Barack Obama’s comments and his inability to distance himself from his mistakes (the comments included), make Hillary Clinton more likely to win.  It is still going to be an uphill battle for her, but at this point it’s still possible.

A decisive win in PA and follow up wins later, could bring her a lead in the popular vote - which would be the best case scenario (if you’re a McCain person, or just want the opportunity to see what a really interesting convention looks like).  For one, it is a really hard for Barack Obama to argue against the winner of the popular vote because of the Democratic parties previous position.  If votes, not delegates, are to decide things (as Democrats argued in 2000), Hillary should win (in this scenario).  However, how do you give up (if you are Obama) if you are clearly winning in what counts, the delegates.

Even if Hillary doesn’t end up with a lead in the popular votes, big wins could still spell doom for Obama.  Theoretically, there are enough superdelegates to put Hillary in the lead over Obama.  And honestly, Hillary has a good argument against Obama.  Barack has quite a few states that are frankly more likely to go Republican in November.  His small state approach is nearly the same as the one Republicans use in November.  What use is to have a candidate that doesn’t appeal to your base?  It might work, but it might not.

Furthermore, all of this is good for Republicans because John McCain is the best possible candidate to be running as a Republican in all of this.  McCain has higher approval ratings among Democrats than any other of the [defeated] Republican candidates.  If the Democratic party choses a nominee in a fight as a convention - which is nearly certain to happen unless somebody backs out, they can’t avoid alienating some of that other candidates base.  A good campaign on McCain’s party could convince these people to go to him.

In weather, a perfect storm is a series of weather events that separately would be less powerful than their combined effects.  This sounds awfully similar to what is occurring here.

Posted under Politics by Will Gries on Tuesday, April 15th 2008; 7:43 pm

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Listening to the Democrats speak these days might leave one with the impression that health care is a God given right that every American, not to mention every citizen, should be entitled to. Now I understand the arguments - and I agree that every American should have health care available to them if they want it. But I disagree with the Democratic assessment that we are entitled to it.

Health care has always been - and will always be a privilege. Rights, like freedom of speech or worship, are things that in a perfect state of nature exist without human construction (in other words they aren’t social constructs - well speech and to an extent worship are, but not the freedom of). The means of taking these rights away is the real social construct because it requires unnatural behavior. But health care isn’t present in this state of nature. It’s something we’ve invented to prolong our lives - and to increase our own happiness.

We can privilege every American with it (and hopefully not by making our system in to a complete socialized mess) but it remains a privilege.

Posted under Health Care by Will Gries on Monday, April 14th 2008; 7:09 pm

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I’ve said before that I think that Barack Obama would be a very tough man to beat, but recent revelations have convinced me otherwise.  As a former Clinton political consultant put it, Obama’s weakness is weakness.

Does Reverend Wright hurt Obama in the general election?  I believe it will because too many Americans actually believe in what the Civil Rights movement taught us (clearly Reverend Wright doesn’t believe).  However does Revered Wright have to hurt Obama?  No.  I believe if Barack would step up and take a definite stance against his racism and anti-Americanism, he could emerge from this whole thing intact and gain even more political power in the process.

I believe (and hope) we are getting a better look at the man who will most likely be the next Democratic Party nominee.  Obama is smart and a really good speaker - but ultimately he is weighed down by his own mistakes that he won’t even take the steps to fix.

Posted under Politics by Will Gries on Monday, April 14th 2008; 6:57 pm

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Understandably many Democrats feel that after their excited and record-turnout primary season that it will be a Democrat that takes the White House.  I’m not denying that it is a very real possibility, however I feel that this election is going to be a nail-biter for both sides. 

Regardless of whether the Democratic nominee is Obama or Clinton both face serious problems in the general election.  Many people don’t like Hillary and aren’t going to change.  While Obama managed to pull off a win here in here in 95% white Iowa, he is almost certainily going to have to face the race issue.  And unless Obama manages a big win tomorrow in Texas and Ohio, Hillary will almost certainily stay in, which is a minus for Obama (see this article).  Either way, a divided party does not help either candidate in the long run of the general election.

People might talk about the “real divide” which in their minds is in the Republican Party.  Yes, many Republicans might not have voted for John McCain as their first or even second choice.  However, at the end of the day - McCain should be able to run an effective campaign by pointing out that even though they might disagree on a few issues, Barack or Hillary would be worse. 

Plus McCain has independent appeal.  He for sure has more than Hillary but he might even have more than Barack, who actually lost the New Hampshire primary because many independents went for McCain.  If New Hampshire is any sort of a preview for the national independent vote, John McCain definetly gets the advantage.

