GOP race opening even wider

With Mitt Romney beating McCain in the Michigan primary, the GOP race becomes more unpredictable than ever. So far 4 States have voted and 3 candidates have won these contests, and the national front-runner former mayor of N.Y. Rudy Giuliani has not even come in at a honourable place in Iowa, New Hampshire, Wyoming or Michigan. He is betting on winning the Florida primary on the 29th of January, this would give him momentum for Super Tuesday and let him run a national campaign rather than a local one. 

Read or listen to NPR's report.

If you are still having trouble remembering the candidates and their stances, Laura Pasqualetto sent me a very good presentation of the candidates. I have posted it on the google group. Check it out and download it. 

So the next significant contest  for the GOP is South Carolina on Saturday. The candidate that has won S.C. has always gone on to win the GOP nomination since 1980.

 Will it be the case this year? How much momentum will the winner get? 

In South Carolina there are 3 types of Republican voters : 

1. evangelical voters : probably most attracted by Mike Huckabee or Fred Thompson
2. military personel and veterans : probably inclined to vote for McCain ( who was a prisonner of war -POW- for four years in Vietnam and who is very knowledgeable in defence matters)
3. fiscal conservatives : they could either go for Romney or McCain

Find out more and watch a N.Y. Times video. 

On the Democratic side the S.C. primary (January 26) is going to be just as important : the race is extremely tight with all three main candidates having a chance of winning : 

1. John Edwards was born in S.C. and was a Senator representing a neighbouring State : N.C.
2. Hillary Clinton's support is very strong among African-American women in particular and she is counting on their votes
3. Barack Obama is also courting the Black vote in S.C. and might be able to get it now that he appears electable. 

Race and gender issues are the subtext of the fight between Clinton and Obama, even more so after the statement made a couple days ago by Clinton who declared that Lyndon B. Johnson was at least as important in getting the civil rights legislation of 1964 and 1965 through as was Martin Luther King. She has now qualified her comment but the harm was done. Visit her website and see how she is paying hommage to MLK.

Maybe this whole thing was completely blown out of proportion by the media: that's what Jon Stewart, from The Daily Show argues.

Michigan votes today

The Michigan primary is an important event for the GOP : indeed this is the first state in which the economic questions have been at the fore-front of the debate, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates on these issues. Michigan is a State that has lost many jobs to globalisation especially in its most important sector : the automobile industry. You will note that globalisation and the suitable responses to the economic changes that it has triggered is now at the heart of the campaigns of the Republican candidates.
If McCain wins the primary this will make him stronger going in the crucial primary of South Carolina, taking place on the 19th and in which he is unlikely to score well.
There is much less at stake for the Democrats. The State of Michigan has been "punished" by the DNC (Democratic National Committee) for holding its primary before Super Tuesday : their delegates will not count and the candidates were not allowed to campaign there. Only 3 names are on the ballot.
Find out the peculiarities of the Michigan primary and what is at stake for each party.

news from the primary front

As promised a couple days ago, here are a few words on Obama's victory speech after the Iowa caucus.


