Headlines, North America

POLITICS-US: Obama, Huckabee Shake Up Race in First Vote

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jan 4 2008 (IPS) - While political pros are still poring over the results, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and former Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee have clearly emerged from Thursday’s Iowa caucuses as the big winners in the 2008 race for the White House.

Conversely, the big losers, according to the pundits, included Sen. Hillary Clinton, who came in third in the Democratic contest, behind both Obama and former Sen. John Edwards, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney who, despite outspending Huckabee six to one, received only a quarter of the Republican vote. Huckabee won 34 percent.

All of the major candidates Friday raced to New Hampshire, the scene of the next big primary test Tuesday, with analysts predicting that a victory there by Obama, who only gained national office three years ago, would make him the odds-on favourite to defeat Clinton and win the Democratic nomination.

“If he wins (the New Hampshire) primary, Obama will become the prohibitive favorite for the nomination,” declared Fred Barnes, the chief political correspondent for the neo-conservative Weekly Standard, Friday. “For the past 36 years, a candidate, Republican or Democrat, who wins in Iowa and New Hampshire has always won the nomination.”

While Clinton was leading Obama in the New Hampshire public opinion polls before the Thursday’s caucus, the momentum created by his unexpectedly large victory in Iowa – and a particularly eloquent victory speech that got rave reviews from the mainstream media – could very well carry him past her, according to several analysts.

Huckabee, a Baptist minister who hails from the same small Arkansas town of Hope as former President Bill Clinton, will have a harder row to hoe in New Hampshire, a far more secular state compared to Iowa, where the Christian Right has long been a potent force.

Indeed, in the wake of Huckabee’s surprisingly strong victory, the Republican race appears as wide-open as ever, particularly because Sen. John McCain, who tied for third with former Sen. Fred Thompson in Iowa, is currently leading Romney in the New Hampshire race, according to the most recent public opinion polls, which place Huckabee far behind.

“If (McCain) wins (in New Hampshire), then Romney will be further damaged,” according to an editorial in the influential right-wing National Review Online Friday. “With Huckabee unacceptable to a lot of economic and national security conservatives and Rudy Giuliani unacceptable to a lot of social conservatives, McCain could, amazingly enough, become the consensus conservative choice.”

The Iowa caucuses, the first of a series of primary contests in all 50 states leading up to the formal crowning of the two major parties’ presidential candidates at their national conventions in late August and early September, mark the formal launch of the quadrennial race to the White House.

The most important day in the primary season – so-called “Super Tuesday”, when primaries are held in 24 states, including California, New York, Illinois, and several other giants – won’t take place until Feb. 5. But the early contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida can be critical, if not decisive, to the final outcome. Most analysts this year believe that the nomination in both parties will probably be determined no later than Super Tuesday, if not before.

In Iowa, Democratic voter turnout was twice that of Republicans. Peter Wehner, a Republican who just left a senior White House post, wrote Friday that “Republicans have to be worried that the ‘intensity gap’, which has been extremely large until now, may grow.”

“The (Democratic turnout) was an enormous, even breathtaking, showing. Democrats are excited and it’s manifesting itself in money and in turnout. In contrast, and until now, Republicans have been in almost a torpor.”

With 38 percent of the vote, Obama cruised to victory ahead of Edwards’ 30 percent and Clinton’s 29 percent. Richardson, the only Hispanic American in the race, was far behind.

Few substantive differences on the Iraq war and foreign policy, health care, trade, taxation, and global warming – the signature issues of the Democratic Party this year – separated the four Democratic candidates, although Edwards, the Democrat’s vice presidential candidate in 2000, has run a more-populist, anti-corporate campaign than the three others.

In that context, Obama’s victory was particularly remarkable for several reasons. At 46, he was the youngest candidate with the least national political experience. The biracial son of a Kenyan father and a mother from Kansas, he was also the only African American running in a state where blacks make up only four percent of the population.

The Iowa results showed, however, that neither his age nor his racial identity proved an obstacle. On the contrary, younger voters – both male and female – flocked to his standard, a major disappointment, in particular, to Clinton’s campaign which had made her status as the first woman with a genuine chance of winning the presidency a major selling point to women voters of all ages.

Obama’s performance with young voters in particular offered testimony to his charismatic appeal which some have compared to that of former President John F. Kennedy.

“Obama presented himself as a JFK without the Cold War, with his style and his appeal to a new generation, much more than to substance issues,” noted Robert Borosage, director of the Campaign for America’s Future, a progressive think tank here. “It clearly attracted the idealism of a young generation that is the most integrated in our history and to new and independent voters who want dramatic change.”

Whether Clinton or Edwards, who spent the most time in Iowa of all the Democratic candidates but who may be fast running out of money, can overcome that appeal, particularly in the short time between now and Super Tuesday, is one of the major questions the political pros are now asking themselves.

On the Republican side of the ledger, the race looks more murky. While Giuliani led the national polls until late last fall, his star has fallen sharply in the last few weeks and is likely to be revived only if he scores a major victory in the Jan. 29 primary in Florida where he has focused most of his recent campaigning.

Until now, Romney, who touts his credentials as a successful businessman, appears to have been the main beneficiary of Giuliani’s fall. But Huckabee, whose economic platform has a distinctly populist flavour, appears to have dealt a severe blow to Romney, whose Mormonism is also suspect to the Christian Right component of the Republican coalition.

More disheartening to Republicans was the fact that the Democratic caucus in Iowa drew significantly more participation by young people and political independents than their caucus, a fact cited by Borosage as a promising harbinger of what will happen next November.

“I think it reflects the collapse of the Republican coalition and esprit,” he said. “I think you’ll see it again next week in (the) New Hampshire (primary election) with independents and new voters opting to vote in the Democratic primary. It augurs well for a big sea-change election (against the Republicans) this fall.”