Why the Kennedy Endorsement Matters

After the American Century

First it was Carolyn, comparing Obama to her father, President Jack Kennedy. Now the last of the legendary Kennedy brothers, Ted, has endorsed Obama. Traditionally, Teddy Kennedy has not endorsed primary candidates, preferring to play the role of the grand old man, who may work quietly behind the scenes, but publicly supports the Party. So this endorsement is big.

It is important because the demographic group that has been most hesitant about Obama are those over 60. But for that generation, the Kennedy Family remains iconic. For the Kennedy Family to present Obama as the successor to JFK is a major campaign event. Now Obama will inherit and revitalize the Kennedy coalition.

It is important because the Kennedy Family has enormous credibility in the Hispanic community, where Hillary has had an advantage until now.

It is important because the Kennedy network has strong labor ties, and will help bring these voters to Obama. Until now, Hillary has had an edge here, notably in the mill towns of New Hampshire.

It is important because Kennedy is one of the longest serving members of the Senate, where he is respected and has great influence. This endorsement signals, too, that Obama has impressed Ted Kennedy with his work in the Senate over the last four years.

It is important because Kennedy has made his decision eight days before Super Tuesday, at a moment when it will have the maximum impact on the electorate.

It is important because until now Obama has been fighting mostly alone, without any heavyweight supporters. Hillary would have her husband and Madelaine Albright, and many others. This gave her the aura of experience. Ted Kennedy will now be appearing in public at the Obama's side, giving him the gravitas of his decades of experience.

It is important because the Clintons have been courting Kennedy, hoping for his endorsement for Hillary. It seems clear that Bill Clinton's clumsy campaigning in South Carolina did more than turn the Black community and many young people against his wife's candidacy. Kennedy has rejected that style of campaign. If you think of a vast electoral scale, with Hillary on one side balanced by Obama on the other side, adding a Kennedy endorsement for either candidate could tip the balance in such a close contest. By opting for Obama, Kennedy has dramatically improved his chances.

Most of all, it is important because Kennedy is saying to the American people that Obama has the measure of greatness, that he has the stature to be compared with JFK.

Obama Breaks Through, Again

After the American Century

Today Barack Obama won a stunning victory in South Carolina, crushing the Clintons with more than double the vote that Bill and Hillary could scrape together. With 55% of the vote, this was the first time any candidate from either party won an absolute majority. Clinton, with only 27%, lost by far more than Obama did in Nevada or New Hampshire, where he trailed by only a few percentage points. As Obama pointed out to a delirious crowd in his victory speech, taking all four primaries together, he has won the most votes and the most delegates. Poor John Edwards was unable even to come in second in the state of his birth, and one might assume he will give up now. But his concession speech said nothing of the kind. He will go on campaigning at least through February 5.

Interestingly, the only group that Edwards won over were white men. If they had been the only ones allowed to vote, then he would have won. But since 1920 women have been voting, of course. And if only white women had been voting, then Hillary would have won. Logically, then it might seem that Obama won because of the Black vote. He did - more than 80%. But one cannot get 56% of the vote with only African-American support. Many Whites had to vote for him too, and this is in South Carolina, where they still fly the Confederate Flag.

Obama gave a powerful victory speech that showed far more than his great rhetorical skills. He presented his victory and his campaign as the expression of the desire for change, and not as a triumph of any single group or faction. He only referred obliquely to the way the Clinton's had campaigned, no doubt content that yesterday the New York Times already criticized them in an editorial. However, the same editorial contained that newspaper's endorsement of Hillary, on the grounds that she has the most experience.

So they have fallen for this rather bogus argument. Bogus because the President does not sit there by himself but with a team of advisors. The question is not "Which candidate locked in solitary confinement could the best decisions?" It is rather, "Which candidate is likely to put together a fine team, and have the values and the character needed to listen to and adjudicate and do what is best for the country?" I am not going to listen to the New York Times. It is my view that Obama is the best leader and that he would make the best president. Clinton has much the same policies, but she does not have the intensity and the vision that Obama has. He has charisma, she does not. Ultimately, I fear she does not have a unifying impulse, but a divisive one. I doubt that she can transcend the bitter partisanship of the past that marked the eight Clinton years. Even if she wants to have a unifying administration, many Republicans hate her, and to elect her is to begin with partisanship and doubt that it can be overcome. With her and Bill Clinton in the White House again, the United States could easily sink back into the divisions and gridlock that have made legislation difficult. I think Obama has a better chance to bring new ideas into practice.

