Iowa: The Republican Side January 4, 2008
Posted by taoist in Election Analysis, Fairtax, Politics, Republicans.trackback
The Republican side of the Iowa Caucus results is much more interesting than the Democratic side. Huckabee took the state with a large margin, which immediately says a couple of things. One is that Romney’s campaign is in trouble: he tried to buy the state, and failed. While he’s not a bad candidate, there’s nothing really exciting about him, and a relatively low result compared to the amount of money he spent just highlights that. The other big thing immediately apparent is that supporting issues like the FairTax and other American Solutions issues clearly didn’t hurt Huckabee’s campaign, and quite probably helped it to at least some extent. Excellent.
Despite the strong showing though, I don’t think Huckabee really stands a chance, his record is just too bad, I see these results as the high point of his run. However, he would make a great VP (especially in the run, as he’s got great charisma), and the attention he’s bringing to certain policy issues and proposals is great.
Another interesting result was Thompson’s, who did surprisingly decent – and he’s still in the race. What will be really interesting is to see how the south plays out between Thompson, Huckabee, and McCain. My favorite combo of Thompson/Huckabee doesn’t actually seem too unlikely. McCain is good too, but he’s made some enemies among conservatives.
While Guliani’s turnout was low, that was somewhat expected, as he didn’t campaign in Iowa at all. Whether that’s a valid campaign tactic, we’ll soon see.
By the way, a full roundup of reactions can be found here.
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