Polar Opposites

Okee-dokee, I was searching for Michigan news, to escape this stupid New Hampshowa crap. Well, when I clicked on politics in MNewsLive.com mostly Iowa news came up. I scrolled through and found this, regarding how different Iowa and New Hampshire are from each other, not just geographically. Keep reading and I will insert my dumb broad comments throughout, along with why I even posted this. I hope y'all know I am ignoring my Czech pen-pals to post on blogs, only for the moment. I will ignore y'all soon and pay attention to them. My honesty is going to bite me in the ass someday.

• More than geography separates Iowa, NH

• 1/1/2008, 4:29 p.m. EST By DAVID ESPO The Associated Press

• MANCHESTER, NH. (AP) — So long, ethanol. Hello, taxes. More than geography changes when the 2008 presidential campaign leaves the land of flat — aka Iowa — for New Hampshire, the Granite State. The electorate is different, and the blend of issues.

• Which may be why former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's made-for-Iowa television ad tagline, "Christian leader," has yet to make the trip east across the Mississippi River. In New England, he's a conservative leader.

Fred Thompson doesn't have to play switch-a-roo. He is a conservative leader, who happens to be a Christian.

• "The people of New Hampshire pay attention to Iowa, but it's not the determining factor," Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona observed recently.

Please, change that phrase to fit your state.

• That's a diplomatic way of saying New Hampshire primary voters see little merit in rubber-stamping decisions made in Iowa.

Again, read my previous comment.

• As a group, voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are overwhelmingly white and better educated than the national average.

Two things here. I am thinking of John Cougar Mellencamp's mildly veiled protest song, "Ain't that America," in terms of the "overwhelmingly white" comment. Fill in your own thought.
Does better educated mean more street smarts?

• Still, the differences between them are significant enough to dictate adjustments by the campaigns, even if this year's compressed timetable provides only a five-day interval for changes.

Differences, yes, just as all the states have differences. No other state is as extreme as either one of these states. Most states seem to be more balanced in political views. So why should you let these people dictate how you should think and vote?

• But in New Hampshire, they care somewhat less about health care as an issue than Iowans, and more about the economy. Not surprisingly, they were also less apt to say that jobs are plentiful locally.

• Overall, New Hampshire is more independent-heavy than Iowa. At about 40 percent of the electorate or so, they outnumber registered Republicans and Democrats. They are free to vote in either party's race, a fact that complicates any pre-primary predictions.
• New Hampshire Republicans are more moderate politically than those in Iowa, likelier to support gay marriage, abortion rights and stricter environmental laws.
• Among Iowa Republicans, white evangelical Protestants account for an estimated 38 percent of the population of caucus-goers. In New Hampshire, it drops to about 18 percent, according to the Pew survey. In theory, that will make it more difficult for Huckabee to match the strong showing that pre-caucus polls suggest he will have in Iowa.

• "There's certainly a different focus, more so on fiscal issues, and a libertarian streak in New Hampshire. But I don't see a huge difference between New Hampshire and Iowa voters," Huckabee said recently.

There different, but their not ;).

• Even the method for sorting out the candidates is different.
• New Hampshire has a straight-forward, daylong secret ballot election on Jan. 8 in which voters go to the polls at a time of their choosing.
• Iowa's caucuses on Jan. 3 are essentially neighborhood political meetings, all starting at 8 p.m. EST and each requiring voters to publicly declare their presidential preference.
• Which New Hampshire is free to ignore.
  

Read the full article here.
While I don't think anyone should be swayed by how New Hampshites vote. The last quoting shows why I would give more credence to how New Hampshowites vote.

What is the Iowa Caucus?

Excerpted from Wikipedia, description of the Iowa Caucus.

• The Iowa caucus is an electoral event in which Iowa residents elect delegates to the county convention to which their precinct belongs. There are 99 counties in Iowa and thus 99 conventions. These county conventions then select delegates for both Iowa's Congressional District Convention and the State Convention, which eventually choose the delegates for the National Convention. The Iowa caucus is noteworthy for the amount of media attention it receives during U.S. presidential election years: Since 1972, the Iowa caucus has been the first major electoral event of the nominating process for President of the United States. It has served as an early indication of which candidates for President might win the nomination of their political party at that party's national convention. The next Iowa caucus is on January 3, 2008.

• History

• The Iowa caucus is commonly recognized as the first step in the United States Presidential nomination process for both the Democrats and the Republicans. It came to national attention in 1972, with a series of articles in the New York Times on how non-primary states would choose their delegates for the national conventions. Democratic operative Norma S. Matthews, state co-chair of the George McGovern campaign, helped engineer the early January start for Iowa. McGovern finished second to Edmund Muskie in the first early Hawkeye state caucus, but the momentum was palpable for an ultimate Democratic nomination in 1972 for McGovern in Miami. Four years later, the Iowa Republican Party scheduled its party caucuses on the same date as the Democrats...

