Iowa Caucus
Its good to see Hillary in third place. Its no secret I cannot stand the woman. Her moralising over the gambling and computer games, her willingness to use government power to ‘help’ people whether they want it or not. This will all lead to more executive power, less oversight and more abuses of power.
Obama is definitely my preferred Democratic candidate (not just because he’s from Chicago), and its good to see he also won most votes from Independents. He’s still not much of a liberal, but he seems to have less of the messianic zeal which Clinton displays. His plans for healthcare are just as bonkers though.
On the Republican side. Well, I’m disappointed with Huckabee winning. He, as others have pointed out, is not a very savoury character and I disagree with everything I’ve heard from him.
Ron Paul getting 10% was nice, even though I increasingly find things I really disagree with him over, he’s still the closest to a liberal candidate there is in the race. He also garnered most independent votes, polling a few percent more than McCain.
It will be interesting to see how this all pans out. I think the most likely outcome I could feel reasonably happy with would be Obama with a Republican congress so they can keep checks on each other.
Ideally I’d love to have a liberal in power with a liberal congress, but considering there’s no liberal candidates, there’s not much chance of that…
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January 4th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I could not disagree more on some of this..
Huckabee winning is great news, because he will be destroyed in the real battle for the Whitehouse. Go Huckabee go!
So an ideal solution would be an Obama presidency with his hands tied behind his back by a Republican house who will just want to see him fail and have a totally opposing view on foreign policy.
I would be happy with any of the three front runners in last night’s Democratic caucus in the Whitehouse after the Bush years. But as you knwo I think Hillary has the best chance to deliver a win.
January 4th, 2008 at 11:31 am
That is a good point on Huckabee…
I want limited government - both parties are for big government and more (badly thought out) legislation.
My hope is that stalemate will occur preventing the worst excesses of both parties from being realised.
Unfortunately, on the big things they agree. Both are economic populist, anti-trade, anti-immigration… Both are in favour of restrictions on personal freedom - Republicans because they think things are immoral, Democrats because they don’t trust people to choose for themselves. Both want stronger federal government, seem to think that government can do no wrong in their hands and seem happy to turn a blind eye to the abuses of power all around them.
Its a very depressing time for liberals. I don’t see how the Democrats would be any better, except they are now late arrivals to the anti-war position, not that most seem to mean it.