What do you get when you take a bunch of decent guys, with appeals to different blocks of voters, all with different concerns, in different states which have different population characteristics, and sequentially make them run the gauntlet of voter approval? A different winner every time.
So Mike Huckabee came out of nowhere wooing the evangelical Christian vote to the Iowa caucuses, and won. Evangelicals, however, are only a minor component of the "Live Free or Die" New Hampshire electorate, and independent "maverick" John McCain takes New Hampshire over the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, who had been counting on the New Hampshire primary to catapult his candidacy. Ah, but stepping in between New Hampshire and the traditional next stepping stone, South Carolina, was Michigan, an interloper in the primary process. Michigan, the home state of another Governor Romney, who also ran for president, came just in the nick of time for today's winner, Mitt Romney, the former governor's son. Now Romney has the momentum ...
... until South Carolina, where a Mormon former Massachusetts governor is unlikely to be their first choice, and that's where another candidate may make a move, Fred Thompson. Don't forget the former mayor of New York City, whose candidacy relies on Florida and Super Tuesday after essentially sitting out the early skirmishes, but who may have lost so much momentum he won't be able to climb the hill he now faces.
Being a troublemaker in general (ask my daughters) I'd love to see Fred! win in South Carolina and then Rudy! take Florida. Five states, five winners (yeah, I know about Wyoming and Nevada. Spoil sport). It's getting to be an interesting horse race. There seem to be no true thoroughbreds, and the fickle electorate is letting them each know their imperfections.
One brief comment about the Democratic race. Please recognize what's going on (scroll down to "All you ever think about is sex", and further), and that as miserable as it is to witness such transparent bile and vindictive voter disenfranchisement, it would be an even more miserable four years of gender and race identity politics if either of the frontrunners ultimately wins the presidency. And just think, the third entrant would be a worse choice!
1/16/08 0850: The Wall Street Journal picks up this theme today in the lead editorial.
The candidates now head into Saturday's South Carolina primary for what can only be called a free-for-all. Rudy Giuliani is delighted, because the lack of a clear frontrunner means the race might still be jumbled on January 29 in Florida, where he has staked his claim.
Another winner yesterday was Fred Thompson, who is competitive in South Carolina and is running as the conservative who can unite the GOP's fractious wings.
Of the Republican candidates, I've ruled out only Gov. Huckabee and Sen. McCain. The former sounds just a bit too much like a man trying to remake America as a constitutional theocracy, while the latter's instincts are to pay obeisance to the opinions of his "friends" across the aisle and the editorial pages of the New York Times. In neither location will he find many Republicans/conservatives in agreement. He'll find Democrats, though.
Meanwhile, it's going to be really hard to win even the primary battle if the only group you carry is liberal women.