As one of you noticed Barack Obama uses a rhetoric and a rythm that echoes the way preachers speak, just like MLK was inspired by Baptist sermons. For instance he uses a lot of repetitions : "you have done what N.H. can do in four days, what America can do in 2008", "we are one nation, we are one people".
In terms of content, it's interesting that he also uses inspirational words : hope, unity, honesty, and change of course, which is the motto of his campaign ( in the background you hear people chanting : "we want change". And its only later that he mentions policy without really getting into specifics ( health care, unemployment, tax cuts for the middle class, promising to "free this nation from tyranny of oil", war in Irak). It's a lot more about what he calls his "vision for America" and his belief that "in the face of impossible odds people who love this country can change it". Obama says the peopple who have voted for them have "torn down barriers".
This reminds me of the kind of rhetoric you would hear during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, at least coming from the non-violent branch of the movement who relied on similar concepts and hopes for a better society, who aimed at fulfilling the true nature of America.
The way he delivers this speech is extremely inspiring and emotional, let's take a quick look at the content.
I would like to emphasize the way he casts himself and his supporters as people who have overcome great antagonism. They have won in the face of adversity, they had ennemies who apparently said that "this could not be done", they have overcome the "cynics". I'm not sure of whom he is referring to when he says all this. Is it Hillary Clinton and her supporters ( she has attaqued him for political reasons because she thinks she is more prepared for the job and because she does not agree on some of his policies not because she is an ennemy of hope and change!), or the press, or the political pundits? Basically he is positionning himself as the hero of the American people who fights the political system of Washington which has appeared as corrupt and has alienated the voters. And I do wonder if it's not simply a way to make his victory even more outstanding and unique. Is he creating artificial ennemies over which he has pacifically won?
The last point I'd like to make is on the very interesting way he defines his victory in the Iowa caucus as a historic moment , as the starting point of a new era (video : 9'30). "This was the moment when the improbable beat what Washington has always said was inevitable". He repeats the phrases "this was the moment" and "this was the place". What is striking is that he compares himself and his campaign to the Patriots who freed America from the British, to the militants of the Civil Rights Movement in Montgomery and Selma (video : 12'00) he describes his life story as typically American and himself as the embodiment of the American hero. So he uses historical references and the key moments of the past to prop up his victory (limited and small) as a new defining moment in American history. Basically, if he does win the nomination and the presidency this speech might be studied as the beginning of it all !
The final is grand :
"Together ordinary people can do extraordinary things because we are not a collection of Red States and Blue States we are the United States of America. And in this moment, in this election we are ready to believe again"

This week's edition of The Economist is about the American primaries and offers several artcles and profiles of the candidates. You can either buy the printed edition or read it on the web :

New Hampshire results : surprising or not?

The picture comes from www.npr.org.

John McCain's victory in the New Hamphire primary was predicted by the polls and might give momentum to his bid for the presidency. It's another blow to Mitt Romney who comes in second again although he had campaigned hard in the State. Mitt Romney, however, did win the Wyoming caucus on the 5th of January : so far he has two silver medals and a gold, as he likes to put it (remember he organized the Olympic Games of Salt Lake City). His campaign has yet to win a major primary but, as long as he remains a strong second, he may become a reasonable choice in a race with no clear front-runner. Let's see what happens in Nevada and South Carolina : will the evangelical voters back Huckabee again? How will Giuliani's antiterrorist message go down? Will the moderate, straight-talking McCain attract as many fiscal conservatives as he did in N.H.?

The last polls had been predicting another win for Barack Obama and yet he trails Hillary Clinton by three percentage points. Why? The most obvious reason is that the Clintons have always been strong among N.H. Democrats. In 1992, Bill Clinton's results in Iowa had been very poor but he came in second in N.H. and interpreted this as a victory, calling himself the "comeback kid" and went on to win the primaries and the election. He and his wife thus have a particular standing in N.H.
Hillary Clinton campaigned hard in N.H., spending a lot of money and time there and that's probably another reason for her victory. There are very few African-American voters in N.H.
The day before the primary, when asked how she coped with the campaign, Hillary Clinton broke up a bit and showed a lot of emotion, will this have influenced the voters, especially the women who supported her massively in N.H. after letting her down in Iowa? Here's this video that has been watched over and over again on youtube and elsewhere. Was this unusual show of emotion prepared or really spontaneous?
Clinton's victory launches her campaign back into the fight which seems as open as ever...
We really have to watch South Carolina, a State in which Clinton, Obama and Edwards all have claims to. Edwards was born there, Clinton has always been popular with African-American Democrats( Bill Clinton was sometimes called "the first Black President") and Obama might be able to attract this constituency now that he has emerged as a very electable candidate.
Watch and see....

A couple links to interesting articles & videos.

A New York Times' video on the unpredictability of the primary race.

To see the full results and the break-down between the candidates, click here.

The commentary by The Economist is quite insightful.

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