My Party or Yours?

I regard David Brooks’ column today as manna from heaven, especially if you are an independent, undecided voter like me who is disgusted with the ideological partisans that dominate both political parties. It’s bad enough when both parties keep pushing preferred candidates that voters reject. It’s worse when these ideologues hijack the meaning of words like ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ and kick people out of the tent when they have the nerve to disagree with one of the party’s platforms. Are you pro-life and like smaller government, but don’t want to completely close the nation’s borders? Then the people who run the Republican Party don’t want you. Same with the Democrats if you are pro-choice and pro-labor, but have the nerve to support the death penalty.

When parties start pushing their choices on the public too hard, the tail will stop wagging the dog. This election is already drawing large voter turnout and huge public interest, and this country can ill afford to have the mediocre, divisive, party-anointed candidates as official nominees if they don’t want them or like them.

With no clear front-runner in either party, you can see both parties starting to get torn asunder from within. On the Democratic side, former President Clinton has been relegated to his wife’s attack dog, which has the potential of undermining his entire legacy among the wine-swillers who once loved him so much. While the public and the media wants Obama, the Clintons and the party elite want Hillary no matter how distasteful she is to the non-partisans who refuse to completely tow the party line, let alone the 500,000 independents in Florida and Ohio who will decide the election.

I’ve neglected the Republican side in all this lately, but it could be worse there than the Democratic side. Again, you can see the public surging behind McCain and Huckabee, while the self-appointed arbiters of conservatism push for Romney and Thompson (whose quixotic campaign came to a merciful end today) because of their self-adherence to the laundry list of what partisans think every GOP candidate must possess.

You’d think both parties would either want the public to determine who the best candidate is, or get behind the candidate that has the most appeal to the general public in November. But that would require people from Ann Coulter and Grover Norquist to Michael Moore and Nancy Pelosi to make room in their tent for anyone who dares to have a differing opinion. Should Hillary or Romney get the nomination, these so-called leaders will be like Nero fiddling while what’s left of their party flees the burning city.

Karl Rove on Hillary's Victory

Just a few scattered comments for now. Who better to explain Hillary’s resurgence than Karl Rove? If you’re lucky enough to have a Wall Street Journal subscription you need to read this. If not, here are the best nuggets:

Sen. Hillary Clinton won working-class neighborhoods and less-affluent rural
areas. Sen. Barack Obama won the college towns and the gentrified neighborhoods
of more affluent communities. Put another way, Mrs. Clinton won the beer
drinkers, Mr. Obama the white wine crowd. And there are more beer drinkers than
wine swillers in the Democratic Party.

So could it be Obama is capturing the limousine liberal, Harvard Square, Upper West Side vote? And Clinton the true Democratic base which, if Rove is correct, is more receptive to the recent negative campaigning and race-baiting that are becoming her modus operandi? The Democrats remain a coalition party, and if Hillary is aiming to lose a few members of the coalition to win the wider war by any means necessary, that is actually not a bad strategy. Of course, she will remain above it all while everyone from aides like Bill Shaheen to associates like Robert Johnson and even her husband attack Obama from every angle.

Here’s Rove’s best observation:

While Mr. Obama can draw on the deep doubts of many Democrats about Mrs.
Clinton, he can't close out the argument. Mr. Obama is an inspiring figure
playing a historical role, but that's not enough to push aside the former First
Lady and senator from New York. She's an historic figure, too. When it comes to
making the case against Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama comes across as a
vitamin-starved Adlai Stevenson. His rhetoric, while eloquent and moving at
times, has been too often light as air.

Here in Massachusetts, we had a similar gubernatorial campaign last year when Deval Patrick won on a similar message of unification, hope and prosperity without offering a single concrete proposal. Patrick just finished what can charitably described as a difficult first year in office, where he was plagued by missteps and could not see eye to eye with an entrenched Massachusetts legislature, even though he is also a Democrat.

Obama is going to have to deliver a knockout punch in the next few weeks, either in South Carolina on the 26th or Florida on the 29th, hopefully both. Should he fail, there are going to be lots of disaffected and forlorn “wine swillers” and Independents who will never vote for her. McCain Democrats, anyone?

One last point other bloggers have mentioned. When George W. Bush first became president, his father said he was not going to interfere in any way. It’s safe to say that definitely happened. If Hillary is elected president, you KNOW that Bill Clinton will be involved in quite the opposite matter. Both of them are love ‘em or hate ‘em figures. But that’s just what this country needs to get the partisanship and gridlock out of politics, right?

New Hampshire Surprise

So you thought the voters wanted change, huh?

I think one thing everyone (including me) needs to acknowledge is that despite the front-loaded primary schedule this year, this is a marathon and not a sprint. Perhaps we were all a bit too eager to pin the nominee label on Obama – and it’s quite clear who the media is pushing in this race now. And as I thought, it’s also quite clear who the GOP wants to win. A quick look here reveals the telling quote – “We might get our chance at Hillary if Obama can’t do it.” Truer words have never been spoken. Vote for Hillary, and you’re ensuring another four years of Republicans in the White House.

So what happened? It was unseasonably warm in New Hampshire yesterday with highs in the 60s, which turned into a huge turnout. Also in New Hampshire independents can vote for either party, so that took some independent votes away from Obama and toward McCain, who also polls well with them. And we’ve all read Maureen Dowd this morning, but it could just be that Hillary’s emotional breakdown showed she actually may have a soul underneath all that plastic after all. Some have written about how that moment made women vote for her. I don’t even pretend to know enough about women to pontificate on how the female mind works, so I’m not even going there.

