Finally! Tomorrow's gaggle of primaries should clear up any lingering questions about who's gonna win the Republican party's presidential nomination. On the Democratic side, things are a lot less clear.
One thing we do know is that the contenders have been criss-crossing the country like true jet setters. We're so jealous. They've been rocking the private jets for months now, but today's just been over the top.
Barack Obama showed up in East Rutherford, New Jersey--home of the Super Bowl-winning Giants--where Robert DeNiro introduced him and Ted Kennedy endured a joke about his defeated Patriots. Hillary Clinton visited an old pal--and teared up--during a stop at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut.
John McCain, who's surged into the lead in polls, showed up at Faneuil Hall in Boston while his biggest opponent Mitt Romney cracked jokes about Star Wars droids on his flight between Salt Lake City and Minneapolis. Meanwhile Mike Huckabee called Romney arrogant as he stumped in Macon, Georgia.
Consider us gobsmacked. With less than a week to go before Super Tuesday, the primary date shared by a whopping 24 states, two candidates are bowing out of the presidential race today.
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who we chowed down with (so to speak) in Philadelphia, is set to endorse the man he was beating in November's polls, Senator John McCain. The Arizona Senator is now the Republican front runner. "You don't always win, but you can always try to do it right," Giuliani told supporters last night. Fred Thompson, who never really got the bus running in Iowa, has also ended his bid for president.
On the Democratic side, former senator and 2004 vice-presidential candidate John Edwards is expected to withdraw this afternoon after placing second in Iowa and third everywhere else. (Including, in a stinging rejoinder, in his native state of South Carolina, which Barack Obama won). With his exit and those of Joe Biden and Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic field will be narrowed down to two. To the best of our knowledge, it's the first time all this happened in January.
We pity the campaign workers whose last acts in the bullpen will be to cancel all those Super Tuesday travel arrangements.
Check out our Candidates Travel Map to chase down those last undecided primary votes.
Today's the first primary in the nation in warmer-than-usual New Hampshire. The seventeen voters who showed up to the polls in Dixville Notch, the city which began voting after midnight, picked Barack Obama and John McCain. McCain is the big surprise of that pairing after a less than stellar showing in Iowa.
Much has been made of the fact that Hillary Clinton received none of those 17 votes, but maybe a town of 74 isn't a super sample.
Since 1952, the winner of the New Hampshire primary for his party has gone on to be president 85 percent of the time. (McCain is one of those exceptions, having taken the state in the 2000 primary.) Mitt Romney may have had that stat in mind when he stood outside a Manchester polling place trying to catch some of the 45 percent of registered independents, who are free to vote in either primary.
Current polls indicate that Romney's running second, ahead of Iowa champion Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani. Next week, it's off to Michigan, where the candidates of both parties will genuflect to Big Auto on Michael Moore territory. You can bet we'll be following them west.
It's almost here! The Iowa caucus is tomorrow, officially kicking off the 2008 Presidential primary season. Do you know who you're voting for? Neither do we!
If you're in Iowa right now, you're probably within a stone's throw of a major candidate. Barack Obama'sStand for Change tour takes him to Cedar Rapids, Waterloo and Des Moines tonight, while Hillary Clinton can be spotted in Indianola, Mason City and Burlington. John Edwards threw a midnight caucus party in Atlantic, Iowa today, but he's hitting Iowa City and Cedar Rapids as well, with a caucus learning event in Grinnell tonight and a free rally with Bruce Springsteen concert afterwards.
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney has been attending house parties and has scheduled an Election Night party in West Des Moines. Both John McCain and Mike Huckabee are splitting their time in Iowa with other destinations; McCain's coming to Dubuque from Derry, New Hampshire where he's been stumping with Sen. Joe Lieberman, while Huckabee's off to Southern California tonight to be the first post-strike guest on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
The New Hampshire primary is next Tuesday, so don't let down your guard yet! Ready or not, the race is on for real.
'Twas the day after Christmas, all through the Midwest
Each candidate snuggled in his war-room nest
Except for Fred Thompson. Poor Fred and his bus
Went plowing through snowdrifts, campaigning for us.
With less than a week before the primary
Fred's not doing hot and it's getting quite scary.
Was it because we don't like "Law and Order"?
Or was it because his platform was disordered?
Yet to Creston, Urbandale, Chariton he'll go
His fitness as president he hopes to show.
If you see his gold bus, give a honk or a wave.
He's not quitting yet, and that's pretty brave.
Thompson vows his support will get finer.
After Iowa find him in South Carolina.
Mike Huckabee is glad to remind you that Jesus is the reason for the season. The former Arkansas governor traveled further into Iowa's heartland this week, hitting up the small towns of Dike, Marshalltown, Waterloo and Manchester. While John McCain chose to share a message with audiences in Iowa about a Christmas spent as a POW, Huckabee didn't let his audience forget that he is, after all, a Baptist minister.
Huckabee's latest campaign vid, above, is catching a little heat from conspiracy theorists who say there's a well-positioned cross in the background. We say it's too bad Chuck Norris doesn't show up in this clip, like he has in the past.
If you're not planning a trip to rural Iowa anytime soon [Ed. note: You're not?!], don't despair. You can still see the tech savvy Huckabee during his live webcast on New Year's Day. Don't worry: It's at 7:30 pm, so you'll have plenty of time to recover from the night before.
So John McCain called the retinue of reporters following with him in South Carolina "you little jerks," and we weren't even there! Despite his slide in the polls this year, the Senator from Arizona is not only chipper but appears not to be worried about the Iowa caucus on January 3rd. "If I don't finish in the top 50 in Iowa, I'll still stay in the race," he told the press, which is pretty bold in the face of what looks like a three-way race. (We hear McCain is cool with Mike Huckabee, but not so much with Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani.)
On the other hand, the Senator has more national experience than most of the other candidates in either party, and he just got endorsed by 2000 vice-presidential candidate Senator Joe Lieberman and the classically conservative Wall Street Journal. Today he'll be in Boston at a lunch in Faneuil Hall Market Place with Henry Kissinger. Tomorrow he stops in Louisiana before returning home to Arizona on Friday.
The last debate before the Iowa caucus concluded last night in a Des Moines-area TV studio. Here's the rundown.
Despite rumblings behind the scenes--a Clinton staffer resigned after comments that Obama's cocaine use as a teen would hurt his bid for the presidency--the fight last night seemed clean, and even friendly at times. Obama offered Hillary a job as his advisor and also forgave Senator Joe Biden for referring to him as "clean" and "articulate."
I have absolutely no doubt about what is in his heart and the commitment that he has made with respect to racial equality in this country. So I will provide some testimony, as they say in church, that Joe is on the right side of the issues and is fighting every day for a better America.
Biden stood out from the pack for the first time, really. His discussion of the tragic car accident that took the life of his wife and daughter seemed heartfelt rather than a sympathy ploy, and he seemed to finally shirk the accusations of racism against him. Twenty days till the Iowa caucus!
0 Comments - Add Yours
by pbb