Carolyn Kennedy, daughter of President Jack Kennedy, has written an article that will appear in the New York Times tomorrow. She is endorsing Obama, saying that he is the first politician who inspires her the way her father inspired Americans in 1960. Think about what that endorsement suggests.

The Real Campaign Issues I: Oil

All the candidates are talking about change. One area that screams out for change is US oil policy. The United States is the world's largest oil consumer and polluter per capita, and yet it has resisted the Kyoto Accords. Rather than offering leadership, the US has been a stumbling block. This is not in its own national interest, and it is economically wrong-headed, as well as contributing to environmental degradation. 

The US spends billions of dollars a year on imported oil, and yet its cars are far less efficient than they might be. Indeed, while some mild requirements for miles per gallon have been imposed on automobiles, the gas-guzzling SUVs and small trucks driven by millions of Americans are exempt from controls. I even know one 80 year-old woman who drives a Humvee to the supermarket, getting about 4 miles to the gallon. This is in rural Connecticut, where the need for an armored car is minimal. Gas mileage for cars in the US is roughly the same now as it was thirty years ago, and it was better in 1988 than in 2008!  Could there be any connection between this policy fiasco and the fact that former oil executives, i.e. members of the Bush family, have been running the country for 12 of those 20 years? I am not suggesting a conspiracy, just inability to see that the world has changed. Only as his presidency has drifted toward its end has George W. Bush admitted that, in his words, the nation is "addicted to oil." But after making that admission in a State of the Union message, little has changed. Except the price of oil. It has kept going up. 

The US today could drive just as much and use less than half the oil it does today, if only it made a real effort. American cars today average less than 25 mpg. The Toyota Prius gets 55 mpg. The Honda Insight got 70 mpg. Detroit did not build these cars, and has consistently fought for lower standards, and that means more imported oil, primarily from the Middle East. Detroit has not shown any leadership, and it has backed candidates with a similar (lack of) ideas, notably George Bush and another former oil executive, Dick Cheney.

This is the old story. Do any of the candidates in this election want to champion a new story? The Democratic candidates seem to want a new policy for gas mileage, but the American public has generally resisted any forced changes in the automotive lifestyle. Obama has proposed to help Detroit make the transition to hybrid cars by having the Federal Government pick up some of the health-care costs the car industry has. As he points out, health care now adds $1500 to the cost of every car, which is more than the cost of the steel. In short, Obama has moved beyond mere rhetoric to look for a solution and a partnership. He argues that Ford, GM, and Chrysler really have no choice. If they want to stop losing market share, then they will have to begin making more fuel efficient cars.  Obama also champions substituting home-grown biofuels for oil, reducing the costly dependence on foreign oils. Obama has also said that he would appoint a Secretary of Energy Security, in order to keep focused on the problem.

Hillary Clinton has some of the same ideas. More efficient cars, bio-fuel, more solar and wind power. She introduced legislation in 2006 for a "strategic energy fund" that would put $9 billion over a five year period into energy research, and and she suggested taxing the oil companies to help pay for it. Clinton has noted that ExxonMobil made the highest corporate profits in history, and together with the five other large oil companies had profits of $113 billion in 2005. A tax of less than 10% on their profits from one year would be enough to pay for the research into alternative energies. 

In short, both Obama and Clinton see the importance of new energy policies. Both see the dangers of relying on foreign oil, the dangers of global warming, and the need to rescue Detroit from its own backward looking executives. Either, if elected, would push the US in the right direction. But how hard would they push? Jimmy Carter was educated as an engineer, and he understands thermodynamics. Unfortunately, he did not find a way to get the public to accept his energy plans. Instead, Ronald Reagan told the electorate what they wanted to hear, that the shortages were artificial results of red-tape and environmentalists tampering with the free market. Never overestimate the American voter when it comes to oil. Convenience and the cost at the pump may matter more than global warming or national security or preserving what is left of the automobile industry. But at least if either Clinton or Obama are elected, there is a chance that the US will have an intelligent policy.

