Gee! Oh, Primary...

After a ridiculous year long pre-season that is mostly a fund-raising tour where lobbyists and media conglomerates are allowed to shape the race in advance, the Presidential primary election is finally close at hand. I really doubt most people besides political junkies have followed the race in any way other than hearing the jokes on late night talk shows or a few key moments where media coverage was so saturated over some meaningless non-event which was blown into a major gaffe (most of the above focused on the media's obsession with appearance and inability to deal with substance). So for the most part, the candidates remain a mystery to the majority of American voters and yet in just a month or two this thing could well be over.

Since Michigan has moved up the date of its primary the race may not be over when the show comes to town, but the field will likely have already significantly shifted by then. I have tried to take a look at how the contest might appear when Michigan voters get to have their say in just a couple of weeks. Since the Michigan Democratic primary will be mostly meaningless because the National Democratic Committee thinks Iowa and New Hampshire voters should have a special status conferred upon their ballots that voters in Michigan and elsewhere don't deserve, I have decided to look only for now at the Republican field and what the race will look like Michigan holds it's primary (though I hope to tackle the Democratic field in a future post):


First, the calendar:

JANUARY 2008
* January 3: Iowa (caucuses)
* January 5: Wyoming (GOP caucuses)
* January 8: New Hampshire (primary)
* January 15: Michigan
* January 19: Nevada (precinct caucuses), South Carolina (R primary)
* January 26: South Carolina (D primary)
* January 29: Florida

FEBRUARY 2008
* February 1: Maine (R)
* February 5: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado (caucuses), Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho (D), Illinois, Kansas (D), Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico (D), New York, North Dakota (caucuses), Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah
* February 9: Louisiana, Kansas (R)
* February 10: Maine (D caucuses)
* February 12: District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia
* February 19: Hawaii (D), Washington, Wisconsin

MARCH 2008
* March 4: Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont
* March 8: Wyoming (D)
* March 11: Mississippi

APRIL 2008
* April 22: Pennsylvania

MAY 2008
* May 6: Indiana, North Carolina
* May 13: Nebraska (primary), West Virginia
* May 20: Kentucky, Oregon
* May 27: Idaho (R)

JUNE 2008
* June 3: Montana, New Mexico (R), South Dakota

AUGUST 2008
* August 25-28: Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado

SEPTEMBER 2008
* September 1-4: Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St.

January 3
Iowa- this seems to be coming down to a contest between Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. Romney has the advantage of having spent a billion dollars here and planning for this contest for years with many visits to the state. Huckabee has the advantage of a campaign surging at just the right time which is mostly based on his appeal to the most fundamentalist of white Christian voters in the GOP primary which had yet to find a candidate they liked. The most fun thing to watch is how the establishment Republicans in the chattering class are attacking Huckabee in the media, hoping to cut off his campaign at the knees before it gains traction. The Wall Street Republicans have seen none of their preferred candidates taking hold and there's no doubt their ideal candidate would be Romney and Giuliani so that a Romney defeat of Huckabee in Iowa is crucial. But the evangelical voters who make up a large chunk of the base activists in the GOP have found no other candidate to their liking until finding Huckabee acceptable thanks in no small part to his past as a Baptist preacher and his support for putting people who are HIV+ in concentration camps. Expect Huckabee and Romney to finish 1 and 2 with the big surprise who ends up in 3rd- that person then gets to declare themselves the real winner and play the media expectation game. If Huckabee doesn't win Iowa expect the media to declare his candidacy dead or at least mortally wounded. After Iowa it's quite possible Fred Thomspon finally makes official what everyone knew the day after he announced- he never really wanted to be in this thing other than to appease his ego.

January 5
Wyoming- will this really matter? If it does, for some reason I think it becomes mostly a campaign based on national name recognition, money and momentum from Iowa which would seem to help Romney unless he gets 3rd or worse in Iowa. Giuliani as a well known name with money could finish strong. But I'd also expect that the western voters in Wyoming would give a boost to either a strong libertarian like Ron Paul or a deeply fundamentalist candidate like Huckabee. Perhaps because Arizona is in the west and McCain still appeals to a certain independent voter (though it's a caucus which does help to discourage independents from voting) I could see him finishing in the top 3 as well. Still, I doubt the media pays much attention to Wyoming and I wonder whether the candidates are (though a dark horse candidate like Ron Paul usually has to try to win in the contests the top tier consider worthless so he could likely be building a strong grass roots effort and shock the establishment with a win which would come just in time for New Hampshire, a state a libertarian could actually win and rocket into contender status).

January 8
New Hampshire- In 2000 the maverick John McCain smashed George W. Bush in New Hampshire and dazzled the media with a no-nonsense yet charming style. That McCain has long since disappeared as he's spent most of the last 8 years sucking up the evangelical right wing voters who killed his campaign last time which might have alienated him from the more socially moderate fiscal conservatives in N.H. Romney has a regional advantage he hopes will propel him to a victory (or at least 2nd place). Have no doubt that the anti-tax independents in New Hampshire will make a great showing for libertarian Ron Paul who will finish in the top 3 if not score a major upset of 2nd or even 1st. If Huckabee didn't win Iowa and doesn't come in 1st or 2nd in N.H. expect his candidacy to be declared over my the media pundits. After New Hampshire expect the race to boil down to Romney, McCain, Paul and Rudy Giuliani who will be bunkered down in Florida waiting to take on the ones still standing (see below). Romney and McCain have the most to lose in New Hampshire and if either one finishes third here they're toast.

