How New Hampshire Will Turn Out: the LCK Prediction

Posted on January 7th, 2008 in Liberal rants, Election 2008, Debates, Hillary, John Edwards, Right-wing Crazies, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, Rudy, Ron Paul, Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee by liberalcollegekid

OK, so I didn’t get it right last time… But that’s water under the bridge. Let’s talk NH.

New Hampshire is a very different state than Iowa with 65% listed as Independents. This means that they can vote in either primary, but not both. The two big candidates with Independents are McCain and Obama which, I think, has a lot to do with why they’re polling ahead of the pack.  Why New Hampshire should matter?  The fact that Independents have a choice in which party to cast their vote means that it may be a good predictor about which way Independents will vote nationally come November.  See, early primaries do matter!!  On to business:

Democrats:

1. Obama
2. Clinton
3. Edwards
4. Richardson
5. Kucinich

Its hard not to take Obama in this race. He polls well with Independent voters, he represents change, he looks strong coming out of Iowa, and to be honest the other campaigns just aren’t doing it for me. The Clinton campaign is struggling, slipping now to 29% in the last Reuter’s poll. Edwards also is not doing as well in New Hampshire as he would have liked, remaining in third place in the polling even after narrowly defeating Clinton in Iowa. Obama will take New Hampshire and the Clinton campaign will just have to hope that they can make some serious gains come Super Tuesday as the rest of the early primaries will more than likely go Barack’s way as well.

Republicans:

1. McCain
2. Romney
3. Huckabee
4. Paul
5. Thompson
6.Giuliani

McCain will take New Hampshire because voters are still convinced, no matter how many times McCain has supported everything Bush has done, that he is an Independent. A “maverick” as FAUX News has called him. McCain took New Hampshire in 2000 and he still has a strong presence there. He has also spent far more time and money in NH than he did in Iowa where he did better than expected. He has also now become somewhat of an underdog in the national race, which I believe will bring people out to vote for him. Romney beats Huckabee here only because New Hampshire doesn’t have the Evangelical vote that Iowa has. Don’t count Huckabee out of the nomination though. Right wing wackos who think the world is only 2000 years old have found their candidate and while Huck’s likely to finish third in NH he will likely rebound quite well in South Carolina.

As for the other candidates I think what happened to Kucinich is simply wrong.  Shame on ABC for excluding him from their debate.  This is not FOX, this is ABC and the fact that Dennis was left off the list of debaters tells me that ABC is endorsing candidates, not representing good journalistic view points and biasing the election.  I, for one, will not be watching any ABC news for a long time.

Paul will be interesting to watch in this race for New Hampshire.  This dark horse is likely to run on a Libertarian ticket once he’s out of the Republican race and that will cause some major headaches for Republicans, especially in Western states where much of Paul’s support lies.

Be sure and check back after the New Hampshire results for LCK’s analysis.  I know my predictions are a little on the safe side, it might be exciting to be wrong once again.

The Other Winner in Iowa… Why That Result Should be More Important to Democrats

Posted on January 4th, 2008 in liberalcollegekid, Liberal rants, Election 2008, Media, College, Barack Obama, Mike Huckabee by liberalcollegekid

Last nights historic election will be remembered for one reason: Obama. My intention here is not to demean him in any way, and the fact that the young voters came out like never before is also reassuring to me. However, there was another election last night in Iowa, one that seemingly no one is talking about…

<Get down Huck, go head get down>
Mike Huckabee won the Republican nomination by 9 percent. 9 PERCENT!! Huck carried 34% of the total vote leaving Mitt Romney, who had outspent Huckabee by millions of dollars in the dust. The Evangelical vote came out strong, with sixty percent of the GOP electorate in Iowa being born-again Christians. This is why the Republicans should be scared.

Mike Huckabee’s message is about change. He is an Evangelical minister who is not afraid to tell you his fix for immigration is to out law abortion, so that those babies will fill America’s demands for labor. He’s been outspent 15 to 1 in this campaign and he represents a dramatic turn for the Republican old guard. For more on the crazy be afraid of science kind of rhetoric go here.

As Howard Dean put it,

“Iowa caucus voters rejected the mainstream Republican frontrunners, and gave right-wing extremist Mike Huckabee a surprise victory in Iowa last night. He made a last minute surge - without money, and without staff - and has suddenly become a contender in the upcoming primaries.”

The Seattle Times wrote on the Republican results

“They [Republican insiders] realize that what happened Thursday in Iowa could be part of a national phenomenon favoring change, which scares the party now holding the White House. Iowa’s results also could reflect widespread GOP voter discontent, which could portend disastrously low.”

The Republican establishment should not like Huckabee. He’s not a pro-business conservative, he’s not especially pro-war, and he’s yet another Presidential candidate with hardly any foreign affairs experience.  While many on the right are trying to distance themselves from Bush he is still the current leader of the party.  Huckabee, while sharing Bush’s religious view points, would not put business interests ahead of domestic issues close to the hearts of born-again Christians.  This, however, is not what the Republicans need to be afraid of.

The lack of quality candidates is very likely to keep Republicans home come November.  This trend can already be seen just by looking at Iowa.  115,000 people showed up to cast their votes in the Republican caucuses in Iowa last night.  The Democrats had 239,000.  More than 100,000 more people showed up to the Democratic caucus then ever before… More than twice as many people voted in the Democratic caucus than in the Republican one. Iowa is not a state that is particularly blue… They are split almost exactly down the middle 50 - 50 just like the country at large.  This means that Iowa is a perfect model for voter efficacy come November and the national election.

Rejoice my liberal friends, rejoice.