunch in Iowa Falls and the waitress refused to serve me iced tea “out of season.” Okay, it was winter time. And I asked her if they had hot tea. Yes. Did they have ice? Yes. Could she bring me hot tea and a glass of ice? No iced tea “out of season.”
I was on the radio when I was in Iowa and a made what I thought was a pretty innocuous joke about the upcoming farm reports. “Next up, Ed Brown with the pig scores! Tell me, Ed, who won today? The pigs or the farmers?”
The phone lines exploded! People were outraged that I’d made fun of the (apparent) object of universal affection among Iowegians.
When I lived there (if you can call that living) Iowa’s statewide population was something like 2% African-American. Waterloo was 10% African-American. I was in a bar one night in Grundy Center and the people referred to Waterloo as “N*ggertown.”
To Iowans, Mason City is considered a major urban area. The football stadium in Ames has artificial turf to prevent the cheerleaders from grazing during games. Iowa City, home of the U of I, is zoned for intelligence (I suspect) just to keep smart people from encroaching on Cedar Rapids.
Stop for lunch in Fairfield, Iowa some day. That’s where corn- and pig-farmers live alongside students and faculty of Maharishi International University. Just try to not do it without feeling Rod Serling’s gonna step out of an alley wearing a black sharkskin suit saying, “Presented for your considation….”
It’s not just by chance that Iowegians have created the make-or-break venue for the presidency of the United States. I suspect inter-gallactic conspiracy.
It’s the only rational explanation of Iowa’s importance in the election process.
LMAO. Great post MH
I m not sure whether to believe you or laugh. Last time I didnt believe such an incredible tale, turned out to be true. Stopped betting after that.
Much of what you say sound like a lot the western third of Kansas. I had some black friends move to Garden City a long while back and the four of them increased the town’s black population by 50%.
MH –
Very funny – great post.
Much of what you say sound like a lot the western third of Kansas. I had some black friends move to Garden City a long while back and the four of them increased the town’s black population by 50%.
Posted by: D/R voters admit your guilt | January 03, 2008 at 04:06 PM
Your black friends had sex with the Garden City Black resident?
That picture of Giuliana reminds me of Dean.
I don’t understand why anyone cares what Iowans think about any of the candidates! Are we all a bunch of sheep who will follow the tiny state of Iowa? I am certainly not, and any non-Iowan who will vote for a candidate based on who Iowa votes for is simply uneducated and doesn’t deserve to vote! Do your own research, use your own brain, vote for who you think will make the best President! Anything less than that, and we all deserve what we get.
Great post Simianraptor.
Here is tomorrow’s strategy: If the Iowans choose as the MSM media is leading them or allowing them, then they will be praised as bellweathers.
If they go for Ron Paul and against Hillary it is posts like MH’s that will go national in a bid to discredit the entire population of that piglovin’ (not that there is anything wrong with that) state.
Huckabee and Obama in early lead with Hillary/Edwards vying for second and Romney second.
NBC projects Huckabee for Reps. and the Dems. unchanged from earlier.
When National fails, go local! In the recent past this was pointed out as the success in Iraq. Nationally the Iraqis government is dysfunctional, but it was pointed out that locally the governing bodies were coming together at time to form lynching parties. But still coming together to form a working government, now my point. Almost as a rider to every broadcast that is still hoping for a Giuliani victory, we get reminded his is leading in the National polls. But Nationally elections are not won as a whole but on the local levels, as the local turns so does the National.
DougT asks,” Are we all a bunch of sheep who will follow the tiny state of Iowa?
Well Doug T as time very much so, in part it is human nature to follow the leader rather then go our own way. It is not only seen as being easier to follow the well worn path, but less of a thought process. Following others makes them responsible for the outcome, I was going to vote for “A” but I see he has little chance to win because everyone else is voting for “B”!”. LOL it was said that President Reagan won by a landside. I voted for him in both elections, but even in Kansas I often had trouble finding anyone else that would admit to having voted for him even once.
