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Obama, Huckabee score big Iowa victories
Jan 4, 2008, 11:35 GMT
Illinois Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama delivers a speech at a caucus night rally at Hy-Vee Hall after winning the 2008 Iowa Democratic Caucus in Des Moines, Iowa, USA 03 January 2008. Senator Barack Obama topped Democratic presidential contenders as presumed frontrunner Hillary Clinton was beaten into third place Thursday night in Iowa. EPA/MICHAL CZERWONKA
Des Moines, Iowa - Democrat Barack Obama, seeking to become the first African-American president, won a momentum-building victory over fellow US Senator Hillary Clinton as voters in Iowa held the opening nominating contests of 2008.
On the Republican side, Thursday's major-party preference polls in the rural, Midwestern state handed a decisive win to Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee as the buildup to the November 4 general elections officially got underway.
Final results showed Obama beating Clinton, the front-runner in national polls, into third place with 2004 vice presidential candidate John Edwards in second. Obama polled 37.6 per cent, Edwards 29.75 per cent and Clinton 29.47 per cent.
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor popular with fellow evangelical Christians, led centre-right Republicans with 34 per cent of the vote, with 96 per cent of precincts reporting. Only former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was even competitive with 25 per cent of the vote.
Obama's breakout victory in Iowa is the culmination of his campaign for most of 2007 to challenge Clinton, wife of popular former president Bill Clinton and long seen as the centre-left's top contender.
'On this January night, on this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said you couldn't do,' Obama told supporters, his voice hoarse from round-the-clock campaigning. 'You have done what the state of New Hampshire can do in five days.'
New Hampshire will become the second state to choose party nominees on Tuesday. Clinton was still leading in statewide polls ahead of Thursday night's vote.
Obama has positioned himself as a force for change from typical Washington politics. That message seemed to resonate with Iowa caucus-goers like retired teacher Diane Larson, 55.
'I'm so sick of normal politicians. I think they're all power- hungry people,' she said. 'To me, (Obama) just represents something different. He seems a little more normal and less jaded.'
The three top Democrats had been locked in a tight race ahead of the Iowa caucuses.
Obama, whose father is from Kenya, is a Chicago lawyer and community activist whose personal charisma and positive style catapulted him to national prominence after he won a US Senate seat from Illinois in 2004. His success Thursday night came in a mostly rural state with a more than 90-per-cent white population.
Clinton, speaking from a podium with her presidential husband smiling thinly at her side, glossed over the disappointment of her third-place finish.
'This is a great night for Democrats. We have seen an unprecedented turnout in Iowa,' she said, offering congratulations to Obama and Edwards as 'exceptional candidates.'
On the Republican side, Huckabee's win marked a serious blow for Romney, who had hoped that an Iowa victory would propel him to dominance in other early voting states.
Romney had built a large campaign infrastructure in Iowa and vastly outspent Huckabee, only to fall decisively into second place.
Romney rose in polls and campaign fundraising in 2007 to become the Republican national co-frontrunner with former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who mostly ignored Iowa to focus on larger, later states and was at just 3 per cent Thursday night.
'As we have moved along, you are going to see that strategy pay off,' Giuliani told broadcaster CNN Thursday night from Florida.
Huckabee's upstart campaign caught fire in late autumn, as he performed well in several of the numerous candidate debates. Polling showed that religious conservatives in the right wing of the Republican Party looked to Huckabee - an ordained Baptist minister - amid their lingering doubts about the more liberal records of Romney and Giuliani on social issues.
The Iowa result shows that 'people really are more important than the purse,' Huckabee said.
'I hope we will forever change how Americans look at their political system and how we elect our political officials,' he said. 'Wherever it ends, it started here in Iowa.'
Romney congratulated Huckabee on his victory and focussed on the fact that both had beaten candidates with much greater name recognition before the campaign began - Giuliani and Arizona Senator John McCain.
Romney is locked in a tight battle with McCain in New Hampshire, according to polls. McCain, who drew 13 per cent of the votes in Iowa, won New Hampshire during his first presidential run against Bush in 2000.
McCain finished effectively in a tie for third place with Fred Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee, who also had 13 per cent.
In a not-so-subtle jab at Romney, McCain said Thursday night at a New Hampshire campaign stop that Huckabee's victory showed 'you can't buy an election ... and negative campaigns don't work.'
Romney had spent far more money than any other candidate on television commercials and campaigning in Iowa, with many of his ads in recent weeks directly targeting Huckabee.
Vance Wartick, a 59-year-old sales representative and first-time caucus-goer, said he started out in favour of Romney but was turned off by the negative attacks and changed his vote to Huckabee.
Huckabee 'comes across as a person I could trust to do what he says he's going to do,' Wartick said.
In what has become a ritual of grass-roots democracy, Republican and Democratic voters gathered separately Thursday night in thousands of meetings statewide, voicing their preferences for the major-party nominations for the November 4 general elections.