• Process

• The Iowa caucus operates very differently from the more common primary election used by most other states (see U.S. presidential primary). The caucus is generally defined as a "gathering of neighbors." Rather than going to polls and casting ballots, Iowans gather at a set location in each of Iowa's 1784 precincts. Typically, these meetings occur in schools, churches, or public libraries. The caucuses are held every two years, but the ones that receive national attention are the presidential preference caucuses held every four years. In addition to the voting and the presidential preference choices, caucus-goers begin the process of writing their parties’ platforms by introducing resolutions...

• Republican Party process

• For the Republicans, the Iowa caucus follows (and should not be confused with) the Ames Straw Poll in August of the preceding year. Out of the five Ames Straw Poll iterations, 1987 is the only year in which the winner of the Ames Straw Poll has not gone on to win the Iowa caucus.
• In the Republican caucuses, each voter casts his or her vote by secret ballot. Voters are presented blank sheets of paper with no candidate names on them. After listening to some campaigning for each candidate by caucus participants, they write their choices down and the Republican Party of Iowa tabulates the results at each precinct and transmits them to the media.^[1] The non-binding results are tabulated and reported to the state party which releases the results to the media. Delegates from the precinct caucuses go on to the County Convention, which chooses delegates to the District Convention, which in turn selects delegates to the State Convention. Thus it is the Republican State Convention, not the precinct caucuses, which select the ultimate delegates to the Republican National Convention in Iowa.

• Democratic Party process

• The vote is literally determined by where each voter stands.
• The process used by the Democrats is more complex than the Republican Party caucus process. Each precinct divides its delegate seats among the candidates in proportion to caucus goers' votes.
• Participants indicate their support for a particular candidate by standing in a designated area of the caucus site (forming a "preference group"). An area may also be designated for undecided participants. Then, for roughly 30 minutes, participants try to convince their neighbors to support their candidates. Each preference group might informally deputize a few members to recruit supporters from the other groups and, in particular, from among those undecided. Undecided participants might visit each preference group to ask its members about their candidate.
• After 30 minutes, the electioneering is temporarily halted and the supporters for each candidate are counted. At this point, the caucus officials determine which candidates are "viable". Depending on the number of county delegates to be elected, the "viability threshold" can be anywhere from 15% to 25% of attendees. For a candidate to receive any delegates from a particular precinct, he or she must have the support of at least the percentage of participants required by the viability threshold. Once viability is determined, participants have roughly another 30 minutes to "realign": the supporters of inviable candidates may find a viable candidate to support, join together with supporters of another inviable candidate to secure a delegate for one of the two, or choose to abstain. This "realignment" is a crucial distinction of caucuses in that (unlike a primary) being a voter's "second candidate of choice" can help a candidate.
• When the voting is closed, a final head count is conducted, and each precinct apportions delegates to the county convention. These numbers are reported to the state party, which counts the total number of delegates for each candidate and reports the results to the media. Most of the participants go home, leaving a few to finish the business of the caucus: each preference group elects its delegates, and then the groups reconvene to elect local party officers and discuss the platform.
• The delegates chosen by the precinct then go to a later caucus, the county convention, to choose delegates to the district convention and state convention. Most of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention are selected at the district convention, with the remaining ones selected at the state convention. Delegates to each level of convention are initially bound to support their chosen candidate but can later switch in a process very similar to what goes on at the precinct level; however, as major shifts in delegate support are rare, the media declares the candidate with the most delegates on the precinct caucus night the winner, and relatively little attention is paid to the later caucuses.

• 2008 process

• Main articles: Iowa Democratic caucuses, 2008 and Iowa Republican caucuses, 2008
• Participants in the Iowa Caucus will be as follows (in alphabetical order by last name):
• Democrats: Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson
• Republicans: Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson

• Controversy

• There is a debate over the effectiveness and usefulness of caucuses in Iowa. One criticism is that the caucuses are a step backwards from the right to a secret ballot. Caucus participants must publicly state their opinion and vote, leading to natural problems such as peer pressure from fellow neighbors and embarrassment over who his/her real pick might be. Another criticism involves the sheer amount of time these events take up. The Iowa caucus lasts two hours, preventing people who must work, who are sick, or must take care of their children from casting their vote. Absentee voting is also barred, so soldiers who come from Iowa, but must serve in the military lose their vote. The final criticism is the complexity of the rules in terms of how one's vote counts, as it is not a simple popular vote. Each precinct's vote may be weighed differently due to its past voting record. Ties can be solved by picking a name out of a hat or a simple coin toss, leading to anger over the true democratic nature of these caucuses. [Read all here]

I have posted this to let all o y'all in those other 49 states read and decide on whether or not it is relevent for this to be the deciding factor on how you should vote in your states caucus or primary and decide if this is democratically American.

