Some perspective on the Iowa caucus : opening the races.

Check out the primary calendar.

What does winning the Iowa caucus mean for Barack Obama?
Obama won thanks to a massive ground organization (required to "get out the vote" = make people go to the caucus/polling station ) and the enthousiasm of young voters & first time caucus-goers, he also won most of the women's votes. All this is bad news for Hillary Clinton who came out third to John Edwards and seemed to appeal most to the elderly population. However she was never very strong in Iowa and her campaign even leaked a memo a couple months ago suggesting that Hillary Clinton should "skip" Iowa, because she was not very popular in that State and would have a hard time luring voters away from John Edwards and Barack Obama. As an example of this strategy, former mayor Giuliani "skipped" Iowa : he spent very little time and money in the State, as he was aware that he had little chance of doing well in the caucus.
So the energy and the momentum seems to be flowing to Obama's campaign and makes him look like a very viable candidate indeed.
New Hampshire will be the second State to vote on January 8. The Clintons are very strong in this eastern liberal State, so Obama's campaign will certainly be tested there. If he comes out a strong second he would be able to maintain momentum for the Florida contest and Super Tuesday. In these States what will prove determining will probably be the young voters and the African-American vote, for now, deeply divided between Clinton and Obama. As Obama appears more likely to win he will probably rally a lot of support. Moreover, despite his lack of experience he might appear more "electable" than Clinton who remains a divise figure and exites the hatred of Republicans.

Barack Obama's victory in Iowa may well be the prelude to a wave of national support capable of displacing Hillary Clinton as the inevitable candidate. In short, his victory in Iowa contributes to opening the Democratic race.

What about Mike Huckabee's victory? What does that change in the Republican field?
The former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister won the caucus thanks to the dynamic support of the evangelical movement. The religious right is actually scoring a bit of a comeback after months of lethargy and dissatisfaction with the Republican candidates ( Giuliani is thrice-divorced, Mitt Romney is a Mormon, Fred Thompson is also a divorcee and may have been involved in pro-choice lobbying, and his campaign never caught fire).
Huckabee might gain momentum from this victory and attract the Southern social conservatives (South Carolina voteson January 19 and several Southern States vote on "Super Tuesday" February 5) and thus become a credible threat to the front-runners.
But Huckabee's victory is probably less important than Mitt Romney's defeat. What do I mean by that?
Mitt Romney expected to win the State and his dissappointing result ( 24% of the vote to Huckabee's 35%) actually sends a very negative signal : even though he spent a lot of money on groung organization and on ads (including negaative ads) he did not convince the Iowans of the strength of his candidacy. His second place might well have a significant impact in the primary in New Hampshire. In the polls, he is neck to neck with John McCain. His "defeat" might turn voters away from him and hand a victory to his opponent. This would probably have an impact on the rest of the primary campaign, opening the race to Giuliani in Florida, which is the State on which he is counting to lauch his campaign ( January 29). With such a scenario, Super Tuesday would really be exciting.
To sum it up, Huckabee's surprise victory in Iowa opens wide the Republican race.

Your reactions to this are very welcome. good luck to all/break a leg!

Next on the blog : analyzing Obama's Iowa victory speech. Does it remind you of anything? Check it out :

Iowa rooting for Obama and Huckabee

I was lucky or right or both to mention the last DesMoines Register poll heralding a victory for Obama and Huckabee in the caucus!
Now the question is : how much momentum does this give the two challengers?
To go about answering this tricky question, I think you have to take a careful look at the constituency of each of these candidates and then go on and weigh how much this can influence New Hampshire primary voters and those who will take part in the following primaries. Basically who voted for Obama/Huckabee? Are these people likely to be as successful in the rest of the country as they are in Iowa?
What do you think?
I'll be back later with my prespective on the issue.

Happy New Year & follow-up on the last lectures

Dear students,

I truly wish you a great 2008 and many successes both academic and personal.

Here is a last update on the primaries : a new poll from Iowa seems to indicate that the front-runners in that State are Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee whereas most of the polls had the top three Democrats and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee in a tie. What does this mean? How can it influence caucus goers? How will it play out on the national scene? For more questions and some tentative answers visit NPR and listen to the 4 minute report. The suspense will end the day after tomorrow (January 4) when we hear about the results of the Iowa caucuses.

Here is a very interesting video offered by the New York Times : a comparison between the speeches on religion by Mitt Romney and that of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1960.

As promised during the lecture, here are a few videos from the past :

Do you remember George Bush's 1988 tax pledge?



In 1991, the excise tax on gasoline went up after a battle between Congress and the President leading to a shut down of the federal governement.
To understand how the federal governement can shut down I recommend episode 7 and 8 of The West Wing Season 5: "Separation of Powers" and "Shutdown". Of course the entire series is extremely helpful to understand American politics and political idealism.

During the 1992 presidential campaign Bill Clinton used this broken promise against George Bush who was running for a second term.


A couple months before the presidential election, the aquittal of the police officers involved in the Rodney King beating triggered massive rioting and looting in Los Angeles. Here is the news report of MAy 1, 1992.



This has inspired a lot of rappers and artists, click here to see a full list of the reference to the riots in American culture.

