Boy you blew that one

The Presidential Race, My Take

By Alexander P. De Filippi
Sunday, January 06, 2008

Mainstream republicans have reasons to celebrate and to worry, from the news coming from the Iowa caucus this past Thursday 3. In effect, Mike Huckabee, the mainstream candidate and future presidential republican nominee, won easily the election. The media calls Mitt Romney “the establishment candidate” because he has money, the true is; the real establishment candidate is Huckabee, who represents the George W. Bush line in all matters, from free trade, to immigration plus his pro-life stance. The mainstream or establishment candidate in the Republican Party is not determined by the amount of money or name recognition of the candidate, but by the base of support within the Republican Party that the candidate has. Governor Mike Huckabee has on his favors the two main factions of the Republican Party, the Christian right and the business community, no one of the other republicans in the race count with those two elements of support. Giuliani, McCain, Ron Paul, have to divide among themselves the fiscally conservative, non religious right, which is located mostly in the east and west coast, and does not surpass more than twenty percent of the republican electorate across the country.

The second good news for republicans came from the democrats results, the establishment candidate, Senator Hillary Clinton, came on third place. I call her the establishment candidate because she counts with the media support and the money coming from that business community located mostly in California and New York. It is very difficult to foresee that Barack Obama could win a presidential contest against Mike Huckabee, therefore if the democrats nominate Senator Obama they would be loosing the presidential election, a presidential election that based on the results coming from the 2006 congressional election is up to the democrats to loose.

The sobering or sour note for republicans came from the Iowans participation in the caucus, Iowa isn’t New York, Iowa is a conservative state that went for George W. Bush in 2004 and slightly for Al Gore in 2000. Therefore the fact that the people participating in the democrat’s caucus was two and a half greater than those participating in the Republican caucus is a bad news for republicans. Iowa has only seen benefits from the George W. Bush administration for the last seven years, Iowans should be grateful of republicans, also, in that state, the grass root republican machine is almost as good as the one they have in the south, in fact the Christian republican grass root machine runs well even in New York. The Iowan local press isn’t liberal either, therefore that massive participation of people, including independents, in the democrat’s caucus, is impressive and should put the republicans on notice that something as unusual as the awful results of the congressional race of 2006 could happen again this year.

The democrats conundrum, the democrats have the momentum with the American electorate this year as they had it on 2006, therefore wining the presidential race should not be a problem for them. Nevertheless, in spite of the favorable winds, the democrats find themselves unable to nominate a good candidate; any of the three main contenders, Obama, Edwards and Clinton is an easy target for republicans. Any of those three should loose in a race against Huckabee, any of those three democrats will have to name a vice-president that can help them, maybe Al Gore? Vice-president again? I do not know. I believe the democrat establishment will be able to save Hillary Clinton becoming the democrat nominee, unfortunately for democrats, she is a poor candidate, as any of the three just mentioned. Therefore the democrats’ faith depends of two factors, the vice-president they name and a repetition of the 2006 phenomena where independents and moderates, nationwide, broke for the democrats. The democrats could make easy for them to get the independent and moderate votes if they play the “minister card” against Huckabee. Independents and moderates, that make up easily twenty percent of the electorate, tend to be non religious, the reason they tend to be moderate or independents is because they do not take any position to the extreme, whether we talk about politics, environment or religion.

Note: Huckabee is popular mong young voters!