Anyone interested in the story of how the US became the world's largest consumer of energy might want to go to the library and borrow my Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies (MIT Press).

A blog on Electricity will follow next month.

Clinton Gambles for Nevada Votes

Whenever I get to Nevada I feel as though I ought to be given a free hotel room. After all, the first governor of the Nevada Territory, at the time of the Civil War, was James Nye (1815-1876. See the photo on the right). I admit he was a distant relative, but they did name a county after him (population 32,000), and he was the first senator elected to represent Nevada when it became a state. We have some rather friendly remarks about James Nye from the pen of Mark Twain, whose brother was the governor's secretary. Twain declared,

The Government of the new Territory of Nevada was an interesting
menagerie. Governor Nye was an old and seasoned politician from New
York--politician, not statesman. He had white hair; he was in fine
physical condition; he had a winningly friendly face and deep lustrous
brown eyes that could talk as a native language the tongue of every
feeling, every passion, every emotion. His eyes could outtalk his
tongue, and this is saying a good deal, for he was a very remarkable
talker, both in private and on the stump. He was a shrewd man; he
generally saw through surfaces and perceived what was going on inside
without being suspected of having an eye on the matter.

In any case, since my family has been associated with Nevada for almost 150 years, I have always taken a little extra interest in its affairs, including the caucuses going on there later today.

First of all, despite being a large western state, Nevada's 1.9 million people are mostly urban, with Las Vegas and vicinity concentrating 1.3 million of them, followed by Reno and nearby Carson City. As Las Vegas and Reno have grown, they have become more like other American cities. They have universities and high schools, supermarkets and malls, suburban housing areas, and all the other features you might find in Omaha or Denver. The majority of the land areas in these cities bears little resemblance to the glamorous "strip" of gigantic casinos that figure so prominently on CSI or in films.

A politician need not visit 95% of the state to reach the majority of voters, but can focus almost entirely on these two urban areas. The racial composition of this largely urban population is not much like that in New Hampshire or Iowa. One fifth of the entire population is Hispanic, and polls indicate they lean toward Clinton. Obama can expect strong support from the Black population, but they are less numerous (7%).

Economically speaking, Nevada is not like the rest of the country, or much of anywhere else, because its economy has such a large element of gambling and tourism. The gambling revenues are so large that the tax paid on them covers most of the state's expenses. There is no state income tax in Nevada. So it has been a liability for Obama that in the past he has been critical of gambling. I happen to think he was right to say that gambling was not a good thing for poor people, taken all around. In his words, it can have a "devastating effect" on communities. As a state senator in Illinois, Obama did not always want to see gambling spread to more and more places. But Las Vegas is not the ideal place for a politician to get known as a critic of gambling, even if we do know that gambling in effect is a regressive tax that hits the poor harder than the rich.

The Clinton campaign has kindly made a point of letting Nevada know Obama's views, while Hillary has posed for photographs with casino owners. She has stressed her support of their operations. Meanwhile, Obama has the endorsement of the casino and restaurant workers, which makes for an interesting contrast. Who would have thought that the Hillary of New Hampshire who identified herself with mill workers could so quickly become a buddy of the high rollers? For her, gambling apparently is just good economic development, and she has been endorsed by leading figures at MGM Mirage and Harrah's. Clinton's new position potentially could mean she will support on-line gambling, which has large implications for the election as a whole. Gambling is a hot issue in California, where there are several referendums about it. Furthermore, John McCain is not friendly to on-line betting and gambling. So, is Hillary really intent on widening the reach of gambling? Is this what "change" means to her? Or is she just willing to use anything to get an advantage against Obama in Nevada? She has already run into trouble with the Methodist Church. She claims to be a good Methodist, but apparently the church has somewhat stricter views on gambling than she does. One suspects she will return to the church fold soon, perhaps as soon as the voting is over. Tomorrow is Sunday, after all.

Meanwhile, I am still hoping to get that free hotel room, though perhaps I will have to go to bone dry Nye County to get it.

Which Candidates Are Winning On-Line?

