Heeeeere Comes 2008!

27 Nov, 2006 by John Hawkins

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Oh, come on, you know you want to think about it. And, the media knows you do.

Hence, the look-ahead-by-looking-back piece from the AP today on famous moments from N.H. and Iowa primary history– tailor-made for the political junkie who’s sick of pondering the unsuspenseful question of whether the Dems will act a fool or not.

Indulge. You know you want to.

1992: Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s relationship with Gennifer Flowers threatens his candidacy. Clinton rebounds with a strong second place finish in the Democratic primary behind favorite son Paul E. Tsongas from neighboring Massachusetts and declares himself the “comeback kid.”

Perhaps a poor choice of words given the allegations and future revelations.

I totally looked for this one on YouTube, but no dice. Someone really needs to get to work uploading obscure political clips like this for the three people like me who would be interested in watching them:

1972: Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine stands in front of the conservative Union Leader newspaper of Manchester’s building in a snowstorm to defend his wife against an attack published by the paper. Muskie, the Democratic front-runner, is reported to have cried during the rallying, severely undermining his candidacy. Muskie claims the reported tears were melting snowflakes.

No show:

1952: Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was commanding NATO in Europe, defeats longtime Republican leader Sen. Robert A. Taft of Ohio without ever coming to the state during the primary.

Understatement:

1984: Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado shocks the political establishment by defeating former Vice President Walter Mondale in the Democratic primary by 10 percentage points. Mondale goes on to win the nomination, but loses the election.

Death knell:

2004: The two perceived front-runners in the Democratic contest _ Missouri’s Dick Gephardt and Vermont’s Howard Dean _ shower each other with negative ads. Taking the high road, Massachusetts’ John Kerry eschews negatives ads, puts his money into Iowa and winds up in first place. He goes on to win the nomination.

First of many “moral victories”:

1976: Jimmy Carter, an obscure Georgia governor who began grass-roots campaigning in Iowa a year before the caucuses, comes in a distant second in the Democratic contest to undecided, but wins the most votes for an actual candidate. Carter uses the momentum of his Iowa “victory” to achieve victory in the New Hampshire primary.

Truly an inspiring model for the modern Kossian Left of Nedrenaline.

Meanwhile, the Post drops this bombshell: Incumbents are hard to pick off.

Only a few Democrats and Republicans, however, are considered vulnerable. Still, Republicans could be buffeted by a string of retirements that would make the field more competitive. As of now, the two most vulnerable Democratic senators appear to be Tim Johnson (S.D.) and Mary Landrieu (La.), while the most vulnerable Republicans are Wayne Allard (Colo.), Norm Coleman (Minn.) and John E. Sununu (N.H.).

Yep, we dug a hole. It’s gonna take some climbing to get out. Grab your carabiners!

And, Dean Barnett notices that Andrew Sullivan is all of a sudden very interested in fairly and even-handedly dissecting the tenets of the Mormon faith on his blog during “Mormon Week on the Dish!”

Strangely enough, the same Sullivan seemed unconcerned with the tenets of the faith when he was pushing for a Mormon Majority Leader in Harry Reid. But now that we’re talking about Republican, traditional-marriage-backing Mormon Mitt Romney as an ’08 candidate, Mormonism is of the utmost importance.

Update: Fixed some links in there for y’all, in case you were wondering where they were. They disappeared on me, but I got them back.

Also, I’m Mary Katharine Ham. You can visit me at Townhall. Please do!