There's No Avoiding Iowa in '08
Over at the Corner today, John Podhoretz had this to say regarding Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack's decision to seek the Democratic presidential nomination:
It's tempting to think that Vilsack's entry into the race will create the same scenario in 2008. That's certainly the trap Podhoretz falls into. But he's wrong.
2008 will not be at all like 1992. In 1991, when the candidates were deciding whether or not to enter the race, President Bush looked unbeatable. This scared off the higher profile candidates like Dick Gephardt, Mario Cuomo, and Al Gore. The people who did end up throwing their hats into the ring were a rag-tag bunch of no-namers who were soon nick-named the "Seven Dwarfs" (Paul Tsongas, Jerry Brown, Bill Clinton, Tom Harkin, Paul Simon, Bob Kerrey, and Doug Wilder). There was no clear front runner, no one who had any real name recognition, and no one with deep pockets. Under those circumstances, it made perfect sense for the candidates to focus their limited resources on New Hampshire rather than fight an expensive uphill battle against a popular home-state Senator in Iowa.
But 2008 will be nothing like 1992. The presumed front runners in the Democratic field for '08--Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Al Gore--all have enormous name recognition already. There is just no way that all of them are going to cede Iowa to Tom Vilsack, who is a second tier candidate at best. And so long as one of them goes to Iowa, everyone else will have to follow.
No one wants to make the mistake that General Wesley Clark made in 2004 when he decided to skip the Iowa caucuses to focus on New Hampshire. Clark was doing well in New Hampshire and was rising steadily in the polls, only to see all his momentum eclipsed by the Iowa results. After his hard-fought victory in Iowa, John Kerry rolled to the nomination. The contests are just too close together now. And the news cycle is too fast, too continuous. If you don't board the train at the first stop, it's not going to slow down enough for you to jump on further down the track. That's especially true now that another contest, the Nevada caucuses, has been squeezed in between Iowa and New Hampshire on the increasingly condensed electoral calendar.
We don't yet know who will be running against Vilsack in 2008, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that there will be at least one high-profile candidate in addition to Hillary Clinton. And that candidate is not going to turn down the opportunity to hand Clinton an early loss in Iowa. Indeed, John Edwards, who seems very likely to run, did very well in Iowa in 2004 and is still very popular there. If he runs, there's no way he doesn't contest that state. And if he's in Iowa, everyone else is going to have to be there too.
Long story short, John Podhoretz does not know what he's talking about. He's so convinced that Hillary Clinton's nomination is inevitable that he seldom bothers to think through the steps needed to get her to that point. For the record, I think it is more likely than not that Clinton will not win the Democratic nomination in '08. It could happen, of course, but I think the conventional wisdom vastly overstates her chances.
This decision is a huge gift to the campaign of Hillary Clinton. With Vilsack in the race, all other Democratic candidates can declare the Iowa caucuses his territory and bail out of there. The quirky state won't play a big role, and that only benefits the 800 lb. Gorilla.The historical precedent for this is, of course, the 1992 presidential race in which all the Democratic candidates effectively ceded the Iowa caucuses to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. Because Harkin won Iowa uncontested, the press essentially ignored it and the New Hampshire primary became the de facto first contest of the primary season.
It's tempting to think that Vilsack's entry into the race will create the same scenario in 2008. That's certainly the trap Podhoretz falls into. But he's wrong.
2008 will not be at all like 1992. In 1991, when the candidates were deciding whether or not to enter the race, President Bush looked unbeatable. This scared off the higher profile candidates like Dick Gephardt, Mario Cuomo, and Al Gore. The people who did end up throwing their hats into the ring were a rag-tag bunch of no-namers who were soon nick-named the "Seven Dwarfs" (Paul Tsongas, Jerry Brown, Bill Clinton, Tom Harkin, Paul Simon, Bob Kerrey, and Doug Wilder). There was no clear front runner, no one who had any real name recognition, and no one with deep pockets. Under those circumstances, it made perfect sense for the candidates to focus their limited resources on New Hampshire rather than fight an expensive uphill battle against a popular home-state Senator in Iowa.
But 2008 will be nothing like 1992. The presumed front runners in the Democratic field for '08--Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Al Gore--all have enormous name recognition already. There is just no way that all of them are going to cede Iowa to Tom Vilsack, who is a second tier candidate at best. And so long as one of them goes to Iowa, everyone else will have to follow.
No one wants to make the mistake that General Wesley Clark made in 2004 when he decided to skip the Iowa caucuses to focus on New Hampshire. Clark was doing well in New Hampshire and was rising steadily in the polls, only to see all his momentum eclipsed by the Iowa results. After his hard-fought victory in Iowa, John Kerry rolled to the nomination. The contests are just too close together now. And the news cycle is too fast, too continuous. If you don't board the train at the first stop, it's not going to slow down enough for you to jump on further down the track. That's especially true now that another contest, the Nevada caucuses, has been squeezed in between Iowa and New Hampshire on the increasingly condensed electoral calendar.
We don't yet know who will be running against Vilsack in 2008, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that there will be at least one high-profile candidate in addition to Hillary Clinton. And that candidate is not going to turn down the opportunity to hand Clinton an early loss in Iowa. Indeed, John Edwards, who seems very likely to run, did very well in Iowa in 2004 and is still very popular there. If he runs, there's no way he doesn't contest that state. And if he's in Iowa, everyone else is going to have to be there too.
Long story short, John Podhoretz does not know what he's talking about. He's so convinced that Hillary Clinton's nomination is inevitable that he seldom bothers to think through the steps needed to get her to that point. For the record, I think it is more likely than not that Clinton will not win the Democratic nomination in '08. It could happen, of course, but I think the conventional wisdom vastly overstates her chances.
posted by A.L. at 11:57 PM
2 Comments:
As a resident of Iowa, the rumor here is that Clinton will not be running in 08. The Vilsacks and Clintons are good friends, and the speculation is that Tom would not run if Hillary was running
AL, I think you are right in your critique of Jpod. Iowa won't be ceded to Vilsack, and Hillary's chances are greatly overstated. It would be nice, however, if we could skip the Iowa caucuses. They are profoundly anti-democratic and there is no evidence they help the Dems select the best candidate. The fact that Clinton (bill now, not hillary) won the election in 1992 -- the one time in recent memory that the candidates skipped Iowa -- suggests that Dems should scrap these silly caucuses in the first place.
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