The Iowa Caucuses
The next phase of the presidential campaign season began yesterday as Iowans held their respective caucuses (caucii?). Some surprises, and some expected results
Democrats
This is the “surprise” category. While only 1% behind the guy in front of her, and while getting 29% of the vote, Hillary Clinton (The Inevitable One(tm)) placed a disappointing 3rd behind Obama and Edwards. For a campaign machine that has been essentially running non-stop since 1992, this must be a serious blow. I heard on the radio this morning that she arrived in New Hampshire at 5am, apparently bailing out of Iowa as soon as she could. It ain’t over by any stretch of the imagination, but this is an upset.
As a blow against identity politics, which I’ve covered before, Barack Obama’s 38% victory shows that white folks will indeed vote for a black man with whom they agree. I think this goes for members of either party frankly. (I personally wished J. C. Watts had decided to run when I watched him during the Bill Clinton impeachment debate.) Iowa has a lower percentage of blacks than in the country in general, and yet Obama won handily. I don’t agree with Obama’s policies, but I’m glad to see this result. Hope the girls at Spelman College take a lesson from this and vote policy and position rather than color.
Republicans
Huckabee picked up the win here, as expected. Well, as most recently expected, not as anyone expected 4 months ago, which points out that polls really are just barometers of how people think or feel now. Iowa GOPers are 60% evangelical, so quite likely identity politics did play a part here. See Bryan at Hot Air, who notes that this is “a reversal in the way the two parties tend to think and choose their respective leader”. Indeed, and I really hope this isn’t a new trend. I do generally want a candidate that shares my values, but I’m not necessarily going to get hung up on their religion. However, religion tracks quite closely with positions I want to see, so it does play a large part.
I don’t agree with the Article VI blog that evangelicals will never vote for a Mormon. Some won’t, I’m sure, but one caucus does not a trend make, and Romney’s flip-flopping on hot-button issues like abortion and gay rights likely have more to do with his 2nd place finish than his religion. He was only 9% behind Huckabee, so this isn’t quite the blow they’re making it sound like. While Iowans, according to a poll noted on Article VI, generally do consider religious belief high on the list, I think (and I hope) that identity politics play less of a role as time goes on.
Read the whole Article VI post. Even though I disagree with the thrust of the post, it has a lot of good information on this identity issue with Republicans. Includes this from Albert Mohler being interviewed by Hugh Hewitt:
AM: Well, let’s put it this way. Evangelical Christians are very much committed to a Christian worldview that reaches every aspect of life. But there really isn’t an Evangelical foreign policy. There’s really not an Evangelical tariff or tax policy. And I think when everything’s identified that way, well, I’m going to be honest, there’s a bit of self-protectionism here.
HH: Yup.
AM: I don’t want to get blamed for everything that a supposedly Evangelical president might do that in terms of policy would be disagreeable.
Technorati Tags: Iowa Caucuses, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, J. C. Watts, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, identity politics
Filed under: Christianity • Democrats • Government • Politics • Race Issues • Religion • Republicans
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“Romney’s flip-flopping on hot-button issues like abortion and gay rights likely have more to do with his 2nd place finish than his religion.”
Thanks for the measured tone of your post, but I really don’t know how you can say that. 50% more Evangelicals came out to vote in 2008 than in 2000, and half of them voted for Huck. It was a tsunami that no one — especially Romney — saw coming. If you read the polling data linked to and quoted in our post at Article VI Blog, the notion that “flip-flopping” was the real cause of Romney’s showing has no basis in fact.
By the way, if a politician changes his mind, is that “flip-flopping?” Did Ronald Reagan flip-flop when he changed his mind and was thereafter a totally reliable pro-life ally? How about George H. W. Bush, who ran in 1980 as pro-choice, then switched to a pro-life position after Reagan selected him as a running mate? Bush I never deviated thereafter from his pro-life position.
Is it just possible that Romney’s change of position is a convenient excuse to vote against the Mormon? Just asking the question. At least one prominent Evangelical, a former Huckabee staffer and ongoing supporter, has admitted to us on the record that it is.
First, the Huckabee surge was evident in the polls for quite a while; shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone.
Secondly, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but Romney governed one way in Mass., but now says he’ll govern another way. We don’t have much of a record of this new change of heart, just his word. Reagan had a bit of a record to point to after his change of heart. I’d like to give Romney the benefit of the doubt, but I’d need to see more action on these words.
Frankly, Huckabee is sounding rather conservative these days, so it wouldn’t surprise me that evangelicals go for him. He has a record consistent (mostly) with this, whereas Romney doesn’t, hence my thought that it is indeed generally a policy thing. Now, I’m a little concerned with some of Huck’s ideas that are a bit socialist and big government. One has to listen closely to catch these things, but they’re there. Hence my reluctance to cast my lot with him.
I’m not discounting at all the suggestion that many evangelicals are casting a “safe” vote, so to speak, for Huck. I just think there’s more that needs looking at in that 50% group before we proclaim that Christians will never vote for a Mormon.
Doug: The knock on Romney is that he took — or seemed to take– moderate positions when he was running for governor or Massachusetts. I think that is true. I am very sure that if you look at Romney’s actual record as governor, he governed as a pro-life conservative. So there is an issue about him “evolving” (to use a charitable term) from more moderate positions to more conservative ones. But he did not govern as a moderate. And– if you walk too far down that path, you’ll find that Huck actually did govern as a moderate.
Anyway, I am not saying that Evangelicals will never vote for a Mormon. Heck, a lot of them voted for Romney in Iowa. Just saying that MR’s religion was an issue that drove a lot of Evangelical votes toward Huck. My guess is that mostly, Evangelicals who supported Huckabee were voting for him rather than against Romney. But there’s plenty of evidence that a very large chunk of them would have voted for anyone but Mitt. I don’t think there’s much evidence at all that the Evangelical tsunami in Iowa had anything to do with Romney’s change of positions.