Interesting Developments on the Campaign Trail
Filed under: US Elections
The graphic at left from the Washington Post shows two Republican candidates surging in national opinion polls, while three others plummet. What do the surgers (Huckabee and Romney) have in common? The are both former governors of a state. Other than former vice presidents, nobody since JFK has been elected to the Oval Office without first being a governor (Dubya, Clinton, Reagan & Carter were govs -- while Bush Sr., Nixon and Johnson were all veeps). And remember, JFK only barely became president, with one of the narrowest margins of victory in history and no popular majority. He didn't, of course, even serve out his first term. Eisenhower was the last president to serve a complete term without previously having been veep or gov, and he's clearly an extreme case, having been the victorious general of World War II. Herbert Hoover was the last "normal" president to serve a full term without the veep/gov credential, and his presidency was a total failure.
Huckabee is now the frontrunner in the Iowa caucus polls, and the Post correlates his rise with a change of focus from the Middle East (we report good news on Iran below, and have previously reported on the impressive progress made in Iraq) to domestic issues -- where gubernatorial credentials would obviously be much more weighty. Matt Drudge says the Democrats will be happy if Huckabee is anointed, viewing him as an "easy kill" in the general election. Hmmm . . . isn't that what they said about governor Dubya in 2004 against non-governor Kerry? With totally unqualified non-governors Obama and Hillary as their choices, perhaps the Democrats should think again.
In other news, Republicans won a devastating victory in an Ohio special congressional election yesterday, despite a determined onslaught by the Democrats to seize the seat. So much for the absurd notion that the country has gone over to the Blue side.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has lost one-fourth of her support among female Democratic voters in New Hampshire, and is now receiving the support of a pathetic one-third of all such voters, dropping her into a statistical tie with Barack Obama in the key first primary. I have heard speculation that Bill is intentionally sabotaging Hillary with a string of gaffs because he can't stand the idea of not being the only president the family.
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