At this point, Ed Kilgore has basically beaten his mantra into my head that we should take every comment from every political “insider” in Iowa and New Hampshire with a giant shaker of salt. All they seem to care about is protecting their prerogatives as first-in-the-nation caucuses and primaries, and they’ll basically advise every candidate to spend campaign cash in their states.
So, naturally, Iowa insiders will tell Jeb Bush that he absolutely needs to compete in their state and New Hampshire insiders will advise him to blow off Iowa and spend all his time and money in their state. When I read this article, I immediately thought about Ed and wasn’t at all surprised to see that he’d written about this phenomenon again.
That doesn’t mean that these insiders are incapable of coming up with decent arguments to makes their cases, though. For example, Iowa is a state that Jeb pretty clearly needs to win in a general election if he gets that far. It seems like an imperative that he not antagonize people there by rejecting their caucuses. And getting a head start on organizing the state is damn good idea.
On the other hand, getting crushed in Iowa can be detrimental to your effort to win New Hampshire. That’s what happened to Bill Bradley in 2000, when he watched a narrow but healthy polling lead in New Hampshire vanish as soon as he lost Iowa and wound up losing there by about 4,000 votes. That effectively killed his candidacy in its crib.
Another reason to compete in Iowa is that he’d like to avoid letting more than one rival get any momentum, particularly if that rival is going to be competing for the same kind of votes. For one Iowa insider, this threat comes from Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
“He cannot allow Rubio to come out of Iowa with a head of steam going into New Hampshire. The more Walker caters to the evangelical right, the wider berth that gives Rubio and Bush to work the establishment, economic conservative lane. If Bush doesn’t compete here, Rubio has a ton of room to roam.”
I’m pretty skeptical about Rubio’s chances in Iowa or really any place else, but if Rubio is going to try to be a Bush Republican, then this analysis might be solid.
The compete-or-not-compete in Iowa question is a conundrum that comes up in virtually every presidential nominating season, and there never seems to be a definitively good answer to it. A lot of people think Hillary spent way too much money there only to come in third place. But she did rebound and win New Hampshire despite expectations that she’d screwed the pooch. Plus, it was a gamble worth taking because if she had won in Iowa she might have prevented Obama from taking off and there’s a chance that she would have coasted to the presidency from there.
If I were advising Jeb, I’ll tell him to go all-in in Iowa for a simple reason. He will have enough money to spend. He can rehabilitate himself if he needs to just by vastly outspending his rivals. There’s too much obvious downside to skipping out on the first contest. The worst that can really happen is that he finishes at the back of the pack and gets beaten by some lunatics like Ben Carson and Rick Santorum, but no one will think his campaign is over as a result. And why hand Hillary Clinton a gift in Iowa? Her third place finish there in 2008 indicates that she’ll have to fight for those Electoral College votes.
So, yeah, regardless of what the insiders in New Hampshire say, Jeb would be wise to compete in Iowa even if the voters there are never going to support him in large numbers.
I have no political savvy of any kind but I’m seeing a Rubio/Walker ’16 or vice versa vs HRC/OMalley.
No reason for my prediction just gut
When you’re sharing an opinion with Howard Kurtz, you might want to think again.
Switch that to Walker/Rubio and that’s what I’m thinking. I’m guessing that Walker has just enough–but not too much–overt contempt for everyone else to put him over the top with GOP primary voters.
I think after Baltimore O’Malley would be a dragon the ticket, given O’Malley’s association with Rudy Giuliani style policing.
And more opportunities for him to offer worthless responses to relevant questions.
The question isn’t to compete or not to compete in Iowa. But how and when to compete.
My suggestions:
First to nail down as much of the local, traditional GOP players as possible. Grease those palms early. Build the NH base team at the same time.
Second from now until October/November, show up a couple of times a month to court the Bush/McCain/Romney and Santorum Catholic voters.
Third refrain from direct engagement in competitor bashing. Let them knock each other out first.
Fourth in the last few weeks, let the PACs run targeted attack ads. Soften up the support for those candidates that could benefit Jeb.
Fifth Jeb moves in to fill the “uniter” role.
While a win in Iowa for a candidate like Jeb would be helpful in moving on to NH, it’s not necessary. A close second or third place finish will do. His bro stumbled in NH in 2000 because McCain had more natural appeal there and had also long been camping out there. Christie was the one potential candidate that once had the best shot at capturing the NH McCain voters. Could it coalesce around a single one of the contenders? Not likely but warrants monitoring.
That’s just the thing. Where is Jebby the more natural fit? If he’s seen as the McCain-type then concentrate on NH but don’t completely ignore Iowa. I don’t see any one jumping out of the clown car until January, at the earliest.
Where was Romney a natural fit? (Other than Utah, of course.)
As long as the anti-immigrant and racist GOP vote gets split up amongst several candidate in the primaries, he could do well enough. If that vote coalesces behind a single candidate, he will be seriously challenged. And the UK election suggests that it could play a surprisingly large role in the 2016 election.
Can we just not talk about this for 6 moths? The Brits were tired of electioneering after 4 piddly weeks.
I’m for that.
How ’bout them Blackhawks?
I’m all for it. Come back to it around Halloween.
Meantime there’s all sorts of major historical anniversaries been happening lately we could discuss, most of which have gone unmentioned in these pages.
The NBA playoffs have been fun to watch. Or there’s those Cheaters, the Patriots.
So, if your guy/gal has a choice between hiring Messina or Axelrod, which one would you prefer?
Always preferred Kenny Loggins myself.
But congratulations to austerian Messina and all other Tories formerly or currently members of the Obama admin.
Yeah, when the voters have a choice between an real Austerian and quasi-Austerian, they’ll go with the real thing every time.
Expect Clinton will hire Messina, if she hasn’t already done so.
Not to be overlooked or forgotten is
Competing in Iowa ‘buys’ a ton of press worth at least double what is spent. Win Iowa and it is five to ten times ROI because your name is splattered over every media in every media market in the nation and the world.
Only if one spends prudently and cautiously in Iowa. Dumping a ton of money there to come in third is what took Dean down and severely handicapped Clinton.