Early Iowa Observations
3 January 2008It’s late on caucus night and I’m about to go to bed. I’ll have more to say tomorrow but I didn’t want to close the evening without a few comments about the Iowa caucus and my predictions.
I nailed Huckabee. He won with a significant margin. I was off on Romney and McCain. McCain didn’t get the bounce I expected because Thompson did better than I expected. While I would have liked to see Romney come in third, I’m not at all unhappy with the outcome. I’m glad Thompson ended up in a tie with McCain and I’m really glad Huckabee did so well.
I don’t know that Thompson will be able to hold on past New Hampshire. He did better than I expected today but I don’t think he did well enough. At this point I still think Huckabee is the best bet for conservatives, despite all the claims by Rush and others that he’s not a conservative. No, he’s not Reagan, Rush is right about that. No one in this race is Reagan. But I’m excited about Huckabee.
Just a note about the Democrat caucus. That Hillary came in third is HUGE! I’m no fan of Edwards (he’s totally vapid) but I was rooting him on tonight. Hillary’s campaign is in no way derailed but this is a real hit and she’ll have to rethink he campaign strategy now. It will be interesting to see what she does next.
More tomorrow.
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January 4th, 2008 at 12:50 am
Still not sure whether or not this is good. The term “compassionate conservatism” has been used before, and it haunts me. Though, I guess the alternatives in this case are certainly not desirable.
January 4th, 2008 at 7:47 am
[...] Ron: I don’t know that Thompson will be able to hold on past New Hampshire. He did better than I expected today but I don’t think he did well enough. At this point I still think Huckabee is the best bet for conservatives, despite all the claims by Rush and others that he’s not a conservative. No, he’s not Reagan, Rush is right about that. No one in this race is Reagan. But I’m excited about Huckabee. [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Huckabee isn’t a perfect candidate but I think he’s a good candidate. In spite of all the calls to the contrary, I see no evidence that Huckabee plans to use the presidency to foster the social gospel. If I thought he was going to I’d drop him like a hot potato.
Really, the only acceptable alternative among the viable candidates is Thompson and it remains to be seen whether he’s really viable or not.