Which candidates are most popular on-line? The answer to this question is not surprising. The Democrats are far and away the more computer savvy, while Republicans are mired in the old economy. Just recall how many members of the Bush Administration are tightly linked to either the oil industry or the automobile companies. Bush and Cheney are oil men. Even Condi Rice is on the Board of Chevron and has an oil tanker named after her. This name was bestowed before she came into the Bush White House, suggesting added reasons for her engagement with Middle East politics.  So, the Republicans are part of that old economy shaped to the needs of Detroit and Texas, the economy which focused on General Motors and assumed that the more cars sold every year the better off we all were.

The Democrats have moved on into the digital world, especially Obama, who has forged strong ties with Google. If you want to test that proposition, have a look at Facebook. All the candidates are out there on Facebook, but only some of them have much credibility in that venue. On Facebook, as most people know, it is relatively easy to become "friends" with another person, just by posting them a message and getting a quick reply. Obama must have a full time staff person looking after his Facebook page, however, as he has amassed no less than 251,000 "friends." Even if it only took 15 seconds to reply to each of them, the time involved is stupendous, more than 1000 hours. Hillary, by comparison, is not as popular - as everyone knows - so she has only 75,000 "friends" on Facebook. 

That is a big difference, but consider that McCain, most popular with voters over 60, has only 26,000 friends, while Romney is slightly more so, with 29,000. If all the Republicans are relatively "friendless" compared to Obama, Huckabee reveals a slight edge, with more than 43.000. This should not surprise us, for the religious Right is often quite high tech. They love tele-evangelism, use powerpoint presentations in sermons, and mount sophisticated marketing operations. Even old Oral Roberts who used to heal people on TV through the laying on of hands, while shouting "Heal," made millions through telemarketing, including a dial-a-prayer operation. 

Facebook is largely populated by the young, and not by people over 30 like myself, most of whom were cajoled to join by their students or a young relative. One may reasonably conclude that these Facebook ratings show that political commentators are correct when they suggest that the Democrats, particularly Obama, are winning over the young. If the election were held on Facebook, then the two candidates would be Obama and Huckabee, the winners of the Iowa Caucuses. And Obama would win that confrontation easily.

I want to thank Bent Sørensen who drew my attention to the Facebook "friends" of the candidates. He also pointed out that one can express a stronger level of support by declaring that one is a "fan." This requires downloading an extra little program, but does not cost anything. Here again, Obama wins, with 6300 "fans" compared to 3564 for Hillary. The poor Republicans have so few fans I will not embarrass them by posting their numbers. 

There is another way to tackle this issue of popularity on-line, however, by moving outside the confines of Facebook and just "googling" the candidates. Type in "Hillary Clinton" and there are 59 million hits. Obama only has 3.3 million, less than John Edwards at 3.8 million. The Republicans weigh in with McCain at 5.2 million, Mitt Romney 2.3 million, Rudy Giuliana 1.25 million, and Huckabee 1.1 million. If Google is a reliable indicator, then the two candidates are likely to be Hillary Clinton and John McCain, who were the winners of the New Hampshire Primary.

Curiously, one gets a similar result from Rasmussen Marketing.com, which has an on-line trading system that rates candidates and issues. It functions as a kind of handicapping system, suggesting the chances of each candidate getting his or her party's nomination. It turns out that as of today, Rasmussen Marketing gives Clinton a 57% chance of getting the Democratic nomination, with Obama at 41%.  McCain has a big lead among the Republicans, with 39%, while Romney (20%) and Giuliani (19.5%) trail behind. Huckabee is given little chance, with only 13.5%

In conclusion, we have three indicators - Facebook, hits on Google and Rassmusen Marketing. If you put them all together, Hillary and McCain seem to have the strongest likelihood of winning the nominations. It seems that Facebook is only a reliable index to the youth vote, not the electorate as a whole. But, as baseball fans like to say,  it ain't over yet.

Voting Patterns May Favor Clinton and McCain

Forty years ago I worked briefly for the Eugene McCarthy campaign in New Hampshire. That was a heady experience, because the primary became, in effect, a referendum on the Vietnam War. And McCarthy did something no one had thought possible. He embarrassed a sitting President, who won with 49%, by getting more than 42% of the vote. This was hardly an expected result in a conservative state. It was only possible because of massive support from college students and other young people. It did not hurt McCarthy that he had a good education in Catholic universities, so he could appeal to that constituency as well.

