Despite all of the worldwide media coverage, last night’s Republican Caucuses in Iowa were much ado about nothing. Indeed, the most intriguing thing about this quadrennial political farce was listening to reporters trying to make it seem newsworthy while admitting that the outcome will have no bearing whatsoever on who will be the Republican nominee, let alone the next president of the United States.
In fact, no less a reporter than Brian Williams noted during last night’s broadcast of his NBC Nightly News that John McCain finished 4th four years ago but still went on to win the nomination. What he should have noted, however, is that Mike Huckabee won the Caucuses but nothing else.
Yet even Williams could not resist the oxymoronic gesture of exhorting viewers to tune in later for in-depth analyses of the results. Huh? (For the record, political chameleon Mitt Romney edged out conservative firebrand Rick Santorum to win this year’s dubious prize. Cooky libertarian Ron Paul placed third; and political Lazurus Newt Gingrich mirrored McCain by coming in 4th.)
Respected media critic Howard Kurtz, host of the CNN program Reliable Sources, summed up this pointless and misleading exercise in a January 2 Daily Beast commentary, Iowa Caucuses Are as Distorted as a Funhouse Mirror. Specifically, he posed the question every sane political observer poses around this time every four years, namely:
Why, then, does Iowa — a state far whiter and more rural than most of America — get to play such an outsize role?
Indeed – but to comment any further would be to participate in the obvious insanity this kickoff to every presidential election has become.
Instead, what I wrote way back in September should be even more instructive than Kurtz’s commentary referenced above. Because it duly renders moot all of the hype and punditry that not only attended last night’s Caucuses, but will attend every event throughout this Republican nomination process:
He may not send a thrill up and down the spine of the Tea Partiers and religious (anti-Mormon) nuts who comprise the base, but there are enough sensible people still in that party who recognize that only one candidate has a prayer against Obama next year, and it’s Mitt.
(And the Republican nominee is…, The iPINIONS Journal, September 9, 2011)
More to the point, I think I can perform a very useful public service by reprising my December 30, 2011 commentary, Obama will be reelected in a landslide, at strategic points throughout this election year. So here it is:
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My support for him is as strong as ever and, despite all of the kvetching by progressives and demonizing by conservatives, I predict he’ll be reelected in a Reagan-style landslide.
(In support of Obama: my abiding … HOPE, The iPINIONS Journal, August 12, 2011)
Foremost, I think Obama should be re-elected based solely on his record of accomplishments. In fact, even though Republicans roundly condemned him as an uppity braggart, none of them challenged his assertion recently that only three presidents could boast of similar accomplishments during their first term.
Nonetheless, I am mindful that, with Democrats doing almost as much as Republicans to foil his pragmatic agenda, Obama has been looking a lot like Wile Coyote lately: beep, beep.
We are in for some of the dirtiest and most divisive campaigning in U.S. history, and that’s just among Republican presidential candidates vying for their party’s nomination. But when all is said and done, I am convinced that even some (White) Republicans will think twice about helping to perpetrate the historic spectacle of re-electing George W. Bush to a second term — after he nearly bankrupted the country with his unfunded wars and tax cuts for the rich, but denying Obama a second term — despite his commendable efforts against the odds to clean up the mess Bush left behind.
Besides, trust me folks, race matters. This is why I am even more convinced that disappointed (White) Democrats like actor Matt Damon, as well as Independents whose votes are so indispensable, will definitely think twice about causing this first Black president to go down in history as a failure — especially given all of the mediocre White presidents who cruised to second terms.
Related commentaries:
In support of Obama…
Election 2010…