And if it really comes down to it, Obama’s change and Hillary’s experience are moot arguments against John McCain.  He has more experience in government than either one combined and has nearly a thirty year record of working across the aisle to get things done.

In the end, none of this may mean anything.  I’m not so ignorant to think that any of these things are sure-fire ways to win, however it is my belief that John McCain can put up a real fight against either Democratic candidate - and he could beat either one.  It’s along ways until November and we’ll just have to see who will win.�

Posted under Politics by Will Gries on Monday, March 3rd 2008; 1:34 pm

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I’m not going to lie, most Republicans would rather face Hillary Clinton in November. She’s smart, but ultimately too many Americans just don’t like her.  Many Democrats realize this (or don’t like her themselves), so I guess it really makes sense that so many Democrats are going to Obama, who many people actually do like.

Many Republicans might feel uneasy about having to face an ultimately stronger candidate in the general election, but I think it could do wonders for the Republican party. In order to win against the new Democratic machine, we will need to be innovative and think outside the box. We will need to reach out to groups of people that may not normally vote Republican. We will need a whole new strategy to win a whole new kind of election. It is just what the party needs.

A couple of months ago, I outlined some of the party’s bad strategy in Poor “Strategery”. At the time, I was not very confident anything was going to be done before the 2008 election and my general feelings were that a Republican might win, but the long term trend was not in our favor. But several things have happened since December 19th, indicating to me that these bad trends just might be turning around.

Republicans chose the most visible moderate, John McCain to be the nominee. Granted, he doesn’t have it yet, but it’s mathematically impossible for anybody else to get it at this point. Democrats began choosing Obama over Clinton, which removes the enabler (Hillary) from allowing us to win without changing some core ways in which the party behaves.

Like I said in that December 19th post, the Republican party is going to have to change in order to keep up with the Democrats. We need to be more inclusive towards people who haven’t traditionally been Republicans. If we don’t reach out and show Americans what the party can do, we will shrink as America moves forward into this century. We can’t just allow ourselves to become a group of White and Christian people - we need diversity to continue.

A species needs genetic diversity to continue to be strong, healthy and adaptive; likewise we need diversity to continue to be relevant, competitive and innovative. We need people of all colors, faiths, and people of different political ideas within the “right wing” of the political spectrum (in other words Moderates, Conservatives and even Libertarians). And we need a new understanding within the party so that we can all work together - otherwise we are just working against each other.

Hillary enables us to continue along our present path: we’ll win in November, but from then on we are in a vary problematic situation. However Barack Obama forces us to change in order to beat him. In the end, we may not beat him in November, but we will have changed for the better because of it.

Posted under Politics by Will Gries on Sunday, March 2nd 2008; 1:20 pm

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My first assessment of Mike Huckabee continuing his campaign was that it was a very foolish move for the Republican party. Traditional logic tells us that the sooner that the party has a candidate, the sooner it can get a national campaign going. This election is going to be a hard one to win and even if Hillary Clinton gets the Democratic Party’s nomination (thus uniting the Republican party), it still will be a fight until the end - one that we very may not win. Any slight edge that we can get is a good one… right?

But reflecting on it, I wondered if perhaps it is a good thing that Huckabee is continuing his bid for President. Mike Huckabee can’t win the nomination, even if he wins every state. That just means that he is going to get the Republican party news coverage and you know what they say, ‘all press is good press’. So even if the media attention is focused on how “divided” the party is, the party is still getting news attention. If Huckabee dropped out and McCain is given the nomination, he can get the ground game going earlier than the Democrats - but that causes the party to drop out of the spotlight.

The Huckabee campaign knows for sure that he can’t win, so perhaps is he staying in to help John McCain. Traditional logic tells you ‘no’ because usually campaigns don’t work like that. But this is maybe one of the most un-traditional campaign’s in American history. After all, the McCain campaign made a backdoor deal with Huckabee to give all of McCain’s West Virginia delegates to Huckabee, to put Romney out of the race. Of course if there was that kind of backdoor deal going on, Mike Huckabee would probably have to be assured a VP slot, but if he can get the Conservative base to rally around him in a last ditch effort - that might just work well for McCain in the end.

My only prediction is that if things are working if I have guessed, Huckabee won’t stick around in the race for very much longer. If he truly wants to be Vice President, it’s in his best interest to end his campaign in just enough time to give McCain an edge over the Democrats, who in my mind will be fighting all the way until the convention. This is an untraditional election season, so I think it’s really up in the air to as what is going on.

Posted under Politics by Will Gries on Monday, February 11th 2008; 8:12 pm

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A year ago the conventional wisdom was that after 6 years of a divisive Bush administration voters would chose a Democratic candidate to be the next president. It sounded like sound logic a year ago. But we are a year wiser. Conventional wisdom said my candidate, Rudy Giuliani, would be the frontrunner. Conventional wisdom said that Hillary Clinton would be the clear choice for Democrats and that America just wasn’t ready to consider a Obama, a black man, for President. January 2008 changed everybody’s expectations.

