The registered Democratic voters of Iowa have spoken and when the surprise win of Massachusetts Senator John Kerry was announced, the cheers among his supporters were probably echoed in President Bush’s White House. The overthrow of Democrat front-runner Howard Dean at the first hurdle bodes ill for the whole Democratic campaign. It already speaks of muddle and division. Next week in the New Hampshire primaries, Gen. Wesley Clark and Joe Lieberman will both be on the ticket.
As the Iowa victor, Kerry will have everything to play for and everything to lose. The chances are that his strong showing in Iowa will cause some New Hampshire Democrats to look more closely at him, thus further undermining support for Howard Dean while also drawing support from Gen. Clark. The only good thing to have come out of Iowa is the withdrawal of Dick Gephardt. At least the field has been narrowed.
However, in truth, at the moment, none of the Democratic hopefuls looks strong enough to challenge George W. Bush and stop him from a second term in the White House. Some analysts will argue that it is not the primaries that matter. Once the candidate has been chosen and the whole party machine throws itself behind him, things will be different. Yet the counterargument, that the manner in which the candidate wins the nomination also counts for a lot with the US voter, is compelling.
Bush is a president who could so easily now be paying the price for his aggressive foreign policy. As the Iowa voters filed in for their meetings, the body of the 500th soldier to die since the US invasion in Iraq was being prepared to be flown home. It does not seem so long ago that the US military sustained its 100th casualty in the conflict. This news ought to have played into the hands of Howard Dean, who alone of the Democratic hopefuls has been trenchant in his criticism of the Iraq invasion. But not a bit of it. The Democrats of Iowa seem to be rallying round the flag like every other American. They are gritting their teeth and longing for the June governmental handover to Iraqis and hoping that the US military will then get itself off the meat hook on which President Bush has hung it. Thus there appears to be no room to recognize the statesman-like arguments of former Governor Dean. If therefore the eventual Democratic candidate wins the nomination on a ticket that includes qualified support for the Iraqi invasion and occupation, there will be no clear difference between the Democrat and Republican tickets.
With the US economy recovering and an exit from Iraq in process, by November the Democrats will have nothing with which to challenge Bush. Time may very well show that the Democrats lost the White House in Iowa.
