And Now -- Something Completely Different

By Antony J. CAlderoni

By the fall of 2007, political pundits, journalists, and television newscasters had all but given the up-coming presidential election to New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

In a poll conducted by WNBC dating from October 29 through November 1, 2007, Sen. Clinton was positioned more than 31 points up from the closest competitor, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, while Giuliani lead the way on the Republican ticket followed by Sen. John McCain, who was 13 points behind.

Fast-forward only three months and it is clear how much things can change over the course of a primary season. Campaign strategies, questions of race and gender, and political movements reminiscent of cult followings defined the political primary landscape in 2008 and it was Iowa that set the tone for the primary season moving into Super Tuesday, February 5, 2008.

With Clinton and Obama first and second in nationwide Democratic polls, former Tennessee Sen. John Edwards looked to launch his campaign with a strong showing in Iowa. Edwards had practically moved to the state after losing his bid at the vice presidency in 2004. Edwards looked to Iowa as a state that would define his offering as a viable populist candidate with a message that could resonate nationwide.

Obama announced his candidacy in Springfield (Ill.) just shy of one year before the general election date in 2008. Aside from the inherent difficulties ahead, false claims about his religious belief shook the Obama campaign early on and added to Clinton’s healthy lead in nationwide polls.

From the inception of Obama’s campaign, his electability was drawn into question. His largest obstacle (according to the news media and political pundits): His ability as an African-American to secure the white middle-class vote.

Obama looked to make an impression in the American political landscape and worked extensively leading up to the election in Iowa to build a ground operation that would come to be the envy of the primary season.

Clinton, the candidate favored in political polls for nearly a year, saw Iowa as an easy victory. She campaigned lightly, looking to place her money and time in states that carried far more weight in the delegate count. Because of her early reluctance to campaign heavily in Iowa, Clinton handed her commanding lead to Obama and Edwards.

By 8:30 P.M. on January 3rd, the Democratic Primary had its first winner. With his solid victory in the Iowa Caucus, Obama solidified his position as the "caucus" candidate by winning every future caucus except New Mexico and Nevada, states in which a Hispanic population propelled Clinton to victory by slim margins.

Obama went without a victory for over three weeks until he clinched the key battlefield of South Carolina. He capitalized on a historic turnout of African American voters, clinching more than 80 percent of their support and robbing the Clintons of the vote they once solidly held. The Illinois Senator’s overwhelming victory in South Carolina triggered Former President Bill Clinton to make statements which many in the African American community claimed played into race baiting.

The Clinton camp went on to lose the African American vote in every state after South Carolina.

Edwards left Iowa with a distant second place finish. His gamble in Iowa nearly bankrupted his campaign and marked an end to his presidential bid in 2008. Following a weak third place finish in New Hampshire, Nevada, and even his state of birth, South Carolina, he dropped out of the race. His announcement would come, however, only after the extraneous Michigan and Florida primaries.

After her disappointing third place finish in Iowa, Clinton began to show signs of weakness. Prior to her loss in Iowa, the New York Senator never lost an election. She was so heavily favored going into the primary season that her loss weakened her aura of electability. Clinton, however, claimed to have "found [her] voice" after her win in New Hampshire. With the help of a few tears, Clinton pulled an upset, retaking the state she once counted on as an easy win from Obama.

She then followed her victory in New Hampshire with another in Nevada. Though she also won in Florida and Michigan, Clinton was awarded no delegates because the states broke from party rules by moving their election dates up before the Feb 5th date.

Like Clinton, the GOP national favorite, Rudy Giuliani, was a latecomer to Iowa; in fact he chose not to campaign in the state at all. Giuliani instead began his campaign in Florida as a strong favorite leading up to the Iowa primary on January 3rd.

His gamble would be in vain. His failure to campaign early on resulted in a 20-point lead loss to McCain in his key battleground state of Florida. Following his unexpected loss, Giuliani dropped out of the race and endorsed McCain, ending his bid at the presidency in 2008.

Because Giuliani chose not to campaign in Iowa, the former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, came to take the reins as the favored candidate. Romney, a successful businessman, entered the race as a strong candidate with the personal wealth to finance his own campaign and remain competitive up to and beyond Super Tuesday on February 5th.

Despite running as a conservative Republican, Romney worked extensively as the Head of State in Massachusetts on a resume that even the most liberal governors would aspire to. He provided state-funded health care to Massachusetts residents, stated that abortion should be "Safe and legal," supported gun control, and even supported a domestic partnership movement that many conservatives considered an endorsement of gay marriage.

Romney’s sudden shift to the right is what proved ultimately to be his downfall, as his message simply did not resonate with the conservative GOP constituents. Romney voraciously attacked Sen. McCain and Gov. Huckabee in both Iowa and New Hampshire and gained little more than a second place finish in both races. After a series of losses, the most decisive of which was Florida, and spending over 35 million of his personal wealth, Romney stepped out of the race just after his dismal performance on February 5.

Without a doubt, the biggest surprise leading up to the Iowa GOP primary was the performance of a little-known former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee. As a former Baptist minister, Huckabee leveraged the power of the right-wing Christian conservatives and took the first state of the contest.

It was the power of a GOP unsatisfied with the likes of Mitt Romney and McCain that propelled Huckabee to take not just Iowa but nearly every Southern state during the February 5th Super Tuesday election.

Gov. Huckabee’s ability to galvanize the Christian conservative wing of the Republican Party was instrumental in not only his success but also the success of McCain. Because of his tenacity after his Iowa win, Huckabee stayed in the race despite a series of losses leading into Super Tuesday. On February 5th, however, Huckabee drew votes away from Romney, thereby neutralizing McCain’s largest threat and propelling the Senator from Arizona to the cherished presumptive Republican nominee status.

Huckabee no doubt helped McCain, but McCain still had to earn the Republican nomination state by state in a brutal contest, a contest that no one thought he had the money or campaign staff to win just months before. Entering into the new year, McCain was left for dead on the side of the campaign road. He had run out of money and his organization was in shambles. Like Clinton however, McCain reclaimed his candidacy in New Hampshire and went into Super Tuesday without a glance behind him.

McCain’s appeal to a more moderate Republican constituency proved to be his greatest asset. McCain began his string of victories in New Hampshire, a state fought viciously by Romney. Capitalizing on the momentum of an upset in New Hampshire, he quickly moved to South Carolina and Florida where he captured the spotlight from Giuliani.

As Super Tuesday came to culmination, McCain had the momentum he needed he needed to end Romney’s – and all other candidates’ – possibilities of the GOP nomination. February 5th was the day that the nation found its Republican candidate.

While the Republicans gained an effective frontrunner and presumptive winner, the Super Tuesday primaries did little on the Democratic side to decide a clear frontrunner.

However by Feb. 6, 2008, there was one unquestioned winner: Obama. Clinton’s one-year grasp on national opinion polls evaporated and left Obama and Clinton neck and neck in pledged delegates. Though slightly behind in both pledged and super delegates (party members who remain uncommitted and are free to vote at the convention as they see fit), Obama came out of Super Tuesday up nearly 30 points in national opinion polls.

After only three months, McCain effectively clinched the Republican nomination while Obama out-raised and simply outmatched Clinton, diminishing her commanding lead as the Democratic frontrunner.

An uneventful election that was prematurely penciled into history only three months ago shifted from a presumption to a rollercoaster of political ups and downs.