It is my expectation that the conventional wisdom will hold and Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party’s frontrunner, but Barack Obama has given her much more of a run for her money than anyone expected. The smart but liberal Obama has a bright career ahead of him in politics, even if he doesn’t become the party’s nominee.

But conventional wisdom didn’t hold on the Republican side: traditional conservatives lost control of the party when John McCain seized momentum. And while many maybe upset that McCain is positioned well to take the Republican party’s nomination, it is really in their best interested. A moderate nominee, like McCain, stands a much better chance at beating the almost inevitable Clinton. McCain might actually be able to pick up moderates from the Democratic party who dislike Hillary or Democrats who are unhappy with the Democratic party but wouldn’t vote for a traditional Republican candidate.

The Republican party with McCain as the nominee would be quite formidable against the once expected winner of the 2008 election-cycle. Even against Senator Obama, McCain could win although it would be quite an accomplishment. But McCain is certainly up to the challenge of winning against the Democratic party. Best as the underdog, McCain pulled off one of the most amazing comebacks in political history, winning New Hampshire on January 8th, 2008.

Of course this election is far from over but Republicans can have hope again that they won’t have a liberal in the White House in January 2009.

Posted under Politics by Will Gries on Sunday, February 3rd 2008; 4:03 pm

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Rudy Giuliani’s Florida-centric strategy ended up back-firing and ending his campaign. Was it a mistake to skip early states? How could have the strategy worked or been modified to work?

It’s my opinion that here in Iowa, no amount of campaigning could have helped Rudy win. Voters here tend to be more socially conservative and didn’t like Rudy’s liberal positions (or the fact that he’s on his third wife, which really shouldn’t matter). So I feel pretty confident in saying that putting a lot of effort in to winning Iowa would have been a waste of money. But what about New Hampshire? Voters there tend to be more economically conservative and had Rudy invested more effort there, he might have been able to pull off second place, if not a win. It was probably wise for him to skip over South Carolina, although John McCain got a win there after winning in New Hampshire so perhaps it would have been possible. A simple change like that and Rudy might very well have been able to win in Florida and be in the place that McCain is right now.

Skipping some of the early states was probably wise, but New Hampshire was, in hindsight, a foolish one to skip. Not competing in any of the early states lost Rudy some valuable airtime and caused voters to look elsewhere to find their candidate. It seems pretty obvious to me that McCain became that guy. He lost Florida because McCain won momentum Rudy might have won if he had competed in NH.

The strategy would have worked if John McCain hadn’t received any momentum after New Hampshire. It seems to me McCain only won South Carolina because he won New Hampshire. If the race had continued along the path of no clear frontrunner, the strategy would have worked as planned.

Rudy Giuliani and his campaign staff weren’t fools for their strategy as some in the media have portrayed them. Rudy has always run unconventional strategies and this was no exception. But this strategy seems to me to have been based on a miscalculation of John McCain’s comeback appeal. Lessons for next time I guess.

Posted under Politics by Will Gries on Sunday, February 3rd 2008; 1:50 pm

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Before Democrats voted in South Carolina (which Barack Obama won), Bill Clinton denounced Barack Obama and his campaign as a fairy tale.  At first, one might give Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt because the Clinton’s are widely known for dirty politics but after closer examination just the opposite appears to be true.

2007’s most liberal senator, Senator Obama has been making waves as the “non-establishment” candidate of the Democratic party and a candidate that could heal partisan wounds and move the nation forward.  His charisma even has some unhappy Republicans defecting under the “hope” of a truly uniting political figure.  While I respect Barack Obama for political brilliance and excellent speaking skills, I agree with Bill Clinton - he is a “fairy tale”.

Obama has done a lot of hard campaigning with the renewing “hope” in Washington mantra.  How could somebody who has an extremely partisan record in the Senate truly heal partisan wounds?  Fixing Washington and renewing “hope” have much more to do with getting a moderate candidate than anything.  We need a candidate who isn’t afraid to deviate from party lines and to reach across the aisle to get things done.  Barack Obama who votes with the Democratic establishment in the Senate 96.4% of the time, clearly doesn’t have this sort of ability.

It is also a “fairy tale” that Barack Obama is a “non-establishment” candidate.  If how he votes in the Senate isn’t enough to prove it, just look at who has endorsed him.  He has endorsements from Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Patrick Leahy, Moveon.org and a lot of support from the loony left in Hollywood; just judging him based on who supports him makes him look throughly establishment and throughly liberal.

