The Poetist

The final Des Moines Register poll came out last night; the results have Obama in the lead at 32, Clinton following at 25 and Edwards trailing at 24.  The most recent CNN poll put Obama and Clinton in the 30s and Edwards at 22.

I’m not worried.  The media has closed Edwards out of the race from the beginning, although anyone who takes a look at credible numbers has to acknowledge that the race is a veritable dead heat.  Let’s go over the numbers from the Des Moines Register Poll.  60% of the poll respondents have never caucused before.  This is significant because caucusing is not voting; it is far more complicated and requires a significantly longer time commitment.  People without caucus history are much less likely to caucus.  Obviously there are new caucus-goers every year, but I believe that number is generally around 20%.  Second, 45% of the respondents are Independents or Republicans.   I really fail to see why the latter group is relevant to a Democratic caucus.  It is true that both of these groups can change their registration and participate in a Democratic caucus but Republicans have their caucus the same night and their own competitive field of candidates to choose from.  Third, 40% of the respondents said they could change their decision before the caucus.

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A lot of my friends wonder why I support Edwards over Obama.  Obama is a great leader and has done wonderful things for the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois.  But he is not going to do great things for the country.  One of his major points is bipartisanship and ‘working across the aisle’.  It’s no surprise to me that this worked for him in Illinois, a solidly democratic state.  The governor and both senators are democrats; the Republican party in Illinois is so weak that they didn’t even have a candidate to run against Obama for a few weeks during his senate campaign.  And then the best they could do was Alan Keyes.  Don’t get me wrong, I think Obama won legitimately and that he has worked hard; I’m just saying his experience has not prepared him for the presidency.  He ‘fought’ the Daley political machine in Chicago as well, which is commendable given Daley’s seemingly interminable grip on the city.  But once again Chicago is a democratic city, and at the end of the day he was participating in intra-party politics; that is hardly an example of bipartisanship.  And bipartisanship itself is not the answer.  Compromising and working together is great and there hasn’t been a lot of that over the past 7 years – but it’s not for a lack of trying among the democrats; and the game is not going to change even if Obama channeled all the willpower and determination he could muster.

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So you can see why I support Edwards (previous post) and why I don’t support Obama.  If I can get some blog time soon I’ll go more in depth on both.