Unofficial Results
Democrats (percentage of
state delegates)
Senator Barack Obama : 37.58%
Senator John Edwards : 29.75%
Senator Hillary Clinton : 29.47%
Governor Bill Richardson : 2.11%
Senator Joe Biden : 0.93%
Uncommitted : 0.14%
Senator Chris Dodd : 0.02%
Republicans
|
County |
Giuliani |
Huckabee |
Hunter |
McCain |
Paul |
Romney |
Tancredo |
Thompson |
|
|
Entire State |
4,097 |
40,841 |
524 |
15,559 |
11,817 |
29,949 |
5 |
15,904 |
118,696 |
|
|
3.45% |
34.41% |
0.44% |
13.11% |
9.96% |
25.23% |
0.0042% |
13.40% |
|
Iowa Votes To Protect Its Poll
Position in Presidential Nominating Process
In
the run-up to yesterday’s caucuses in Iowa, national polls indicated that up to
80% of the people think that Iowa and New Hampshire, small, almost completely
White states, have too much power in the presidential nominating process. Supporters of the early Iowa caucuses and New
Hampshire primary cite the small state status as a plus, requiring presidential
candidates to get out and really meet the people. Iowa has 2 million voters. About 1/5 attended the caucuses yesterday,
over 100,000 Republicans and over 200,000 Democrats. Another important thing to remember about the
Iowa caucuses is that every participant must stand up in public and declare the
candidate they support. Caucuses are the
opposite of a secret ballot, which is why the turnout in caucuses is usually
smaller than primaries where, although the voter usually must declare party
affiliation, the actual vote is secret.
In New Hampshire, even independents can vote in the primary.
By
giving Black Illinois Senator Barack Obama first place and 37.57% of the Iowa caucus vote,
Iowans proved that for the majority of Americans, racism is a thing of the
past. It will be harder next time around
to say that Iowa is not representative because it is almost all white. There were several other good reasons for
Iowa to have given the nod to Obama. If Hillary Clinton had won, the race for the
Democratic nomination would be over.
Voters, in both parties, are keeping their options open.
Iowans also helped move the agenda forward by
boosting Obama over Clinton. One purpose of elections is to hammer out a
program so that the new administration can govern in conformity with the wishes
of the people. Professional politicians
and pundits try to turn politics into sport or religion by talking only about
how much money the candidate has raised and whether or not the candidate can
win. Consequently, voters are required
to support candidates on faith, rather than on policy and program.
Now, having won in Iowa, Obama
will have to start telling the voters how he intends to deal with the problems
he has been so good defining up to now.
By knocking Senator Clinton back, voters will get to see how Hillary
responds to adversity before she is given the power of the Oval Office.
The voters in Iowa did a good job for themselves
and for the rest of the nation. They
made the Democratic race a three way contest between Obama,
Edwards and Clinton; all Senators. It is
not clear yet whether Clinton ran third or second, so few voters (.4%) separate
her from Edwards. By picking former
Arkansas Governor Huckabee in the Republican
caucuses, Iowans are keeping the Republican race wide open, while
simultaneously boosting the small states.
The 2008 presidential race
is going to be a marathon. It has to be
because so many people feel the country is moving in the wrong direction and
the domestic economic and foreign policy problems are serious. The nation needs a lot of time to talk about
them and try to figure out solutions.
And regardless of who is nominated in both parties, the election in
November will be close. My guess is that
the big states and solid states will line up early and, as in 2000, the
decision will come down to a handful of small states. Stay tuned.
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