Hope everyone had a happy New Year and all of that jazz. As we move into the last year of the Bush administration, it’s time to look forward into the next one, and that means Iowa. In a possible indication of things to come, our former runners-up are moving ahead. First up, Huckabee vaults over Romney.
Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist minister riding a wave of support from fundamentalist Christians, tops Mitt Romney for first place in a new Des Moines Register poll of Iowans planning to attend Thursday’s Republican caucuses.
In a battle of former governors from Arkansas and Massachusetts, Huckabee leads Romney, 32 percent to 26 percent.
And on the left, Obama’s topping Hillary.
Obama was the choice of 32 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers, up from 28 percent in the Register’s last poll in late November, while Clinton, a New York senator, held steady at 25 percent and Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, was virtually unchanged at 24 percent.
There’s a political phenomenon that occurs which states that when a given candidate holds the lead for too long, eventually the people get tired of that person and the former underdogs begin to take the lead. We may be seeing that now. Could Hillary really be expected to remain the frontrunner for two years?
The funny thing is, Hillary is an okay candidate, Obama is fine, Edwards is okay. Switching amongst them is like choosing a flavor of ice cream. On the GOP side, we’re moving from crazy (Rudy), to crazier (Romney), to craziest (Huckabee). At this rate, by the time late 2008 rolls around we’ll have Fred Phelps running with Emperor Palpatine on the Republican ticket.
