Ed: I had intended to make this a multi-part one-day series, but events are keeping me from getting to part 2 until at least tomorrow.
A couple of interesting things happened since my last look at the pool. The first is something I should have expected; the Democrats have historically been very reluctant to continue to embrace their early front-runner, in this case Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama has taken the lead in Iowa, and is threatening in New Hampshire and South Carolina. However, that also bumps up against the other Dem maxim – Iowa is not a reliable precursor to success. If it were, we would’ve had nominee Howard Dean. It remains to be seen which of the maxims holds.
The second is the meteoric climb of Mike Huckabee in Iowa and South Carolina at the putative expense of everybody else, but especially early-state front-runner Mitt Romney. The ease of Huckabee’s supplanting of Romney caused a pair of “panic” moves; Romney giving his “Mormon” speech, and Fred Thompson declaring Iowa his Alamo.
I’m almost certainly in the minority on the “Mormon” speech; I honestly and personally did not see the reason for it. By the same token, unlike a lot of others that can fairly be described as the “religious right”, my sole religious “test” is whether one’s religion (or lack thereof) compels him or her to violate the Constitution by imposing said religion (or lack thereof) upon the rest of the country. I don’t see that out of Mormonism.
Thompson’s campaign has come to the late realization that Iowa, as one of only 3 pre-Super Duper Tuesday states that count as much now as they did in prior elections, is wide open. Even though Huckabee, with the undoubted aiding and abetting by the media, has made a miraculous move, it wasn’t exactly a solid movement. A recent poll that gave Huckabee the lead also noted that roughly 60% of Iowans could still be persuaded to leap off a particular candidate’s bandwagon.
Now that the prelims are done, it’s time to eliminate the also-rans (later, Hunter, Paul, Tancredo, Richardson, Kucinich, Biden, Dodd, and Gravel) and focus on why each of the 8 remaining can and cannot win their respective party’s nomination:
Hillary Clinton (D)
Why she can win: She still has the popular (in Democratic circles) Bill as her husband, and thanks to DNC machinations, she has the reduced Michigan contingent locked up. Also, she and her campaign staff are masters of negative campaigning.
Why she cannot win: As stated above, the Democrats tend to dump early front-runners like yesterday’s trash. Morever, her campaign is imploding.
John Edwards (D)
Why he can win: He’s perfectly poised to benefit from any potential backlash from mud slung between Clinton and Obama.
Why he cannot win: This isn’t Wisconsin 1992, where those who play the nice guy can finish first.
Rudy Giuliani (R)
Why he can win: There’s way too much time between Iowa/New Hampshire/South Carolina and Super Duper Tuesday for any surprise candidates to maintain momentum on their own, and his entire strategy has revolved around SDT. This has been enhanced by the faltering of Romney in 2/3rds of that early triad.
Why he cannot win: He is, frankly, a liberal running in what is still considered a conservative set of primaries.
Mike Huckabee (R)
Why he can win: He’s got the big media-driven mo.
Why he cannot win: Other than abortion, God and guns, he is, frankly, a liberal running in what is still considered a conservative set of primaries. Morever, he doesn’t have the monopoly on the secular 2/3rds of those 3.
John McCain (R)
Why he can win: I believe that somebody other than Giuliani, Huckabee, and Romney will be the media flavor of the week before New Hampshire, and McCain’s been Old Reliable for them in the past. Also, he’s running further to the right than he’s run before.
Why he cannot win: Elephants tend to have long memories, and McCain has a lot of baggage.
Barack Obama (D)
Why he can win: He’s a shiny new package for the same tired liberal policies, and he wasn’t the early front-runner.
Why he cannot win: Seven letters – C-L-I-N-T-O-N
Mitt Romney (R)
Why he can win: He still has New Hampshire, and he still has a pile of money.
Why he cannot win: There’s a certain lack of trust of all his flip-flops. That was the big knock on the last candidate out of Massachusetts, and it would be ironic to say the least if the Republicans fell into the same trap the Democrats did the last Presidential election.
Fred Thompson (R)
Why he can win: Out of the 5 remaining Republicans, he is the most-conservative one left. There are still hints of something out there the pollsters are missing.
Why he cannot win: The campaign has frankly been a disaster, and the media is bound and determined to have two liberals duking it out from mid-February through November.
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