I have just seen Gone Baby Gone : it's an excellent movie although at times quite distressing. If you enjoyed Casey Affleck's performance in The Assassination of Jesse James by the traitor Bod Ford, you will undoubtedly like him here as well.

Best of luck for all your exams,

AM

Primaries

I hope you had the time and energy to get the homework for seminar 11 done, and I'm sorry I did not have the time to go through the important points with all of you.
In a nutshell : what you have to remember is that the first caucuses and primaries are extremely important. If the front runner wins the Iowa caucus and/or the New Hampshire primary then it is very likely that s/he will go on to win the nomination. But if these first two races are won by a challenger, this gives his/her campaign a huge momentum that might ultimately even lead to the defeat of the national front-runner.
The importance of these two first States is huge, and this, in turn, explains why the candidates spend so much time there, especially those who are not ahead in the national polls, such as Mike Huckabee ( GOP) and John Edwards (Democrat). Because if they manage to carry the first States, they become competitive and might even win the nomination thanks to the momentum they will have gained. These first States enjoy picking a candidate that is not the obvious choice : in a way this might give them even more weight in the process (they give a chance to someone who is not the national front-runner).
For instance, Jimmy Carter was completely unknown and nicknamed "Jimmy Who?" untill he won the Iowa caucus and then went on to win the Democratic nomination and the presidential election in 1976. Of course this is not a hard and fast rule, you will find many exceptions, but the media pays a lot of attention to the early election because they yield a first trend (obviously) and that's all that they'll have to go on untill Super Tuesday when most of the States vote including some big States such as New York, California.
The Economist in their latest edition defend this unusual system.



Rudy Giuliani is the national front runner but is being challenged by two contenders who are ahead of him in the early States.
Here's a "negative ad" by Mitt Romney attacking Mike Huckabee who has recently emerged as the front runner in Iowa. This was a complete surprise but, as a Baptist minister he appeals to social conservatives and evangelicals ( the religious right). His popularity is alarming Mitt Romney who is courting the social conservative/Christian vote.




The next video is Mike Huckabee's holiday ad: both responding to people who are tired of political ads (by yet another one!) and to the Christian audience:



This ad has created a bit of controversy, especially regarding the white book shelf in the back ground : what do you think?
Read NPR's comment on this.


Giuliani's Christmas ad :



Do you find it funny? Some commentators say this joke doesn't really work.

A couple ads from the other side now.
A classical Hillary Clinton motherly ad :



John Edwards is arguing for an overhaul of the entire system ( "the system is rigged") and indirectly attacking Hillary Clinton as a member of the "Establishment".



Barack Obama tries to carry people away with his new vision for America.



NB :
Red America = Republican America
Blue America : Democratic America
As you will probably have noticed the colors representing the two parties have changed over time : basically until the 2000 there was no pre-determined color code but most TVs represented the Republican States with blue and the Democratic States were symbolised with red. (The map I used in the powerpoint presentation for the 1980 election uses the new color code but was probably not the one used on TVs at the time.)
In 2000, all media outlets started using the same color-code and because this was a hotly contested election, the new code stuck. I hope this isn't too confusing for you, just remember today R=R and D=B.
I got the explanation from wikipedia's article.

Seasonal greetings

Enjoy the holidays.
I'll keep in touch via the blog and will shortly post a couple videos related to the last lecture and some thoughts on the primary season.

Take care

AM

West Side Story and the origins of social problems

A couple weeks ago I went to the theater to see the live performance of the famous Broadway musical. West Side Story was first performed in 1957 and it wove into the traditional Romeo and Juliet thread many topical themes. And this is probably what made it a success along with the great music by Leonard Bernstein and the clever lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

This short extract is extremely telling about how the understanding of poverty and social problems had evolved by the late 1950s. You probably remember how these problems were explained away by heredity (c.f. the selection of immigrants) or lack of individual responsability (if you were poor, drunk etc... it was more or less your own doing => "self help philosophy" ) in the 19th century and early 20th. After the Great Depression and WW2, the causes of social ills were sought for in society itself, in the educational context and no longer only in the individual.





I was struck by this song that clearly highlights these changes : the boys in this gang behave inappropriately ( hang out in the streets, get involved in fights with rival gangs etc...) because of their family background, or because they are psychologically inadequate or neurotic ( notice the strong german accent of the shrink !) or because they are a symptom of a wider crisis in society ( they are "sociologically sick").

Of course, West Side Story is also about immigration and urban rivalries between ethnic whites (Poles) and Porto-Ricain immigrants. One of the most famous scenes deals with the different expectations men and women have about their new life in America.



I hope you enjoy these two videos although the quality isn't as good as I wish it were. If you want the watch the entire movie, I recommend choosing the English subtitles : then you can really follow along and the French subtitles aren't as witty.

the religious right (follow-up)

DON'T FORGET TO BRING YOUR CONSTITUTION TO THE EXAM NEXT WEEK.

Some of you might want to listen to the podcast on the evolution of religious voters in America : this is the webpage, then click on "listen".

The Economist offers a very interesting blog and podcast on democracy in America. Check out their website : the post of the 29th of November entitled "values voters" is particularly worth you time. It will probably clarify some of the things we discussed in class this week. You can either download or listen to the audio on their website.