The Candidates, their campaigns and the media count on the trait that we are sheep. Often using the words “majority” and “more” to lead us into following the leader. Following the “what appears” to be the well worn path. Sadly it does seem to work for the most part, we will see this year if it still works.
MH perhaps that is why the importance of Iowa, it is a test of the segment of the country that does not go to college, does not wear a suit and tie to work, does not discuss the importance of the Global dynamics of a interdependence on varying degree of youthful usage of alternate communication mediums. Their too busy working to make a living to be concerned with anything that does not directly effect their lives.
Hell, WaPo has declared Huckleberry the winner in Iowa. No Dem winner seen yet by WaPo.
WSJ is calling it Huckabee and Obama.
Reuters has it Huckabee and Obama, too.
Well, that was fun.
Democratic turnout seems to have greatly outnumbered Republicans.
This is GREAT news. Our base in more motivated than theirs. While they are at each others throats!
Obama and Huckabee
http://www.iowacaucusresults.com/
Obama I don’t so much like.
We got any posters who favor Obama sing out and tell me if I am wrong.
I see him as too young and too nice.
Dealing with the right, we don’t need nice. They don’t speak “nice”.
I did like what I heard one person with the Edwards caucus say tonight…
“We need someone who is not afraid to punch the Republicans in the nose on every issue.”
JR I like you and respect you, hell if the house had more Democratics like you there would be at least something done! But with all due respect, you are wrong along with every Republican or Democratic who feels like you. Enough is enough, these feeling are leading OUR country to the pits of Hell! It serves not this country but to a small minded, elitist, group who could not care less about this country or the people in it!
The fact is neither party has the total answers, the true answer is always in the middle like men and women it takes both views to see the problem and the answer clearly. Pick a topic any topic and the correct thing to do is always in between!
BUT we forget that when we see the other as an enemy instead of a different POV, so who wins? The only winner is those who do not care about whether one side wins or not. It is the partisanship that has kept Iraq a tar baby, it is the partisanship that has allow the worst President in the history of this nation to be a “unilateral President”. It is the partisanship that has stop the pointing out the fact that in dealing with the real threat of Terrorism, our current course is like going after flies with a mouse trap!
Name anything you hate about what is going on and it is the direct result of Partisanship on one side or the other! Passion is good, believing in what you see is right is good. But YOU and everyone else who see the enemy as being the “other side” instead of the ones who are controlling you and yes you are being controlled. Again this level of Partisanship is not helping your country, your life or the life of your son.
It is helping those who could not care less about JR or ECON101 or any one of us.
I could see Obamma or Edwards uniting the country. Bush claimed to be an Uniter but that was just Rovian BS.
I can’t see any of the Republicans breaching the fissure that bush has only widened in his terms.
Obamma’s niceness might just be the ticket if Americans are fed up with being pitted against each other and with smear tactic politics which the Repubs. will definitely engage in.
I predict the Huckster is going to quickly flame out in the next primeary election.
I dunno Phantom, I heard bold predictions by several lib posters (who I won’t embarrass by naming) who claimed Huckabee was toast after every negative report.
Wishful thinking?
Well, it is not my province to pick the GOP nominee.
Huckabee I could never vote for. But Romney is worse. And Romney outspent Huckabee 20 to 1 in Iowa.
Oh and the subject of the thread Rudy?
Who can respect someone who sits and watches? Huckabee would have beat Rudy too. That is why Rudy stayed out.
Ok
In his victory speech, Obama sounds like “Not Sure” in the movie “Idiocracy”.
He is doing WAY too much talking about reaching across the aisle. And he aint wearing the brass knuckles he needs to have on when talking about that.
If Obama is the nominee, I vote Green.
Reaching across the aisle is what is needed, and your party has done too little of it.
Of course, you are so blinded by your koolaid drinking, you dont see it. writerdog was correct about what needs to happen and what has happened.
JR,
sent you an email – it came back.
need to contact you about the project.