Iowa voters — perhaps realizing their colossal mistake in anointing John Kerry (”the one candidate who might through sheer force of his own unappealing personality lose the race to a vulnerable incumbent“) rather than picking the vastly preferable John Edwards — want another crack at it, and this time, they’re backing the right candidate:
A new Iowa Poll conducted for The Des Moines Register shows that Edwards, the runner-up in the Iowa Democratic caucuses two years ago and a frequent visitor to the state since then, is the choice of 30 percent of Iowans who say they are likely to take part in the January 2008 caucuses.
U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York follows on Edwards’ heels with 26 percent in the Iowa Poll. …
U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who used his victory in the 2004 caucuses as a springboard to the Democratic presidential nomination that year, is a distant third in the Iowa Poll with 12 percent.
As an aside, if you click the link it will become apparent that the photo editor of the Des Moines Register is not one of the 26 percent who support Hillary. :)
Anyway, this is the first time a major poll of Democrats has produced a non-Hillary front-runner. Perhaps Iowans have learned from their costly 2004 error, and they don’t want to pick a poisonous, unelectable, sure-loser nominee in two straight elections!
|
Categories: Election 2006
|
June 12th, 2006 at 2:32:35 am
It’s amazing what people can decide about candidates without an election being run, speaking of both the poll and this blog.
June 12th, 2006 at 4:00:22 am
Why do we care so much about what Iowans think? They are not leaders in finance, medicine or technology yet every year we hear about who the farmers prefer and that’s supposed to shape who the next president should or should not be. what if the rest of the country likes someone completely different then that candidate will have this stigma of not winning the Iowa Caucase. insane!
June 12th, 2006 at 7:42:47 am
Anonymous, both Edwards and Kerry have in fact run an entire campaign. You may remember it, it happened about two years ago, give or take. So, I think it’s fair to judge them on that basis. Now, granted things could be different this time around, but it’s hardly ridiculous to judge them on the basis of their past candidacies. Similarly, although Hillary hasn’t run for president before, we know an awful lot about her. The blanket statement that it’s unfair to judge anyone before they’ve run for president is obviously false.
June 12th, 2006 at 7:45:11 am
As an Iowan, I think the real news is how little support our presidentially ambitious governor got in the poll. Remembering back to when Harkin tried to run, and how all the pundits at that time said it made Iowa irrelavent, i think Iowans sayiing that Vilsak isn’t presidential material is really saying something. I also think that Edward’s positive brand of politics plays better than any kind of negativism, and who in the wolrd is John Kerry fooling anyway: he’s still busy running his 2004 campaign. Get over it. You lost. By 5 million votes. To BUSH!
June 12th, 2006 at 7:50:02 am
The blanket statement that one should or does not have to not listen to any new statements by a candidate is false.
June 12th, 2006 at 7:50:25 am
oops too many double negatives
June 12th, 2006 at 7:58:38 am
If you enjoy the “son of a mill worker” story then, by all means, support Edwards. You will hear it over and over again, just as everyone did who met him personally or attended one of his rallies during the last election. Edwards was a one note candidate. He’d smile, and aw shucks, and crack a joke, but, little more. His debate performance against Cheney was weak, he polled poorly in the South. Nice guy, but what exactly makes Edwards a candidate worth supporting? I decided to support Kerry in the last election because I saw him listen and learn and grow his message. Edwards didn’t. He failed to win the nomination on his own. Iowa just provided a little challenge.
As for Iowa choosing the candidates, well, bit of a red herring, unless someone can suggest a nexus of other political forums more certain in their outcomes. Complain about Iowa all you want, but in the end, as a purple state, our electoral votes will probably decide the election along with those few other states still in play.
June 12th, 2006 at 8:10:13 am
[…] Hillary’s supporters thought it would be. Update: Brendan Loy makes this point about the Iowa results: Perhaps Iowans have learned from their […]
June 12th, 2006 at 8:58:51 am
The blanket statement that one should or does not have to not listen to any new statements by a candidate is false.
No one here made that blanket statement. Thus, what on earth are you talking about?
June 12th, 2006 at 1:06:06 pm
What?! Hillary didn’t win? But I thought we were just going to forget the whole election and appoint her president. I mean, that’s what the mainstream media seems to imply. On the other hand, John Edwards is so popular he decided not to run for Senate again because he would’ve lost his home state. Is this the best the Democratic Party can do? Can anybody say, President Mccain?
June 12th, 2006 at 3:55:15 pm
I don’t understand why you think Edwards is any better a candidate than HRC. He may have been a better candidate against Dubya than Kerry was, but against an anonymous Republican, he’s got a lot of vulnerabilities. Not to mention, his policy bonafides should scare you, Brendan, if you truly are a “Lieberman-Biden” Democrat.
June 12th, 2006 at 4:03:38 pm
Edwards = Candidate of diminishing returns
June 12th, 2006 at 5:02:40 pm
Remember when Pat Robertson won the Iowa Straw Poll in 1987, beating out Bush I? Yeah. That President Robertson really sucked, but not as bad as Presidents Phil Gramm and Bob Dole, who both tied for first place in the 1995 Iowa Straw Poll.
As goes the Iowa Straw Poll, so goes nobody.
June 12th, 2006 at 5:38:28 pm
Angrier, I don’t think this is the Iowa Straw Poll. I think it’s just a poll.
June 12th, 2006 at 7:46:45 pm
Straw polls in Iowa are huge fund raising parties where the candidates provide food and entertainment to attract the faithful to purchase tickets and cast their “vote” for their favorites. The campaigns typically hire buses and round up whoever has nothing else to do, which, in Iowa, means these things become big, well attended events. Also, no one really checks residency, so, an enterprising campaign may also find profit in running a few buses across state lines to bolster the numbers. Nothing official results from a straw poll, but they are a useful demonstration of organizational strength and money and are, primarily, a media event.
The January caucus is the first official tally of strength, but even these are very casual and result in the election of delegates to attend county and state conventions. Delegates are selected proprtional to the votes received in the individual caucus. Delegates are usually the activists and political junkies along with a sprinkling of eccentrics and Mr. Smiths. The conventions write the state party platforms and select the delegates for the national convention, where the states decide the party candidate. Course, all this happens long after the attention has turned elsewhere.
Perhaps the future of political selection will veer toward a national net plebiscite moderated by an attractive host and instant voting, ala “American Idol”. Until that time, this is how it works.
June 12th, 2006 at 8:26:53 pm
Edwards is a weather man that used the death of his son to get elected to the senate. We can do better.
June 13th, 2006 at 2:56:47 am
Nebraska, it’s okay to be jealous.
June 13th, 2006 at 5:50:40 am
This was not a straw poll, It was the Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll, with a scientific sampling of 400 Democrats likely to participate in a caucus event. Granted this means that they are probably more politically active and or aware than the average Iowan, and it is eighteen (!) months out from the actual caucus. I do agree about the inaccuracy of straw polls, which is more about who is able to corral more supporters into a room at a specific time, but instead of dissing the the state and the lack of anything to do so often heard in these parts by people who consider us flyover country and never worthy of a visit, JimS should actually visit Iowa and see what we are all about.