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Wednesday, 30 January 2008 |
Election field gets smaller and dirtier
As of Wednesday, the election field has gotten smaller with two of the candidates deciding to drop out due to disappointing finishes in the primaries.
Former Sen. John Edwards and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani both announced they were going to withdraw their presidential bids.
Neither of these withdrawals came as a huge surprise. Giuliani had hinted to the fact that if he had a poor showing in the Florida primary, he’d likely pull out, and while Edwards had said he would stay in until Super Tuesday, the fact he hadn’t won a primary had an
impact.
With
these two candidates leaving the race, it really only leaves room for
four viable candidates: Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the
Democratic side and Sen.
John McCain and Gov. Mitt Romney on the Republican side.
While you’d be hard-pressed to argue that Sen. Mike Gravel has a chance, I suppose you
could make somewhat of an argument for Gov. Mike Huckabee being viable, but even
that would be a stretch.
Huckabee did win the Iowa caucus, and while he hoped that would help him pick up
momentum, he really hasn’t seen much of an increase.
With Super Tuesday fast approaching (it is less than a week away), all the remaining
candidates need to step up their games to make sure they get the nomination.
While Clinton did “win” in Florida Tuesday, I’m not sure that will in any way stop the
momentum Obama has had from his substantial victory in the South Carolina primary, as
well as gaining endorsements from three Kennedys.
Obama is still leading in the delegate race, but he needs to make sure that people view
him as a candidate that garners mass appeal and not just appeal from black voters in the
South. Although, I think his victory in Iowa did help squash some of the rumblings that
he couldn’t appeal to the masses.
Things have gotten uglier recently, and I think that just shows how close the race has
gotten and how much the candidates want to differentiate themselves from one another.
While I’m not all about the petty bickering and mud-slinging that goes along with
political campaigns, I’m also not all about the candidates sitting around a campfire,
patting each other on the back and singing “Kumbaya.”
However, I do believe the remarks about race have gotten more than a little out of hand.
Former president Bill Clinton’s remarks about Obama’s South Carolina victory were
meant to paint him as the black candidate and one who couldn’t win.
Bill first said Obama’s campaign was “the biggest fairytale” he had ever seen.
Now while he claimed he meant to use the word “fairytale” about Obama’s stance on the
War in Iraq (which is odd, because his stance is quite similar to Sen. Clinton’s, minus the
fact Obama was against the war from day one), it didn’t come across that way.
People cried foul and even members of Hillary’s campaign told ole Slick Willy he needed
to keep his mouth shut.
However, he just couldn’t do that.
Shortly after Obama’s impressive victory in South Carolina (he won by 28 percentage
points) Bill Clinton had this to say:
“Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, in ’84 and ’88. And he ran a good campaign.
Sen. Obama has run a good campaign here. He has to run a good campaign everywhere.”
This was seen as yet another jab to point out that Obama is black.
Wow, as if we all weren’t aware of this anyways.
It also significantly downplayed Obama’s victory by making it sound like he won in
South Carolina just because he is black.
Jesse Jackson won both times in South Carolina, but both of his victories in the primaries
came when the nomination was pretty much wrapped up. And I think even Jesse Jackson
would say he was not anywhere close to as viable a candidate Obama is right now.
The truth is things are likely to get nastier before they get nicer as candidates on both
sides try to distinguish themselves as the best person to run the nation.
It will be interesting to see what next Tuesday brings as that might, even this early into
the year, really determine who our two nominees are going to be.
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