Fred Thompson Doesn't Pander

Found this in Gather.com.

• Fred Thompson Doesn't Pander
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• by Rob Port December 22, 2007 07:36 PM EST

• You gotta love a guy who will stand in the middle of Iowa farmland and refuse to pander to the subsidy-hungry ag industry:

  AKD: What will you do for the farmers of Bremer County?

  FT: (laughs)

  AKD: You knew this was coming, right?

  FT: I would continue to enjoy the fruits of their labor. I've been looking all over Iowa for a bad steak and I can't find it. Been trying my best. It's not a matter of what I would do for the farmers. Farmers are not looking for a president to hand them something. Farmers want fair treatment and a chance to prosper in a free economy and that's what I would help ensure. There's a lot of programs we've got out there, some of which are good programs, some of which are not. And I think that we need to work our way through that and make sure we're doing what's good for the country, not just the farmers, not just the people of Iowa, not just the people of Tennessee. But good for the country. A sound policy that makes sense. I think there's a lot more that we could do for the working farmer in terms of ecological programs and environmental programs - land conservation, soil conservation - that would be fair and it would be beneficial to the nation and to Iowa and to our country. We're going to have to phase out the corporate welfare system we've got, however. There are extremely rich people living in skyscrapers in Manhattan that are receiving subsidy payments. I think that's wrong. I'd put a stop to that if it was within my power. That still continues in this latest Farm Bill and it's not right. There ought to be a cutoff at some level and it's not right ot have millionaires receiving farm subsidies.

  Quite right.

  I think Thompson’s absolute refusal to pander - whether it be to special interest groups, political “kingmakers” and/or the media - is a big reason why he gets tagged with the “lazy” campaign label. His principles are iron, and he doesn’t bend them so that he can kiss the cheeks of the people who are used to being smooched by politicians.

  This has cost him dearly, politically, but at some point you’d think rank-and-file conservatives would want to stand up for a guy with principles like this rather than just go along with the judgment of the spurned political/media elites. [source]

This was taken from an article found here.

• Fred Thompson stumps in Waverly
  
• by JANELLE PENNY, news1@waverlynewspapers.com
  Thursday, December 20, 2007 11:48 AM CST
• A weekend of hectic, last-minute scheduling finally paid off for Bob Brunkhorst when presidential candidate Fred Thompson and wife, Jeri, made their first visit to Bremer County Tuesday afternoon at his invitation.
  
  Brunkhorst, the county chair for Thompson, asked campaign schedulers about a month ago to bring the former Tennessee senator to the area. The campaign announced Friday that it would swing through Waverly for about half an hour between its Mason City and Waterloo stops. The former state senator immediately began calling friends and potential supporters to ensure a friendly crowd greeted Thompson...
  

• Janelle Penny photo - Fred Thompson and his wife, Jeri, chat with Waverly Fire Chief Dan McKenzie Tuesday afternoon.

• Thompson sat down with Waverly Newspapers Editor Anelia K. Dimitrova at the Waverly Newspapers office for an exclusive 10-minute interview. Two national journalists who had covered the Bill Clinton and Magic Johnson appearance in Waterloo earlier in the afternoon showed up for Thompson’s sit-down session, but were asked by the campaign to wait outside.
• “[The exclusive interview with Waverly Newspapers] was the campaign’s idea,” Brunkhorst said. “The campaign just wants to make sure they give local newspapers an exclusive, because they don’t want a ‘big media’ campaign. They want to make sure they’re focusing on the grassroots.”
• At Waverly Newspapers, Thompson talked about America’s place in the world and explained his reasons for running.

• “We’re at a crossroads right now,” he said. “I think we have got to come to terms with our position in the world, for the 21st century. We know what our role has been since World War II, but it’s a different, more dangerous, more challenging, complex world than we’ve lived in before. We are facing an economic train wreck."
• “We are on a spending path that cannot be sustained in terms of our mandatory spending programs, as well as our discretionary spending comes with no restraint,” Thompson continued. “And we’ll be fine for awhile, but projections will show that we’re on an unsustainable path. Those are the things that are primarily on my mind. The unity of the American people is going to be required in order to deal with those challenges. That has to do with the kind of place our generation leaves to the next.

Click the top link to read the full q& a.

Fred Thompson's Interview on CNN

Here are a few snippets from Fred Thompson's interview with Dana Bash from CNN.

