 |
|
December 2, 2014
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon With its colorful cache of purples and oranges and reds, COLLARD GREEN SLAW is a marvelous mood booster --- not to mention just downright delish
April 18, 2014
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Clarifying one of the greatest philosophical conundrums in theology
John Ericson: Trying hard to be 'positive' but never succeeding? Blame Your Brain
The Kosher Gourmet by Julie Rothman Almondy, flourless torta del re (Italian king's cake), has royal roots, is simple to make, . . . but devour it because it's simply delicious
April 14, 2014
Rabbi Dr Naftali Brawer: Passover frees us from the tyranny of time
Eric Schulzke: First degree: How America really recovered from a murder epidemic
Georgia Lee: When love is not enough: Teaching your kids about the realities of adult relationships
Gordon Pape: How you can tell if your financial adviser is setting you up for potential ruin
Dana Dovey: Up to 500,000 people die each year from hepatitis C-related liver disease. New Treatment Has Over 90% Success Rate
Justin Caba: Eating Watermelon Can Help Control High Blood Pressure
April 11, 2014
Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Silence is much more than golden
Susan Swann: How to value a child for who he is, not just what he does
Susan Scutti: A Simple Blood Test Might Soon Diagnose Cancer
Chris Weller: Have A Slow Metabolism? Let Science Speed It Up For You
April 9, 2014
Jonathan Tobin: Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame?
Samuel G. Freedman: A resolution 70 years later for a father's unsettling legacy of ashes from Dachau
Jessica Ivins: A resolution 70 years later for a father's unsettling legacy of ashes from Dachau
Matthew Mientka: How Beans, Peas, And Chickpeas Cleanse Bad Cholesterol and Lowers Risk of Heart Disease
April 8, 2014
Dana Dovey: Coffee Drinkers Rejoice! Your Cup Of Joe Can Prevent Death From Liver Disease
Chris Weller: Electric 'Thinking Cap' Puts Your Brain Power Into High Gear
April 4, 2014
Amy Peterson: A life of love: How to build lasting relationships with your children
John Ericson: Older Women: Save Your Heart, Prevent Stroke Don't Drink Diet
John Ericson: Why 50 million Americans will still have spring allergies after taking meds
Sarah Boesveld: Teacher keeps promise to mail thousands of former students letters written by their past selves
April 2, 2014
Dan Barry: Should South Carolina Jews be forced to maintain this chimney built by Germans serving the Nazis?
Frank Clayton: Get happy: 20 scientifically proven happiness activities
Susan Scutti: It's Genetic! Obesity and the 'Carb Breakdown' Gene
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Jan. 10, 2008
/ 3 Shevat5768
Did NH and Iowa launch a marathon?
By
George Will
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Like the Roman god Janus, from which this godforsaken month takes its name, the two parties' voters in two states have looked in different directions. After six months of intense campaigning, in just six transformative days Iowa spoke and contrarian New Hampshire said: On the other hand . . .
These states perhaps started a marathon — it may not reach a decisive crescendo on Feb. 5 when 22 states choose — between two formidable Democratic candidates with ardent constituencies. Meanwhile, Republicans, illustrating this year's elemental asymmetry, may be contemplating a choice among John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.
If McCain, who in 2000 won Michigan after winning New Hampshire, takes it again on Tuesday, Romney will be, in E.E. Cummings's words, "a recent footprint in the sand of was." None of the four candidates is close to enkindling a substantial plurality of the party to a temperature comparable to that of Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's cohorts.
The wrong question about Obama has been "Where's the beef?" — "beef" meaning policy substance. Policy papers in profusion can be ginned up by campaign advisers, of whom Obama has plenty. The right question is whether he is a souffl¿ — pretty and pleasing, but mostly air and apt to collapse if jostled. Presidential politics is an exhausting, hard, occasionally even cruel, vetting process — necessarily so, given the stakes — and now that he has been bumped hard we shall see if there is steel beneath the sleek gray suit.
| FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO INFLUENTIAL NEWSLETTER |
| Every weekday NewsAndOpinion.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". HUNDREDS of columnists and cartoonists regularly appear. Sign up for the daily update. It's free. Just click here. |
|
Regarding Clinton, Iowa Democrats seemed to experience a great flinch, contemplating, then recoiling from, the prospect of a Clinton restoration. New Hampshire Democrats, however, demonstrated that her candidacy may not be so brittle after all. But Iowa might have been a harbinger of flinches to come, especially if her husband continues to behave as he perhaps cannot help but behave.
Sixteen years ago, the Clintons advertised themselves as generational archetypes. How right they were.
Led Zeppelin's recent reunion concert in London exemplified a tiresome phenomenon — geezer rock groups catering to baby boomer nostalgia. Speaking of the boomers' inexhaustible fascination with themselves, Bill Clinton has transformed his wife's campaign into his narcissism tour. As the New York Times dryly described a New Hampshire appearance the day after her Iowa rejection: "He talked about his administration, his foundation work and some about his wife."
She, the afterthought, arrived in New Hampshire spoiling for a fight but missing the point. Mountaineering on molehills, she said Obama has changed some positions. But people inebriated by "hope" for "change" are not smitten about issues, concerning which the differences between him and her must be measured by ideological micrometers. Voters are attracted to him as iron filings are to a magnet. Mind hardly enters into this response to his nimbus of novelty, and it is impossible to reason people out of affiliations they have not been reasoned into.
The Clintons' decision to cast the election as a bridge back to the 1990s — to themselves; another bridge to nowhere — has her campaign, in characteristically retrospective mode, stressing that by the time her husband won his first 1992 contest, in Georgia, he had lost six others.
But Georgia's primary was on March 3, a month later than this year's Feb. 5, 24-state cymbal-crash event. Jay Cost, a University of Chicago doctoral candidate, notes that although Clinton did indeed lose seven of the first nine contests, he lost to four different competitors: Tom Harkin, Bob Kerrey, Paul Tsongas and Jerry Brown. That limp down memory lane underscores how much time has flown since the Clintons were fresh faces.
Iowa's results created what Sen. Clinton had hoped to delay for many weeks — a binary choice, her against one rival. Now she, like her rival, must show her steel. Republicans must show staying power.
Huckabee — Where is Pakistan? Who is Darwin? Why is Wall Street so icky to Main Street? — may be a fluke of the nominating schedule that put Iowa, planted thick with evangelicals, first. He won just 14 percent of Iowa's nonevangelicals, among whom he finished fourth. Where would McCain be if the schedule had not offered him an early chance to romance New Hampshire again? Giuliani, supposedly able to compete in the Northeast, spent $3 million on advertising without elevating his New Hampshire numbers, but he waits down the road, where 97.2 percent of the convention delegates — the currency by which the prize will be purchased — remain unallocated.
A marathon would reveal almost everything relevant about the candidates. If, afterward, either party suffers buyers' remorse, the buyers will have no one to blame.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
George Will's latest book is "With a Happy Eye but: America and the World, 1997-2002" to purchase a copy, click here. Comment on this column by clicking here.
Archives
© 2006 WPWG
|
|
Columnists
Toons
Lifestyles
|