Working in the campaign made me acutely aware of the differences between voters. The problem for any candidate is, "How can I appeal to as many groups as possible?" The usual practice is to come up with a general campaign slogan, such as "New Deal," "Fair Deal," "New Frontier" or, this year, simply, "Change," and then develop a variety of specific proposals, which the candidate trots out or barely mentions, depending on the particular audience being addressed. Yet, in the end, each candidate appeals more to some social classes, religious faiths, or racial groups than to others. Some appeal more to men than women, or vice-versa. If only men could vote, then Bill Clinton would never have been president.  What can we learn about the major candidates' constituencies, based on Iowa and New Hampshire? 

Who voted for Obama instead of Clinton? For Huckabee or McCain?  Iowa and New Hampshire voting behavior suggests some patterns to think about. Consider that Hillary's New Hampshire victory essentially was won in small industrial towns, where she got twice the support Obama did. She is also emerging as a working-class candidate who speaks to bread and butter issues. Since the American economy is fading at the moment, with falling house prices and higher unemployment, this aspect of Hillary's appeal bears watching. Another area of strength for her is in terms of religion. The Catholics clearly preferred Hillary (44%) to Obama (27%), with Protestants more evenly divided. In New Hampshire, these Catholics are mostly French-Canadian and Irish. Will Obama find a way to reach out to such voters? Will he have more success with Catholics that have other ethnic backgrounds? He will have to re-think his basic message a bit if he wants to appeal to the less educated and to the working-class. To put this in a more positive way, Obama outpolled Clinton among college students, the better educated, and the wealthy. Among those who have gone to graduate school, he defeated her soundly, 46% to 27%. But could he win a Presidential election primarily based on that kind of support? Perhaps, for Obama seems to attract votes from people with higher incomes, many of them Independents. Among voters earning more than $50,000 a year, Obama had a margin over Clinton of 43% to 27%. 

These kinds of preferences are not written in stone, and candidates can modify their speechs and presentations to woo voters whom they failed to attract early on. For example, Hillary discovered in Iowa that the young were flocking to Obama by a radio of 2 to 1, while she was busy targeting women over 45. To improve in this area, in New Hampshire Hillary began surrounding herself on stage with young people. That may seem a rather minimal change, but it seems to have helped her. 

Overall, one can see that while the total vote for Obama and Clinton was close, support varied greatly within specific groups. Men strongly preferred him, but women brought her the victory. Clinton may be a bit better positioned, with strong support from Catholics, women, and the working class. But Obama will presumably adjust his campaign messages in an attempt to reach more of these voters, all of whom traditionally have been more Democratic than Republican. If he fails to do this, he will have troubles down the road that may undercut the boost he can expect to get from Black voters, who were scarcely present in Iowa or New Hampshire.

On the Republican side, for the last three decades religion has been a particularly important influence on voters. New Hampshire Catholics taken as a whole are rather conservative, and in 2004 gave more support to Bush (52%) than to Kerry (47%). In theory, Huckabee could do as well as Bush. In practice, he did far worse. Huckabee received most of his support from Evangelical Protestants, while in New Hampshire only 8% of the Republican-voting Catholics selected him. McCain literally got five times more Catholic votes, suggesting that he is far more electable in a national contest. More to the point, in the Michigan Primary next week there are three Catholic voters for every two Evangelicals. Furthermore, if one looks at Protestants as a whole, McCain has roughly the same appeal as Huckabee.  In short, Huckabee's born-again Baptist religion ultimately may be a limitation, not a strength. Nevertheless, the latest Michigan polls show Huckabee and McCain in a dead heat along with Romney, with all three getting about 20% of the vote. 

Hillary Beats Obama, Just!

I was wrong, and so was everyone else who believed the polls. I looked at them all, and as of two days ago, Obama was widening his lead. But something happened in the two or three days since those polls and the actual election. Clinton got far more support from women than the polls had predicted - they said women would split between the two. In fact, she got 14% more, showing that when women go into the polling booth they are still thinking about their decision. This was decisive, as Hillary defeated him by only two percentage points - 39% to 37%. Obama was also perhaps a victim of his anticipated success, as Independant voters, who can participate in either primary, seem to have gone over to help McCain, because Obama apparently was going to win without their help. Had the polls showed Obama in a close race, then more Independents might have supported him.