January 15
Michigan- One would expect Mitt Romney, son of former Governor George Romney, to do well in Michigan. However, Mitt's dad was a Republican back before the party became dominated by theocrats who would impose a belief test on the office of President, or dog catcher for that matter. Expect John McCain to once again do well in Michigan though it may not be as big as when he broke down John Engler's infamous fire well erected to protect George W. Bush in 2000. I still think Romney has the home town boy advantage and McCain will still do well but the big winner in Michigan will be Ron Paul. Paul's libertarianism seems to be gaining him a lot of support and his campaign has been the only one I've even seen physical evidence of.

January 19
Nevada- Given the extreme anti-immigration rhetoric that the average Republican primary voter demands to hear from the candidates and that only John McCain has really done well to not walk too far out on that ledge, expect McCain who's from neighboring Arizona to do well. Other than that, I haven't a clue other than I'd expect the nationally-well known candidates like Romney and Giuliani's name and money advantages to play well here. Either way the news will probably be obscured by whoever wins South Carolina which also votes on the 19th.

South Carolina- South Carolina has recently been the "fire wall" in the Republican primary. Because of it's size and position in the race, as well as how it reflects the white, right wing and Christianist nature of the Republican base, the state is yet again poised to be a "decider" this time just as it did in 2000 when it dashed McCain's hopes of winning the nomination. I would expect a Baptist preacher like Huckabee to do great here is he is still hanging around and could even make him a front runner if he makes the top 3 in New Hampshire and continues the momentum. However, with a host of other races in big states coming soon after S.C., the state may not have the final say especially with Giuliani waiting in the wings to see who emerges from a brutal early primary season.

January 29
Florida- apparently Giuliani has decided to sit out the early contests and hopes that a big win in Florida will jump start his campaign after the early contests have knocked out most of the also-rans. Most people expect the race to be all but over by this point but I see a good chance that this thing is still confused and Florida could confuse it even more. Since Florida's Democratic primary is an meaningless as Michigan's, you have to wonder if the vote could see an influx of independents and Democrats who help push one campaign over the top. Perhaps the elderly Florida rejuvenate the campaign of the elder statesman John McCain.

In short, this thing is going to be wild and may drag out longer than the Republican establishment would prefer (though it should be over February 5 when a mass of states vote on the same day, including California and enough other states that someone could near the number of delegates needed for victory and begin the calls for the other candidates to drop out). Right now the knives are out against Huckabee who's surging in Iowa but is seen as too evangelical and too liberal on economic issues for the true power brokers in the GOP (listen to what the ivy league pundits on the right like George Will, Charles Krauthammer and others are saying- they truly fear a Huckabee nomination), the financial elite would prefer Romney or Giuliani or even McCain. Expect Huckabee to get "Deaned" in Iowa as every little gaffe and anything short of 1st place will be declared by the media as the end of his campaign- if I were Huckabee I'd avoid an enthusiastic speech in the event of not winning a resounding victory in Iowa. The real test is how much power the theocratic wing of the party has versus the moneyed elite and whether the contest between the two wings turns into something that breaks the party in half and possibly even helps contribute to a third party run (which Ron Paul seems most capable of, unless the candidacy of a Romney or Giuliani fuels a run from a Christian fundamentalist candidate or a win by Huckabee causes Wall Street Republicvans to beg New York Mayor Bloomberg into the contest). Since Reagan, the Republicans have mostly held together a majority coalition but the fault lines have been emerging. In the end, the GOP can hold together if they are united in a trying to avoid a humiliating defeat at the hands of their most hated political enemy- Hillary Clinton.

An important thing to consider is how much the shifting Democratic field shapes the Republican race. The more Hillary Clinton's campaign loses the media-created aura of inevitability the more Republican voters are likely to sense that they don't need to hold their nose and cast their lot with someone "who can beat Hillary" yet isn't tough enough on immigration, taxes, abortion, guns, gays, etc. (Giuliani, I'm looking at you- you too, Romney). However, if Clinton ends up doing well in Iowa it could unite the GOP in their long-running irrational fear of anything associated with the Clinton name.

Another interesting of the aspect of the race to watch is that as much as John McCain seems to be irrelevant now, the fact remains that he has been relatively unscathed by the back and forth attacks of the current front runners (especially between Romney and Huckabee in Iowa which is starting to resemble how Dick Gephart's attacks on Howard Dean took out Dean and let Edwards and Kerry emerge as the front runners after surprising finishes in Iowa in 2004) and could emerge with enough delegates to win the nomination should no one else ever emerge as a true front runner. As much as the GOP has flirted with everyone in the field at various points, McCain could emerge as the standard bearer should no one else grab with enough momentum or delegates to win it outright.

By biggest fear, is that the advanced calendar of this primary election will mean that the race has been decided by the time most people even realize it's time to make a decision. So, hopefully this is a wake up call that this election process is like the tiny pebble at the top of the hill, soon about to become an unstoppable avalanche. The campaign process is broken and needs to be fixed but we can only make our voices heard when he actually show up and vote. Do your homework, research the issues and candidates' records, look past the rhetoric and the rumor and make an informed decision.