After New Hampshire

Well, here's my obligatory post-New Hampshire primary post.

For me, the salient moment of the New Hampshire campaign had to be Hillary's "tears on demand" faux-emotional moment in the Q&A session.

I think Glenn Beck's take on that moment was correct- Hillary, if being truly emotional, was bemoaning the 'falling back' of her and Bill's crusade to remake America in their liberal image. Not for the country 'falling back.' That would involve too much genuine caring for the welfare of others, rather than Hillary's more simple brand of blind ambition to rule.

Fox News had a commentator who opined,

"The Clintons don't have an unplanned bone in their collective bodies,"

or words very close to that effect.

Hillary accomplished two things with her faux-crying act. First, she dared people to criticize her for finally appearing to show emotion. This alone bought her nearly hours of free analysis time and endless replays of the clip, shown here on YouTube.



Second, she evidently duped a large number of Granite state voters, allegedly including many single women, into now believing she really does have genuine emotions.

Crazy? Yeah, like the proverbial fox. Imagine Obama Bim Baden outmaneuvered by something as old as a woman's tears.

Well, that's politics for you.

Meanwhile, Edwards and Richardson sank even lower.

Hillary's win, coming as it did after a solid day of erroneous predictions of Obama's anticipated double-digit trampling of the Ice Queen, was all the more attention-getting. If Hillary had been predicted to win, it would have been largely a yawner. As it was, the result seemed that much more remarkable.

Still, as one Sean Hannity pointed out, Hillary winning the state by only a few points margin, seen from a pre-Iowa perspective, is like losing twice in a row.

To his credit, though, Hannity's co-host, Alan Colmes, complained that if Hillary won, critics say it wasn't by enough. If she lost, they pile on her for losing. She can't win either way.

And that's true. That's what generally happens to frontrunners. Romney and Giuliani have experienced that on the Republican side.

I listened to Obama's defeat speech, with the idea that one should get better acquainted with the enemy. Boy, is he scary, too. Like Edwards. He positively oozes this faux-unity theme, when you know, below a shallow surface, he's going to bludgeon the beJezzus out of American business if he ever gets into the Oval Office.

All he really has going for him is two things- he's relatively youthful and energetic, and he's black. As I wrote here,

"The same is true for Obama. He has nothing remotely resembling the experience one would like to see in a President. Again, the Journal article made it seem as if a vote against, or not for, Obama, is a racist vote.

But that's not true. It totally overlooks Obama's nearly-total absence of any legitimate experience which would prepare him to lead this country. He's had only two years in the Senate- which is composed of largely do-nothing legislators. Prior to that, he served in the Illinois state legislature, and was an aide to former Illinois Senator Paul Simon. The guy with the braying voice and funny bow ties.

You wonder if Obama knows how to do anything- anything at all.

As with Hillary, I'm not against Obama because he's black. I don't think he's qualified a qualified person, no conditionality, to be President.

To reject Obama is not to reject minority candidates. Only that minority candidate. Jesse Jackson wasn't elected, either. And not because he is black. He was totally ill prepared to be President- and still is."

Let's be honest- if Obama wasn't black, his campaign wouldn't be happening at all. Back in the spring of last year, very senior Hawaiian Senator Dan Inouye bemoaned the fact that Obama hadn't even made it through one term in the Senate yet. He voiced the opinion that the very junior Illinois Senator had no business even contemplating running for President.

Nobody would seriously entertain any other similarly-inexperienced, two-year Senator running for President. Kennedy had seen combat in WWII and served several terms as a US Representative before running as a sitting Senator. And, as a Senator, he had received a fair amount of public exposure by participating in hearings on organized crime.

Obama is just a very young, naive, fresh-faced windbag in the tradition of Senatorial windbags from Illinois- Simon, Percy, and Durbin, to name a few.

On the Republican side, Romney is now being jumped on by the media as nearly finished. I think the reality is closer to his simply now being in a competitive foot race with McCain for the next month.

With luck, Hickabee will simply run out of gas and money. McCain probably will receive a lot of funding after last night's showing. And Giuliani has his big shot as the primaries come to the larger states.

One comment I found thought-provoking last night on Fox was that New Hampshire is no longer the Republican bellwether it once was. Many of its governmental positions have gone blue since the Reagan and Sunnunu days. It's not the tight-fisted, conservative bastion of old. Thus, the pundit's view was that results out of both Iowa and New Hampshire are more telling for Democrats than for Republicans.

On a final note, I find myself torn over McCain. Lately, he seems to have 'gotten religion' on conservative fiscal policies. And he talks a good game about his character. Plus, he did a good job supporting successful evolution of tactics and strategy in Iraq, which has led to its successful progress during 2007.

As I wrote here last March, though, McCain in many ways reminds me of Bob Dole. And not in a good way. He seems to have an enduring sense of entitlement regarding the Presidency. As with Dole, he's horse-traded his way through the Senate, making him suspect at leading change through that chamber. McCain is, without question, a veteran combat aviator and brave man. He's undergone far more suffering for his country than anyone could ever ask.

That doesn't mean he deserves to lead us as President.

I remain deeply distrustful of McCain for one very large reason. As co-author of McCain-Feingold, the campaign finance 'reform' bill, he has shown himself to be a naive idiot. And willing to gut the First Amendment free speech provisions in the name of incumbent protection.

That anyone would think more 'campaign finance reform legislation' can ever do more than hopelessly complicate an already unworkable situation shows they lack the fundamental brainpower, common sense and perspective to lead this nation as President.

All McCain's bill did was try to rob voters of their right to speak freely about candidates, on their own, and provide new ways for the always-smart campaign managers to outmaneuver the latest legal nonsense that poses as campaign finance 'law.'

