Political Forecast

From Todd Dorman this morning on his blog in his discussion of “losers” from last night’s caucuses:

“Republicans — Could this party be any more screwed up right now? Huckabee was a great caucus candidate, but he could be a general election disaster, especially if Obama wins. Romney and Giuliani are fading fast. (Did you notice Ron Paul had three times as much Iowa support as Rudy?) Thompson is sleepwalking. The GOP’s best hope may be McCain. He’s a likeable, solid candidate who could have general election appeal, especially among independents. His strength, experience, could be contrasted with Obama’s weakness.”

I still don’t think that McCain is the kind of savior the GOP needs, but Dorman’s right about the Republican party. They’ve got some major issues to face. They’ve been able to hold on to this coalition of social conservatives and fiscal conservatives–with views that oftentimes conflict or pull the party in opposite directions–in presidential races for a long time. In fact, one of my political science professors at Drake and KCCI political analyst Dennis Goldford calls this group the “Republican presidential coalition.” And as Jeff Greenfield mentioned on CBS last night, the party is doomed if either Huckabee or Giuliani end up with the nod simply because of how divisive they can be for the party.

Republicans have a lot to be proud of in last night’s turnout, but they didn’t have nearly enough to compete with Democrats. As Markos pointed out here, last night’s total turnout was around 356,000. If you consider the entire voting universe for both Democrats and Republicans, Mike Huckabee (last night’s Republican winner) still came in fourth behind Obama, Edwards, and Clinton.