Barack Obama is smart because with his campaign focusing on hope and unfocused change he took his liberalism off the table before it even became a problem.  I hope voters are smart enough to see past the facade.  If they do, the Democratic party is in big trouble no matter who the nominee is since they’ve failed to get moderates from the party to run.  Indeed, one of the party’s biggest moderates, Joseph Lieberman, endorsed John McCain.

Posted under Politics by Will Gries on Saturday, February 2nd 2008; 10:51 pm

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A lot of news coverage has focused the fact that there is no front runner in the Republican party. The speculated cause (and I agree) is that there is deep, three-way split in the party. There are social conservatives (like Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney). They focus their time on issues like abortion, gay marriage and that sort of thing. I would point out however that in order to gain the party nomination Romney flip-flops and walks the line between social conservative and the other two categories. The second category is Economic conservatives (like Rudy Giuliani or Ron Paul). They focus on issues like cutting taxes, shrinking the size of government and providing a good market. The final faction in the Republican party is Defense conservatives (like John McCain). These guys usually appeal to veterans and may even be veterans themselves and their main issue is keeping the country safe (which of course is everyones issue - including Democrats).

The interesting thing about the factions in the Republican party is that the factions themselves aren’t radical or moderate. Instead the factions themselves have factions to represent the radical or moderate side. Consider the economic conservatives. Rudy Giuliani is a moderate - he will cut taxes and government but won’t turn everything over to the market to run. In New York City, he didn’t get rid of welfare but modernized so that it helped people get jobs. The end result is that 640,000 (and counting) people were moved off welfare. Ron Paul however, is a radical economic conservative. He will cut taxes down to almost nothing and get rid of most of the federal government. He’s gone on record saying that he will get rid of the CIA, FBI, IRS, the Department of Education, the Department of Homeland Security, etc.

But don’t let the media make you think that the Republican party is the only party that has a split. In fact, the other major party, the Democratic party (obviously), also has some pretty deep fissures. However it is interesting, to me at least, that the three main fissures aren’t well represented in this crop of Democratic candidates. The dominate sect, the so called “bleeding heart liberals” has a stranglehold on the party leadership. All of the candidates except Bill Richardson have come from this faction (Barack Obama is a moderate “bleeding heart” blurring the lines between this sect and the next one, moderate Democrats). Although this group of liberals claims to represent the little guy (think John Edwards as “the voice for the middle class”) ironically they all come from the wealthiest of America (only the very few come from else where). And in an even more of an ironic twist, these people have all succeeded in the free market world of captialism but their mission is to get rid of it.

The next faction is the moderate Democrats. These people are typically Democrats because their parents were and aren’t necessarily opposed to Republicans (indeed some of them might have voted for Bush in 2004 - They are also the same people who help Chuck Grassely get 80% of the vote). Moderate Democrats are typically rooted in more rural areas, like this state. Many of them may also belong to a union, or at very least support them. What strikes me as surprising with this sect is that they just let the “bleeding hearts” run the party, even when they have core differences with the dominate sect. The main set of issues for moderate Democrats is social ones (like welfare or government aid programs).

I’m said to say that the last faction is based on racial and ethnic lines. I’ll call this one “black and minority Democrats”. This group of people have much more in common with the social conservatives of the Republican party but vote Democrat for two reasons. Firstly, there is an age old uneasiness with black voters and the “states rights” ideas of the Republican party. Although “states rights” was more of a Democratic thing during the days of slavery (Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, unified the country), it has become more a Republican thing as southern voters changed from Democrat to Republican. Secondly, black Democrats don’t vote Republican because next to no social conservatives make efforts to get them to vote Republican. The idea is that minorities are always Democrat is one that both parties share. I think that as the racial gap continues to close and more blacks and minorities are educated, more will defect and become social conservative Republicans. Presently however blacks are rallying behind Barack Obama as it is thrilling to them that it is now possible to have a black President. Getting too close to this sect will be his undoing - which is part of the reason why the Clinton’s have been trying to make him into the “black candidate”. “Bleeding hearts” are uneasy with this crowd because their politics don’t match up well.

In short, it is my belief that these party factions are occuring because Americans are more educated and more connected than ever before. A extremely large middle class and an expanding upper class has caused Americans to have better educations. More of us go to college and more of us get higher degrees than every before. We also can express our ideas over the large area that is the US through the internet making differences in opinion and thought much more exaggerated than before. My view is that our current party structure (we have essentially a two party system) can only last for so long. It’s only a matter of time before we have a viable third party, perhaps even a viable fourth party. Wouldn’t that change things?

Posted under Politics by Will Gries on Sunday, January 27th 2008; 12:03 pm

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