It is still too early to draw any major conclusions regarding the victories of Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee on Thursday in the Iowa caucuses.
Let’s not forget that in 1992 Bill Clinton was placed fourth at 3 percent while Tom Harkin swept the floor with 76 percent. In 1988, Republican Bob Dole and Pat Robertson ranked higher than the eventual winner: George H.W. Bush. Some have criticized the importance that the media places on Iowa and have pointed out that caucuses (as opposed to primaries) are not secret votes and that they only represent the views of party activists in one American state voting together in a festive hall filled with balloons and complimentary snacks. Since 1972, five of nine Democrats and six of nine Republicans placed first in Iowa became the presidential candidates.
But the real test for Obama — a black, freshman senator from a northern state — will be how he fares in the “Yellow Dog” Democrat south. It must be said that race will play a role in Obama’s run, for better or worse. To see an African- American come this close to the White House less than 50 years after the end of segregation (which had been imposed brutally by southern, white Democrats) is an accomplishment for which all Americans can be proud. Democrats in particular must quietly feel glad that the days of the Birmingham Barons and Bull Connor are behind the party. On the other hand: John F. Kennedy was the last northern Democrat to win a presidential race. The fact that Democrats have traditionally found more success with southern candidates will work in John Edwards favor once the primaries move south. A southern Democrat candidate tempers the prevailing view in the south that northern Democrats are “Limousine Liberals” out of touch with “Heartland America” realities. This stereotype worked against John Kerry, who looked ridiculous in a duck-hunting outfit despite being a war hero, and in favor of “Bubbah” Bill Clinton of Arkansas, who looked natural eating a McDonald’s hamburger despite his regal intellect and savvy political acumen.
For Huckabee, the test is simpler: convince fiscally conservative, socially moderate northern Republicans who are less likely to be swayed by moralizing and religious rhetoric to vote for a former Baptist minister from Arkansas. Clearly, Obama’s success in Iowa was the main headline yesterday. And if his rise continues he should be prepared for the “Swift Boating” and the push polling that will be aimed at tearing him down.
On Dec. 24 Daniel Pipes, a columnist and advisor for the Giuliani campaign, suggested on his website that Obama might be an apostate because he might have been a Muslim as a child. This was not the first attempt to pander to anti-Muslim fears by exploiting Obama’s Muslim-sounding name and the fact he spent time in Indonesia as a child as the son of a Kenyan. Obama should beware. From now on the fight will get just as dirty as that — American politics as usual.
