Election Eve Musings

Well, tomorrow there IS going to be an election in Iowa, despite the fact that nobody really wants them to make the decision. The Democratic race hasn't been totally clean, with push-polling galore, but on the surface it looks less nasty, and I think we're going to see record turnout, and by "record" I mean 15%.

And the smart money is on Barack Obama winnning, especially now that Jo Biden and Bill Richardson appear to be steering their folks to choose Obama as a second choice. Now, people have their own minds, and so I'm dubious of whether or not these "deals" actually come to pass in all 1,700 or so caucus sites, but in a close race even some of that going Obama's way will help him. And there are other indicators.

With the most recent polls trending in favor of Obama, the pieces really seem to be falling into place for him now. There are those who argue that the pro-Obama polls are based on unrealistic turnout expectations, but I believe the record-smashing amount of resources campaigns have spent in Iowa will make those predictions more or less true. Further, there are very good reasons to believe that, because of the demographics of holiday travel, Obama is doing even better than polls suggest, not worse.

You know, Obama winning by explicitly running to the right of the leading candidates is a little depressing. But overall, it's not like nominating Lieberman. His economic proposals are in general sound, like requiring opt-outs for 401(k) plans, and across-the-board tax cuts rather than these targeted tax credits for this behavior or that. His open government proposals are laudable, and his foreign policy team is probably the best on paper (Samantha Power's presence alone - make her Secretary of State! - gets me excited about an Obama Presidency).

I simply think that Edwards is in a better place on the issues and also on where the country is at right now. He actually drove a lot of policies to the left throughout the campaign season, particularly on domestic issues. Far from being a divisive figure who would bring the US economy crashing down, he just seized the endorsements of 30 leading economists. On foreign policy, this interview with Michael Gordon, a longer version of his front-page NYT story today about Iraq training missions, shows that he's really not a lightweight and has a keen understanding of these matters.

Again let me go back to the bigger picture. The question from my perspective is that I have never believed that there was a military solution in Iraq, don't believe it today. I think the issue is how do you maximize the chances of achieving a political reconciliation between Sunni and Shia because I think that political reconciliation is the foundation for any long-term stability in Iraq. They have now, at this moment, had well over four and a half years to make some serious progress toward a political solution. They have not done it, and so what we have been doing has not worked. It clearly has not worked. And my view is that we need to shift the responsibility to them, make it clear that we are leaving. That is where the eight to ten brigades come from. Then, as aggressively as can reasonably be achieved, to continue a steady redeployment until all combat troops are out in roughly nine to ten months. Now I am not married to that specific timetable. If my military leadership came to me and said we need another month or some additional time, I would certainly take that into consideration what they are saying. But it is my job as commander in chief to set the policy parameters, which is exactly what I was doing.

(You owe it to yourself to read that whole thing.)

One thing that's interesting is how Hillary Clinton has become somewhat marginalized in this conversation. I think Chris Rock summed up a piece of conventional wisdom, something people might think too crass to hear, but it's definitely part of what people are thinking, I'd bet.

“I’ve been with my wife for 10 years now,” he said. “If she got onstage right now, y’all wouldn’t laugh at all.”

But back to Obama and Edwards. It wasn't that long ago that bloggers were calling them "Edwama." So on one level, there's no major difference. But they are opposites in how they see the political world.

Barack Obama and John Edwards are just now having at it, and each is touching distinct themes in the final appeals to Iowa voters. Obama seems more in the tradition of the early-20th-century progressives, middle-class reformers who sought to clean up politics to restore a functioning democracy. Edwards is more in the tradition of the early-20th-century populists, railing at the monied interests that really ran the country.

But Obama is a rather populist progressive, a onetime community organizer who understands the power of organized popular protest. And Edwards is a progressive populist, heir to Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, not William Jennings Bryan or Huey Long.

Time was when the Democratic presidential field would extend from the hawkish Henry Jackson to the dovish George McGovern, neither of whom could count on the other's Democratic supporters in a race against the Republican. These days, the differences dividing the Democrats are far narrower, and the Democrat who wins the party's nod will command nearly consensual Democratic support. The same cannot be said for the Republicans.

That's very true. Progressive populist versus populist progressive. I'm somewhat comfortable with those options. And I want to believe that progressives will have the ability to impact the process whether either of them (or even Clinton) eventually makes it into the White House.