Some have cited “experience” as the reason for going with Hillary. I’m unconvinced by this explanation. If voters truly value experience, they would have voted for Joe Biden, Bill Richardson or Christopher Dodd, who each have more political experience than Hillary does. Funny how experience never emerges in GOP circles as an attribute.

Romney’s campaign is in serious trouble now. Massachusetts politicians have always done well in New Hampshire (Kerry won in 2004 and even Paul Tsongas won here in 1992), and he has been organized here long before any other candidate. And does anyone remember the former front runner, Rudy Giuliani? Whatever happened to him? Does he really expect to take the next month off and then emerge from nowhere to recapture the lead? Who is advising this guy, and why is he listening to them?

One last thought: I’ve previously mentioned the dangers of having two families dominate politics in America. We have a new intern at my real job that was born in 1989. That means that I am not only old, but during her entire life either a Bush or Clinton has run the country. She represents a new generation that will vote in its first election. Just how will voting for Hillary “change” America? If her name was Hillary Smith, would she have any consideration or be taken this seriously as a candidate?

More Info: Complete NH polling results

Viva la Revolucion!

Wow! It’s only the first step but exciting things can even happen in Iowa. What we saw last night was extremely encouraging – a complete renunciation of both parties’ preferred candidates and the overall establishment. Obama and Huckabee are outsiders in their own parties who had the nerve – the nerve, I say! – to combat uninspiring and unpopular front-runners pushed by the insiders. And both of them pulled it off. Kudos to both, and I do wish them continued success.

Just like you, I believed Hillary’s nomination was inevitable and was already counting the Democrats out. She is now in a truly difficult situation (wipe that smile off your face). The only way to bring him down now is to go negative and attack. Unfortunately, voters are less convinced when a female candidate fights dirty, and it has a very strong potential to further backfire. If she finishes second in New Hampshire, you can drive the stake in. If she pulls it off, prepare for a long and ugly road ahead.

And Mike Huckabee? I’m with Andrew Sullivan on this: He is the perfect candidate for today’s GOP. If you build a theocratic base, you will get a theocratic candidate. Huckabee is a Baptist preacher who thinks the world is 6,000 years old. He seems to have no clue about current events. He knows nothing about foreign policy. He is pushing a populist tax scheme that sounds deceptively easy and, if enacted, would lead this country to a very deep recession, and longtime Republican supporters in the business world know it. But as long as he wants to ban abortion and homosexuality, then the GOP base doesn’t care. And unlike our current “compassionate conservative” leader, Huckabee really does seem to be compassionate about the less fortunate. As Arkansas governor, he continually raised taxes to help improve social services for poor families. He’ll be trounced in a general election and I’d never vote for him, but I do wish Huckabee the best. It’s a pleasure to see blowhards like Limbaugh stew over this because voters have the unmitigated gall to not do what he tells them to. And did you notice Ron Paul got 10% of the vote? There’s definitely a revolution brewing here, even more than in the Democratic Party.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was whining to my wife about the potential of having Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney, the two most plastic, unlikable, polarizing, lying flip floppers in the race today being the candidates. This time next month, that could be just a very bad dream the entire country had at once.

On to New Hampshire, a state I know pretty well. The state is dominated by classic New England Independents – socially liberal, fiscally conservative and deeply distrustful of evangelicals or anyone else telling them what to do. Ron Paul and John McCain will do better here. Stay tuned.

As Iowa Caucuses...

Happy New Year and hope you’re ready for 366 days of presidential campaign overload. First up: The people who don’t understand how the Iowa caucus works. I’d like to see a poll of how many people in Iowa don’t understand it. Warren Buffet said if you don’t understand what a company does, don’t buy its stock. How many people blogging and bloviating about the Iowa caucus understand it?

I don’t know, but I’m heartened by the latest polls that show integrity may be making a comeback. Obama appears to be the Democratic frontrunner, and also appears to be ahead in New Hampshire, whose primary is a much easier process to comprehend. Should Clinton lose, watch for Bill to be permanently attached to her side for the next week in a desperate attempt to prop her up. It has been fascinating and entertaining to watch this terrible candidacy lurch from bad to worse. Whether it’s been race-baiting, smearing Obama as a Muslim, Bill falsely saying he never approved of the Iraq War and Hillary campaigning with her mother and daughter in a dire attempt to combat her huge negative ratings with women, Democrats will be doing their party a huge favor if she fails.

Future campaign managers should study Hillary and the equally vapid and virulent Mitt Romney as future textbook examples in how not to run. Much has been written about the Boston Herald’s, Concord Monitor’s and the New Hampshire Union-Leader’s anti-endorsement of Romney. These are three conservative papers in blue state country. All three know Romney very well from his time in Massachusetts. Their knowledge and experience speak volumes. To paraphrase myself, Republicans will be doing their party a huge favor if he fails.

Finally, read this fascinating editorial on John Edwards from an editor at Boomer Market Advisor, a financial publication aimed at financial advisors and planners.

The populist rhetoric of John Edwards kills me. "The gap between rich and poor is widening at a frightening pace," he trumpets. "We must do more to ensure income equality." Never mind that he lives in a 25,000 square foot house, gets $90,000 to give a speech about poverty and is an associate at hedge fund Fortis Investments (advocates for the poor peg hedge funds as a major contributor to wealth disparity)...I find it ironic that he calls for greater retirement saving while at the same time doing all he can to ensure more regulation and lower returns within retirement accounts. His proposal reads like a textbook case for class action tort lawyers. Knowing Edwards, what else could we expect?

Obviously the editor is biased toward his audience, but these are points worth mentioning. Also, guess who have been Edwards’ biggest supporters?

More Info: Here’s how the Iowa caucus works. I’ve seen legal contracts that are easier to understand.