First of all, the amount of coverage and focus over the last 6-12 months has been totally overblown and sort of disconcerting. The fact that there were grown women and men arguing passionately on live TV over an election that was two years away is a testament to the broken media in the States.
In any case, I'll start with the results and follow with brief comments about both the winners.
Iowa Caucus 2008 Results
Democrats:
1,781 of 1,781 districts reporting
Obama 37.58
Edwards 29.75
Clinton 29.47
Richardson 2.11
Biden 0.93
Uncommitted 0.14
Dodd 0.02
Republicans:
1,546 of 1,781 districts reporting
Huckabee 34
Romney 25
Thomspon 13
McCain 13
Paul 10
Giuliani 3
Look, I like Barack Obama. If I were to vote on November 4 for one person, it would be him. His policies are not 100% great (whose are?). His experience is scant. Heck, I'm one of the people who agree that he should have waited another four to eight years. His wife is a big target for GOP hit squads wanting to stir up sideshow controversies and distract from the issues. And he has other little vulnerabilities to media attacks. So why the support?
Because he's a good man.
Not that he looks like one, not that he seems nice. He is good. Mr. Obama doesn't have an ounce of wicked manipulative politician in him and that contrast becomes especially obvious when compared to Ms. Clinton.
If Mr. Obama ever did win the whole thing one day, he would make a fine President for the United States and indeed be able to follow up on his promise to offer real change for not only the Executive Office, but for the overall direction and character of the country.
Now having said that, I have very real doubts about his chances in this primary season, let alone in the general. The United States has, as everyone knows, a long, sordid history with the subject of race and with the majority's treatment of persons of African descent. Blacks in the States, though legally "freed" in 1865 by President Lincoln, have continued to suffer incredible discrimination, persecution and downright contempt for decades.
Travel to any major American city and you too will see the absolute reality of what I call
"covert discrimination." Inexorably, the white population will dominate the suburbs, commuter towns and upper-class neighborhoods with their 5-bedroom and two-car garages. Take a stroll in the inner city and downtown areas and suddenly colour reenters the equation. A subway ride on the 2 Line in New York from the Bronx to Lower Manhattan reveals this phenomenon most glaringly. One could describe it as if traveling to a whole new country.
The point is, racism exists in America, and elsewhere, even if no-one wants to admit to it. There are larger forces at work that seek to shape the election. And that simple, bigoted line; "a black man can never become President," tragically, may be the one thing that stops the DNC and the United States at large from electing Barack Obama.
To put it to a sharper point, consider that the last time someone with that sort of genuine human quality became President was 1960, and J.F.K. And he was a white man.
The Evangelical President
On the flip-side of the democratic divide, we have Governor Mike Huckabee. Though I know too little about him as of yet, a feeling I imagine I share with many Americans, watching some of his interviews, this man shares that same key quality of decency and genuine humanity that Obama has.
Mr. Huckabee brings with him some interesting commonalities with, of all people, Bill Clinton. He's from Hope, Arkansas, Mr. Clinton's hometown, first of all. Secondly, they were both two-term governors of the great state of Arkansas. Thirdly, they both play musical instruments (Clinton with his famous sax, Huckabee a bassist). And finally, the two have also shared friendly relations with political strategist Dick Morris, with whom though Mr. Clinton has since severed ties.
His ace in the hole against his opponents though, aside from his astute, "aw-shucks" public persona, is his career as a Southern Baptist pastor. These irrefutable religious credentials are in marked contrast to the pseudo-evangelism of President Bush, as well as the still thorny issue of Mr. Romney's Mormonism. His years as a pastor also hold much water for grassroots Republican voters, as well as the enormous amount of Evangelical Christians who swept Mr. Bush into power in 2004. Their potential power was displayed back then, and now again in Iowa.
The significance of this common denominator is best understood when juxtaposed with the sort of ruthless, win-at-any-cost establishment campaigns run by Mr. Romney and Ms. Clinton. As I see it, Americans are finished with the Rove/Carville politics of the 90s where elections became battles, personal attacks commonly accepted, and any tactic that produced a surge in the polls celebrated. Furthermore, average American voters, especially in the middle-class, feel more disconnected with their government than at any time since the Nixon era thirty-five years ago. They yearn for a leader in whom they can trust. They demand competence, wisdom and righteousness after eight years of their absence.
Ms. Clinton and Mr. Romney can certainly provide the competence and the leadership, no doubt about it. But can they provide the vessel in to which American voters can pour their hopes, dreams and faith? That is their biggest weakness, and both Obama and Huckabee are smart enough to exploit that. This answer to this question is sure to be illuminated a little more in a few days time with the New Hampshire primary. Until then, I will try to follow up with some more analysis and speculation in a second part.
=//Turnquest
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