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Tremors Shake Presidential Campaigns

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MARSHA MERCER, Media General News Service

Published: January 6, 2008

Over a late supper here the night of the Iowa caucuses, I was reading a magazine article about Barack Obama, which included an arresting photo.

He had turned to look at Hillary Clinton, who was staring straight ahead, apparently lost in her own thoughts. I showed the picture to the waitress.

"Ooh," she said. "Heavy." Then she added cheerily, "I saw him in Manchester last year. I like him so much!"

Voters liked Obama in Iowa too. A few hours later, the senator from Illinois rode his rocket of hope and unity to victory in the year's first Democratic contest.

In his moving victory speech, Obama said the improbable beat the inevitable, a nice line from a candidate who knows his way around words.

"You have said the time has come to do away with the bitterness, pettiness and anger that is in Washington," he told supporters.

The question is whether he can hold onto his star-like status against the considerable g-forces of Planet Hillary. Was Iowa a fluke - or a preview?

Iowa shook everything we thought we knew about this presidential campaign. But before you count the senator from New York or former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as the season's biggest losers, consider this: The status quo exists for a reason.

Sure, it stung Hillary Clinton to come in third, but it wasn't necessarily a mortal wound. She insists she's in a marathon, and she has the resources to retool her campaign. Nobody underestimates the political skills of her husband.

Similarly, former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina had hoped to be anointed the anti-Hillary in Iowa with his tough message linking her to corporate America and special interests. That didn't happen, but Edwards could be the default if Obama and Clinton self-destruct.

On the Republican side, money didn't talk nearly as loudly as it's supposed to. Romney, who poured more than $17 million of his own wealth into Iowa before September, lost to the man he'd outspent six to one on TV ads.

In New Hampshire, though, the former governor of Massachusetts is locked in a tight race with Sen. John McCain of Arizona, not Huckabee.

While 60 percent of the caucus-goers described themselves as born-again Christians, only about 18 percent of Republican voters in New Hampshire describe themselves that way. Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, concedes he's unlikely to repeat his Iowa miracle here. He's counting on South Carolina.

And there's the wild card of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose strategy to avoid the early contests and focus on Florida and other big states may yet prove brilliant.

For now, Obama is poised to become the year's anti-Hillary with a message that ironically draws heavily on Bill with overtones of Robert Kennedy in 1968, who mobilized a generation of young voters.

"We are one nation. We are one people and our time for change has come," Obama said, echoing early President Clinton.

It's worth remembering too that among the record 239,000 who turned out for the Democratic caucuses were many young people. One in five of the Democratic caucus-goers were under 30, according to an entrance poll of caucus-goers commissioned by the Associated Press and TV networks.

The AP noted that was about twice as many young people as usually turn out for the early contests in a presidential year. More than half the Democrats were attending their first caucus, and more than half the under-30 participants backed Obama.

If Obama can muster that kind of support in a setting that requires people to spend a couple of hours on a weeknight listening to speeches, he could do very well in a primary state - especially one like New Hampshire where people can register and vote on the day of the primary.

Plus, if someone wants to make history this year, he or she can vote for a black man who says America can remember what it means to hope.

What do you think? Comment at www.mgwashington.com or e-mail Marsha Mercer at mmercer@mediageneral.com.

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