Voters clearly were volatile in New Hampshire, and the process of the election brought more energy to Hillary's campaign. This surprised all the pundits, who admitted it on CNN and in the other media. In the last two days Hillary became more populist in tone and more open to questions from the crowds who came to hear her. Until this week, she gave few interviews and the communication was all one way. She also teared up in an emotional moment surrounded by women in a small public meeting. That moment was caught on TV and rebroadcast many times. (This seems to have worked once, but how many times could she become emotional before it would begin to hurt her?) She was learning from what worked for other candidates, and that is as it should be. The primary process gives candidates a chance to know the public and find out what they care about. She refocused on younger voters, as Obama has, making a point to pose many of them behind her on the stage. In her victory speech Hillary sounded a bit like Edwards, speaking about the "invisible Americans" and the hard-working people who cannot afford to pay the bills. She has also begun to attack the oil companies, the pharmeceutical companies, and the insurance companies, which may win the primary for her, but may alienate swing voters and can stimulate these companies to give more money to Republicans. Overall, Clinton presented her self as more emotional, and won over many to the cause at the last minute.

Now we have an open race, with two candidates almost equally strong in the North, and Edwards hoping for a comeback in the South. So far, the campaign has not tested the candidates' appeal in large cities or among Black and Hispanic voters. The next primary in Michigan will be the first in a large, urban, and multicultural state. Can Hillary appeal to that audience as well as Obama will?  Can she continue to outpoll him among women voters? 

On the Republican side, McCain made a tremendous comeback, defeating Romney, who has now come in second twice. But that race is still wide open, as it rolls on toward Michigan. Romney's father was governor of Michigan, after all, so he has one more chance to win a primary. But if he cannot win there, then it may come down to a race between McCain and Huckabee and perhaps Giuliani, with Fred Thompson as a remote outside possibility.

Why Obama Beats Hillary

The election tomorrow in New Hampshire will likely cement Barack Obama's status as the leading Democratic contender for the Presidency. Some of the most recent polls place him 10-12% ahead of Mrs. Clinton, and all observers on the ground agree that he has tremendous momentum. He is filling every hall, and the crowds leap to their feet with enthusiasm. In contrast, former President Clinton, it is widely reported, is not filling halls, and those who do come applaud politely

How has this happened? How could Hillary Clinton, with more than $100 million and the backing of hundreds of former officials from her husband's presidency, lose to a first-term Senator, much less a Black man who is in his mid-forties? How could Obama beat not one Clinton, but two? There are many possible answers to this question, but for convenience let us begin with the Hillary negatives and then move to the Obama positives. 

HIllary wants to be perceived as the candidate of experience, yet this is a weak platform for her. She bungled health care when given the chance to put forward a plan as First Lady, and it came out during the campaign that she did not have a security clearance, and therefore lacked access to important foreign policy documents when in the White House. Nor did her vaunted experience stand her in good stead when faced with the Iraq War. She voted for it, suggesting that she has not learned enough, despite the opportunities. Did she support it because she genuinely agreed with President Bush? Or was she too timid to stake out an anti-war position, fearful that she could not get elected president if she looked "soft"? Unfortunately for her, the post-war period has gone so badly that the American people by a considerable majority want to get out of Iraq. So does Hillary now.

She wants to be the first women president, but her charismatic husband gets in the way. Too often she seems to be riding her husband's coat tails, which does not work well when he is no longer running himself. But the key problem is that she simply does not compare well with him. Bill Clinton generated a public enthusiasm but Hillary does not. She is a better speaker than George Bush, which is not saying much, but she does not electrify a crowd.

That is the first Obama positive. He does electrify a hall, as he speaks with passion and conviction. His speech after the victory in Iowa was masterful, and already some are comparing him to some of the greatest public speakers in US history, namely Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. Obama knows how to build up to a climax and take the crowd with him. He does not just talk about hope, he creates it. 