Two veteran Democratic senators, Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Joe Biden of Delaware, announced late Thursday that they would quit the race after each finishing with less than 1 per cent in Iowa.
It remains to be seen whether Edward's second-place finish can revive his campaign, which had stalled in the months leading up to Iowa.
'The one thing that's clear,' said Edwards, '... is that the status quo lost, and change won.'
© 2008 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
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Ol Huckabee looked pretty dan good on TV today. Granted, this was his stronghold, but nonetheless, ol Jim had a good outing.
Obama really shined too. Most of all his pulling in of young voters and independents, something Crintons people always brag about, but never deliver, was really impressive!
Check what this loony bin has to say about Obama on:
news.monstersandcritics.com/usa/news/article_1384560.php?compage=20&com count=30&comlimit=10
The GOP has a bad habit of turning nasty and eating their own, as Bush did to McCain in 2000. I doubt that Huckabee will be an acceptable candidate to the hard right because of his (alleged) tax policies, as well as the pardons. When this gets really nasty (and it WILL) Giuliani will be in his element; but still his 'social' positions are unacceptable to the hard-right. The question now is whether Romney's money is enough to give him any footing in other states, and whether the honorable guy on the GOP side, McCain, can get past being 71 years old and rigid on Iraq, when the public is sick and tired of the entire episode.
There's a real chance of a recession in 2008, and between the mortgage mess, higher oil prices, and job insecurity, the GOP has plenty of other problems to explain away.
Why would anyone want to take on the job of trying to straighten out the mess of the Bush administration?
...didn't see anything to paint him a loonie....
but then again, you liberals do this all the time
Here's th liberal mantra for their opposition
Stupid - (bbush before 2000)
Crazy - (Bush - 2004 after he beat the smart guy!)
Radical - Bush now, because you missed on the other two.
0 out of 3 and now you start on Huckabee.
Now, me, I don't think the dems are stupid, generally anyway, but they ARE:
Crooked (anything related to the Clintons)
Ignorant - (Biden)
Duplicitous - (all)
Naive' - (Obama)
Bigoted - (all)
unhappy ( Hillary)
Snobs -(Kerry, Kennedy, wives)
Pseudo-Intelectual (Clintons, Kerry)
But,No, they are not dumb.
SP4...thank you again for making the right wing of this country look so bad. You are a great example of the idiots over there, and can only help the left wing take the country over. Thanks again!!
(Next, I recommend the spell checker)
The GOP's next problem is smack in front of them since even service jobs are declining, and a side benefit of a Democratic sweep might be SP4's going into hibernation for another 8 years, hanging upside down in his cave:
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aqz8NTw6DVWo&refer=home
Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Hiring in the U.S. slowed more than forecast in December and unemployment jumped to a two-year high, raising the odds that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by half a point this month to ward off a recession.
Payrolls rose by 18,000, capping the worst year for job creation since 2003, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The jobless rate increased to 5 percent from 4.7 percent in November, while the Institute for Supply Management said growth in U.S. service industries cooled last month.
Excluding a gain in government jobs, payrolls fell last month for the first time since July 2003, hurt by losses in manufacturing, construction and the retail industry.
``This tells you that the strains from credit problems and so forth that have been developing the last six months are starting to bite and they're biting in a way that now finally draws consumption into question,'' said Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit Suisse Group Inc. in New York.
Hysterical, based on the actions of the Fundamentalist right wing against gays. This jerk just made comments about Obama's 'blackness', by the way ...
Who passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964? When did schools get desegrated? How about the EEOC, which came into being along with the Civil Rights Act?
From the EEOC's own site:
www.eeoc.gov/abouteeoc/35th/pre1965/index.html
' ... on June 19, 1963, President Kennedy sent comprehensive civil rights legislation to Congress. Although opposition within the Congress was fierce, the need for civil rights legislation to address growing unrest in the country held sway. In August 1963, approximately 250,000 Americans of all races marched in Washington, D.C. in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The event, marked indelibly into the psyche of the nation by the famous 'I Have A Dream' speech of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to symbolize the irresistible insistence for meaningful legislation to address the demand for racial equality and justice. This need, together with the mobilization of the civil rights and labor organizations and strong Presidential leadership, coalesced. The result, on July 2, 1964, was the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was to become effective one year later.'
'Five days after the (Kennedy) assassination, while the nation was grieving its terrible loss, President Johnson eloquently invoked that tragedy in an effort to give some meaning to that most senseless of acts. President Johnson, addressing a joint session of Congress, stated:
We have talked long enough in this country about civil rights. It is time to write the next chapter and to write it in the books of law . . . . No eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long.
Civil rights leaders, initially distrustful of President Johnson, soon came to recognize him as an ally and worked closely with him to ensure the Act's successful passage. Many legislative battles forced concessions and compromises to avoid a Senatorial filibuster that threatened to kill the entire Civil Rights Act.'
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964
...you're bigoted when it comes to republicans.