This low-water mark of McCain's legislative career, dating from almost a decade ago, troubled me then. And still does.

On to Michigan and the south!

Re: Iowa Caucuses

The Iowa caucuses results are now old news. New Hampshire's primary is tomorrow. If I'm going to make any insightful comments after the former, and before the latter, it better be today.

Being from the Midwest originally, I perhaps have a different perspective on Iowa than many Easterners.

Regarding Hickabee, I think he's just a flash in the pan who got lucky by tapping into the Iowan evangelical base. That isn't going to be happening twice.

Just last night, on Fox News' panel of the leading five Republican Presidential candidates (Giuliani, Thompson, Huckabee, McCain and Romney), Huckabee scored nearly the worst of the five with Fox's focus group. One of the group's members, when asked what she didn't like about Huckabee, promptly said,

"I am voting for a President, not a minister."

Apparently, though I missed the opening of the debate/panel, Huckabee fumbled the very first question badly. Several focus group respondents thought he 'waffled 3 or four times' on just this first question.

Romney, on the other hand, was the nearly-unanimous choice among the focus group for his responses, his experience, and his leadership-projecting demeanor.

Personally, I was moved by a Wall Street Journal editorial shortly before the Iowa caucuses by an Iowan. He noted that not since Jimmy Carter had Iowa's choice led the nation after the ensuing election.

Thus, I have even stronger feelings that Hickabee's 'win' in Iowa is an aberration.

Thompson, my personal, unelectable favorite, was the nearly-unanimously worst performer on the Fox panel last night. He was characterized by the focus group members as,

"an actor," and

"he has good ideas but communicates poorly."

That's pretty much where I am. If I could wave a wand to get my wish, I'd make him President. But the reality is that he is too thoughtful and slowish for today's media environment. He's likable, experienced in legislative government, but just not dynamic enough in a race that features Hickabee and Romney.

I'd like to believe that Thompson could be someone's running mate, but I'm not sure that would ever happen.

To me, the biggest question for the Republicans is whether Giuliani's 'wait for the South' strategy will work, or whether he'll be hopelessly behind and running short of funds after ceding Iowa and New Hampshire.

I expect either Romney, Giuliani or McCain to eventually be the party's nominee. Hopefully, one of the first two.

As to Iowa's results for the Democrats, I will admit that I could not be more pleased. Obama Bim Baden and John-boy Edwards both beat Hillary.

Confusion to our enemies! Can it get any better than this for a start?

Obama is long-term unelectable. As Kim Strassel wrote in a Journal editorial recently, Obama claims to want 'change,' but change to what?

He claims to want to 'unite,' but his real message, if you listent closely, is old-school American politics,

'Let's get the White House, and then use our control of Congress, too, to ram our 'changes' down everybody's throats!'

As Rudy Giuliani said last night on the Fox News panel, Democrats all want 'change,' and, in fact, in an election without an incumbent, everybody is for 'change.' The question is, change to what?

I don't believe many people will, once the voting booth curtains close, actually vote for Obama. He's just too green and inexperienced. Do you really want this guy at a table across from Putin's successor, the Iranian President, or the Chinese leader? I don't. He's a baby with literally no accomplishments to his name.

And, no, he's not like Abe Lincoln, also from Illinois. Lincoln was a combat-tested leader of militia in the Blackhawk Wars, a successful local trial attorney and noted state legislator at a time when states had comparatively more control and influence over its citizen's lives than they arguably do today.

And, despite Peggy Noonan's belief, Obama is playing the race card, hard, by implicitly daring people to not be for him, thus being racist.

Edwards may have tapped into some disaffected Iowans, but his message of doom and corporate greed doesn't have legs. People vote for positive visions, not vengeful agendas. Edwards continues to stump for demonizing and crippling the US private sector, according to John-boy's own personal opinions.

But the fact that each of these two inept Democratic Presidential candidates beat Hillary shows she is now damaged. She can't make people like her.

Her shrill, braying plea the next day in New Hampshire,

'Ask us anything you want to know about us!' conveys her newly-desperate condition. And who's this 'us,' anyway? The legendary Team Billary?

I believe her loss in Iowa will push Hillary further into the sort of panic mode that will reveal her true, innate, unlikable and untrustworthy self. Her armor is cracked, blood has been drawn.

Though I'm not a Democrat, I believe Hillary will, eventually, beat Obama for the nomination. Her funding and organization may well finally edge the babe out, but at the cost of a deeply flawed and weakened candidate who lacks passion and an impassioned voter base.

For what it's worth, the Fox News New Hampshire focus group last night felt that Romney, their favorite, could beat the Democrat they believe will win the nomination, Obama Bim Baden.

I think the important aspect of Iowa, though, is that Hillary was caught looking ahead to see Edwards and Obama both in front of her. Panic must now be truly setting in. How many early contests can Hillary afford to lose?

Wouldn't it be wild if, with all the front-loaded primaries this year, the Democrats, and/or, for that matter, the Republicans, ended up with one of these two dilemmas:

-a genuinely 'open' convention in which no one candidate has yet achieved the necessary votes to win their party's nomination?

or

-a 'winner' with whom the party is actually not happy, by the time they get to the convention?

The early packing of delegate selections could well hand someone unqualified, such as Obama or Hickabee, a victory that their party knows can't be sustained in the general election.

Perhaps an important outcome from the 2008 elections will be another trip to the drawing board to attempt to arrange state primary schedules so that they neither disenfranchise late states, nor unduly hurry the process. Perhaps either a later, one-day primary date for all states, or a carefully crafted grouping of several states together on one day in each of several consecutive months.

Whatever it is, I think this year's primary scramble will leave both parties seeking a better way in 2012.