The second positive for Obama is that he does not talk about being Black. Rather, he embodies what it means for a Black man to have attended Columbia and later Harvard Law School, without taking the lucrative path to a big law firm. Instead, Obama chose politics and public service. He also chose to be inclusive, defining himself not as a minority candidate, but as a candidate in the Democratic mainstream. The reason white audiences respond to him so positively is that he never tried to lay down a guilt trip, to make people feel bad about the injustices of the past. Instead, he calls out to their good impulses to make a better future. The fact of Obama being there at all is an embodiment of hope.

The third positive for Obama is that he has built up a coherent campaign theme based on hope. It began with his two books, both bestsellers that reached a large audience with his message of personal transformation, growth, and hope for change. In contrast, Hillary wrote a memoir about her years in the White House that sold well enough, as her publisher advertised heavily to get back the big advance. But look at their books today on Amazon. Obama's The Audacity of Hope is number 36 overall, but number one in non-fiction books on government and number one among all biographies and memoirs. Hillary Clinton's A Woman in Charge is number 14,752 overall, and only number 49 in biographies and memoirs. Her Living History from 2004 is below 49,000. His Dreams from My Father is the best-selling non-fiction book about African Americans, and it is in the top 400 books. 

So, Hillary has not become as strong and convincing a spokesperson for American women as Obama has for African-Americans. You have to feel sorry for her. She is a good candidate, better than Kerry, far better than Bush. But Obama is a great candidate, a once-in-a-lifetime candidate. Let us hope he can continue as he has begun.

Iowa Caucuses: Not Clinton, Not Romney, but Obama vs Huckabee?

The Iowa caucuses have spoken. The clear winners are Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama. The clear losers are Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney, both of whom spent a lot of time and money in Iowa and came up wanting. She was judged the front runner both in Iowa and nationally until a few weeks ago. But Clinton came in third, slightly behind John Edwards, even though she spent vastly more than Edwards did. It is worth noting that Edwards did slightly worse this time around (30%) than he did in 2004, when he garnered 32%. But Edwards is very much alive, having exceeded polling expectations. Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, failed to win, although she had her husband and heavy-weights such as Madelaine Albright at her side.  

Hillary desperately needs to do well in New Hampshire next week, for there is nothing worse in the presidential primary process than losing momentum. Edwards gained some of that last night, while Obama definitively became the front-runner. He is already the most successful Black candidate for the Presidency that the US has ever seen, and he is developing three campaign themes that Americans have always liked: restoring national unity, time for a change, and throwing out the rascals in Washington. What makes his campaign especially interesting is the surge of college students supporting him. Young people do not vote as reliably as older people. But when thousands of them become excited about a candidate, as happened with John Kennedy in 1960 or Eugene McCarthy in 1968 or Bill Clinton in 1992, such students can have a disproportionate influence on the election. For students have more time and energy than most others, and they will throw themselves full time into a campaign they believe in. Will New England's college students also turn out for Obama? If so, that will be a sign that new energies are going to redefine American politics in 2008.

Obama received the same percentage of support (38%) that John Kerry had in 2004. Recall that the front runner before the Iowa caucuses that time was Howard Dean, whose candidacy faded rapidly after his poor showing. This time around the Iowa voters have shown that Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Mike Gravel, and Dennis Kucinich have virtually no traction with the voters. Together, all of them managed to garner only 3% of the delegates. They are effectively out of the race, which will be further clarified on Tuesday. Should Clinton continue to falter, then it might become a two-man contest between Obama and Edwards.

On the Republican side, the clear winner was Mike Huckabee, the affable Arkansas governor. He is a charming salesman for banning abortion and other conservative causes. The latest avatar of the "compassionate conservatism" that George Bush claimed to represent in the 2000 election, Huckabee garnered passionate support from evangelicals and other religious minded conservatives. They turned out for him and defeated the far more heavily financed Romney campaign. He has lost some momentum, but has a chance to regain it in New Hampshire, which in theory ought to lean his way. After all, Romney was the Republican governor of Massachusetts, which normally votes Democratic, and he evidently knows how to talk to the Yankee voter. By comparison, the Baptist preacher Huckabee with his southern accent will sound like a foreigner in the Granite State.