Wonderful logics SP4.The word bigot designates a person that exaggerates in his religious behavior ,in such a manner as to appear completely insincere and ridiculous .Moliere was one of the first to mock them.What exactly has this all to do with the criticizing of the republicans...taking some liberties with your own language in order not to look like an idiot.Stop embarrassing yourself for once,you've done more to damage Bush than I did by portraying him like a toddler that plays childgames with congress and acts like a child .Was that realy your purpose ?
What a complete and total idiot.
All these comments anymore are just critical remarks back and forth between SP4 and whoever, and very seldom even pertain to the article at hand...........boring!
If you don't like it you have two choices. First you can quit visiting this board or second you can start a discussion with some facts (unlike SP4) and we can all sit around and discuss. Please do either, but please quit complaining.
Good advice, but you couldn't resist taking another swipe at SP4 - case in point!!
My philosophy is simple: confront these boobs above and when we hit a nerve, we end up getting a moonwalk from Tonny, flitting off into pseudo-intellectualism, or insults from the other tinfoil hatted kids in mom's basement.
These are the results. Don't blame me for others posts.
Interesting guy this Huckabee. He comes off calm, and collected. He is reassuring but authoritative. He is plain about his beliefs. He wasn't really a modern nondenominational evangelist, but a baptist minister.
If he were to win the nomination, I'm not sure he'd win, but I'd love to see the campaign!
Regardless of who wins the election, if they have the intelligence to do the job and also surround themselves with intelligent people who have no devious ideas and sincerely want to better the country all the way around, they should serve well. We've seen the opposite in the last 7 years, so, hopefully, there can be a turnaround! Although Bush might have wanted to better the country, he lacked the intelligence and ability to pick the right people.........sorry, SP4! Just my humble opinion for what it's worth!
The commentary back and forth here can be quite amusing and entertaining to say the least. Some commenters have some very clever comebacks - and I don't mean this in a demeaning way!
..if you're Prsident Bush, your measure of success comes from another yardstick. You could tell yourself you disarmed Libya, got saddam, got N. Korea to deal, have Iraq pacified, at least as much as Indonesia or Pakistan, or Iran, won 2 elections and the people who did it seemed to have succeeeded pretty damn well. You could boast record tax receipts with a tax cut, record employment numbers, record low inflation, historic high houseold wealth, record job creation and business environment.
If, however, you are a liberal, you would fail to acknowledge any of this, because it undercuts your argument that Bush killed Santa Clause. You would ignore, blindly, that you greenlighted Bush's push into Iraq, and only then, protested the fact. Then you would cry out for the dead soldiers, but object to sending more to fix their situation.
Then, realizing that, you miscalculated and underestimated the Bush resolve, you'd agree to send more troops in the blind hope he would help you by getting the job done before you have to run for office again and get the monkey off your back. Then after you helped the troops out by sending more, you'd advocate taking only some back, endangering them more.
At every turn, Mr. Bush called your bluff, which enabled him to have this war in the first place, a war that you, the liberal, made happen because Bush would get rid of Saddam for you, and then get rid of himself before 2004, by you blaming him for it!
Now recognize I do not mean YOU Mr. Payne, just the mob above.
What it comes down to is a giant game of political chicken. They assumed Mr. Not-so-Bright would act the way they imagined and he did not. We call this miscalculating, and guess who I'M referring to.
This is how wars start Mr. Payne, don't you think? Now, that being the case, go straight to Congress, find out which liberals voted for this war, and which ones of them are now wanting to be President and go ask them about it. They will tell you Bush lied to them...dumb ol Bush....just fooled them completely....and ask them why we'd want either a duplicitous asshole or another dumbass for President?
Why do you keep kissing Bush's ass SP4? Are you trying to be the pain in the ass that you are, or are honestly that ignorant?
Don't worry, he's just an allusional old man with no life other than this site. He should be disenchanted by this administration, but, alas, his mind is only one track. He's not open to any other's opinion, and constantly berates everyone else. Granted Bush probably isn't all bad - he probably doesn't beat his wife or kids!!
...gee, youngster, that's original...most people call me dillusional....
none of that, of course, makes me wrong...or even allusional!
allusional.....I, sort of, rest my case!
Wrong!!!!! Yes, Bush is all bad and so is anybody who supports him; we are not dealing with a normal human-being here. Take that to the bank.
Can't recognize sarcasm?????
I think you mean delusional, and yes, that too!!
I can see it now:
Hillary on one Podium and McCain, Guliani or Huckabee on the other. The reporter asks the question to the Republican 'Do you suppport the iraq war?'
Answer 'yes, Mrs. Clinton and I both supported the war'.
Makes ya just wanna beg for Bush, huh?
Only in our nightmares!!!
It's one thing to agree to something to begin with, but another to admit it was wrong and try to remedy the situation - unlike the king of stubbornness and denial.........!
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! ! ! !Jan 4th, 2008 - 17:11:54
Huckebee better enjoy his victory while he can - it won't last!!!!
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