• DECORAH, Iowa (CNN) -- Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson is trying to become a GOP contender in record time.
• 
• GOP hopeful Fred Thompson opened up about his campaign with CNN's Dana Bash.
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• 1 of 2
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• "It's a little late in the process for me to be coy. I want you to know that I think I'm that man," he told an audience of more than 100 in Dubuque, Iowa.
• Thompson just started a 15-day bus tour to 50-plus Iowa cities. He'll be in the state nearly every day until the January 3 caucuses.
• To watch his campaign is to witness a candidate trying to shake the rap that he has no fire in his belly.
• His red meat speeches are redder. His arguments for why he should be president are sharper.
• "My friends, I've been there, and I can tell you we are just one successful terrorist plan away from a nuclear attack on this country," Thompson told Iowa voters. "All the experts know that it's the kind of world we live in. It's not the time for on-the-job training."
• Thompson has had some good news in Iowa lately. He was widely praised for a a stellar performance at last week's Des Moines Register debate. He even uses a key moment -- refusing to raise his hand in response to the moderator's question about global warming -- as a prime example of his leadership.
• "I just asked my colleagues on the stage there, in effect, I said, 'Guys, how are you going to stand up to leaders of Iran and North Korea if you can't stand up to an overbearing moderator?' " Thompson tells crowds.
• Thompson also snagged a key endorsement from Iowa Rep. Steve King, an influential Republican and vocal leader against illegal immigration.
  

As much as it pains me to do this, I will post what Fred Thompson had to say about Mike Huckabee's recent "bunker mentality statement.

• "I don't think Gov. Huckabee appreciates the kind of world that we live in," Thompson said. "I think he's under the impression if we're nicer and sweeter to the bad guys that maybe they'll love us. Unfortunately, that's not the case."

Read all here.

BD Bopper Anounces Huckabee Conference

Wow, what a buzz?! Is it the coffee? This time I don't think so. There is so much going on right now. BD Bopper from "Oh Baby That's What I Like" has a post about Mike Huckabee announcing a press conference. There is supposed to be an announcement. Check out all the details here.

Dick Morris Sets the Record Straight on Mike Huckabee's Fiscal Record

More from Dick Morris. I'll tell ya what this dude is smart and knowledgeable. Here is some of what he has to say about Mike's fiscal record in Arkansas.

Dick Morris' Political Insider

Huckabee Is a Fiscal Conservative

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 7:59 AM By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

As Mike Huckabee rises in the polls, an inevitable process of vetting him for conservative credentials is under way in which people who know nothing of Arkansas or of the circumstances of his governorship weigh in knowingly about his record. As his political consultant in the early '90s and as one who has been following Arkansas politics for 30 years, let me clue you in: Mike Huckabee is a fiscal conservative. How could anyone in the political sphere have been closer to Mike Huckabee than Dick Morris? Thought so. A recent column by Bob Novak excoriated Huckabee for a "47 percent increase in state tax burden." But during Huckabee's years in office, total state tax burden — all 50 states combined — rose by twice as much: 98 percent, increasing from $743 billion in 1993 to $1.47 trillion in 2005. Way to tell it like it is Mr. Morris! In Arkansas, the income tax when he took office was 1 percent for the poorest taxpayers and 7 percent for the richest, exactly where it stood when he left the statehouse 11 years later. But, in the interim, he doubled the standard deduction and the child care credit, repealed capital gains taxes for home sales, lowered the capital gains rate, expanded the homestead exemption, and set up tax-free savings accounts for medical care and college tuition. Most impressively, when he had to pass an income tax surcharge amid the drop in revenues after Sept. 11, 2001, he repealed it three years later when he didn't need it any longer. He raised the sales tax one cent in 11 years and did that only after the courts ordered him to do so. (He also got voter approval for a one-eighth cent hike for parks and recreation.) He wants to repeal the income tax, abolish the IRS, and institute a "fair tax" based on consumption, and he opposes any tax increase for Social Security. And he can win in Iowa. Again, above. When voters who have decided not to back Rudy Giuliani because of his social positions consider the contest between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, they will have no difficulty choosing between a real social conservative and an ersatz one. Remember this... Romney, who began as a pro-lifer and switched in order to win in Massachusetts, and then flipped back again, cannot compete with a lifelong pro-lifer, Huckabee. Got that? Good. But Huckabee's strength is not just his orthodoxy on gay marriage, abortion, gun control and the usual litany. It is his opening of the religious right to a host of new issues. He speaks firmly for the right to life, but then notes that our responsibility for children does not end with childbirth. His answer to the rise of medical costs is novel and exciting. "Eighty percent of all medical spending," he says, "is for chronic diseases." Coming up next is Mr. Morris' take on why Mike's view on preventative health care is not a tax and spend liberal view, but rather a conservative tax saving view. Ya ready? Okie-dokie, here ya go. So he urges an all-out attack on teen smoking and overeating and a push for exercise not as the policies of a big-government liberal but as the requisites of a fiscal conservative anxious to save tax money. So what happens if Huckabee wins in Iowa? Read the rest to find out the answer.