However, Romney's main opponents in New Hampshire are John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani skipped the Iowa caucuses, calculating that he would be better off using his time and money on the later primaries. McCain almost skipped Iowa, but decided to make a partial effort there, once he saw that he might place a respectable third, which he did.  So Romney runs the risk in New Hampshire of coming in second again. In that case, he might be through. For Huckabee showed that Romney cannot excite the conservative religious Republicans, even in Iowa; he would surely appeal to them even less in Alabama. Quite possibly either McCain or Giuliani will demonstrate that Romney is also the second choice among the more secular Republicans.

It is early in the campaign, and almost all the votes are still to be cast. But Iowa has suggested the possibility of a presidential race between a White Baptist preacher and governor from Arkansas and a Black lawyer and Senator from  Illinois. For US politics, that would be an absolute (and polarizing?) contrast in political goals, personality, and values. But if these turn out to be the candidates, then Obama will already occupy the middle of the spectrum, while Huckabee will have to work hard to show he represents more than the evangelicals.

What Does Iowa Mean?

The caucuses in Iowa this week will be the subject of every political reporter in the US, and each of them wants to convince us that the Iowa results are very important. But what exactly do these caucuses mean? To a considerable degree, the result reflects the depth and organization of a politician's local staff. That is why Hilary Clinton has been flying around the state in a helicopter, trying to inspire and energize her people, as well as the more obvious goal of meeting with the public.  Four years ago Kerry did well in Iowa because he inspired a strong local organization. This is one important thing for a candidate, but we found out that Kerry did not run a very good campaign once he got the nomination.  

One of the curious things this year is that Kerry's VP candidate, John Edwards, is running so well. Consider that he failed to deliver a single Southern state to the Democrats, and therefore cost them the election. In 2004, Edwards could not carry his home state, and yet he is considered one of the top three candidates at the moment. 

As of this writing the polls put Edwards in a statistical dead heat with Clinton and Obama, with each getting slightly less than one quarter of the vote.  The problem in Iowa is that knowing who is tied for first is only part of the equation. In the actual caucuses the room is full of people who can, and indeed often must, change their vote, based on the passions and arguments on that night. Iowans are not fickle. Rather, they must assemble at least 15% of the vote in any given hall for a candidate's supporters to be counted at all. So the roughly 30% of the voters who do not want Clinton, Obama, or Edwards all have to switch their votes as the evening progresses. And given the fact that no one has more than 24% of the vote right now, quite possibly in any given meeting one of the leaders will fall short of the 15%.  In other words, Iowa culls out the weaker candidates, and suggests who is acceptable, but it seldom discovers the winner all by itself. The results can surprise, but one should wait to see how voters respond in New Hampshire, where for the first time they use a secret ballot and they have only one chance.

As for the Republicans, things are even more volatile, and my sense is that many voters could change their minds in the next four days or on the night itself. Giuliani, Huckabee, and Romney all have such obvious flaws for some Republicans and most Democrats, that one cannot write off Fred Thompson, even if he has run a rather lackluster campaign until now. Overall, based on my extensive conversations with ordinary Americans last week, all of the Republican front runners generate considerable bad vibes among many voters. Giuliani is by no means everyone's hero, and has even been attacked by some members of the New York Fire Department. He has skeletons aplenty that are not well hidden in the closet, both personal and political. For the Southern wing of the GOP, he is too liberal, too soft on abortion, and too divorced. For Northern Republicans, Huckabee is almost a joke, a caricature of the poorly educated Bible-thumping snake oil salesman, who has no international experience at all. Hardly the sort to put in charge as the US faces such a volatile world.  Romney seems to lack principles, flip-flopping on issues. Many people in Massachusetts, where he was governor, really hate the guy. In any case, polls indicate that more than a third of Americans, perhaps as many as 40%, are not ready to vote for a Mormon. In short, the Republicans have a flawed field, and the average voter is not very excited by anyone in the group, nor the group as a whole.  

All these observations aside, my personal preference as of the moment is Obama, who seems to me the brightest of all the candidates. He is a wonderful breath of fresh air. Besides, we have had Yale in the White House continuously since 1988! Twenty years of Yale, and Hilary would just be more Yale. This being a democracy, it is time to give the former editor of the Harvard Law Review a chance.  However, this particular argument will likely have little weight with the Iowa voter. Which is as it should be.