I should have resolved not to blog about politics in 2008. That's because the evidence is pretty clear most Americans don't care much about politics. I'm not saying Americans don't care about Democracy. They do. It's politics they can live without.
I got my first real lesson on this from former Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina. For those of you who don't remember Helms, he was die hard conservative republican who retired in 2003 and reminded me in many ways of Larry Craig (pre-sex scandal of course). Helms was a champion of rural interests in North Carolina, especially tobacco farmers, and was instrumental in bringing federal dollars to rural parts of the state. He also had a bit of a reputation as a southern hick, and his early stance opposing desegregation only added to that view, but in covering Helms when I worked in North Carolina in the 1980's, I found him to be extremely politically astute.
In 1990, he was up for re-election against the Democratic former Mayor of Charlotte, Harvey Gantt. It seemed to everyone to be a political mismatch that Helms would win easily, yet he was running a very hard campaign. I really didn't understand why and I got the opportunity to ask him about it one day. Helms explained to me that 45% of the people in North Carolina supported him and 45% supported his opponent, so the real battle was going to be over the 10% who were undecided and he was taking no chances with them.
The more I thought about it, it seemed to me Helms was right, and it made me wonder why we were spending so much airtime on a political campaign that only 10% of our audience had any real interest in knowing any more about.
I thought about Helms' words the other day when a viewer called asking why we weren't doing more coverage of Republican Presidential Candidate Ron Paul. She wasn't asking us to do more political coverage in general mind you. She wanted more coverage of the candidate she already supports, perhaps in the somewhat naive belief that if the media payed more attention to Paul, he would have a chance to win the nomination. As Helms might say, a large percentage of the electorate has already decided they will not support Ron Paul, and no amount of so-called 'free media' is going to change that. As for her, she had no interest in the objective political coverage we might offer. She had already made up her mind, and wanted more coverage of the candidate she had chosen.
But I do think 2008 is different from normal elections in the fact that so many Americans haven't decided who they will support for President. We have a rare convergence of circumstances that make this election strange and very unpredictable, including a very unpopular incumbent, a sitting Vice-President who is not running for President, very crowded and competitive fields of candidates for both political parties and the wild-card of a possible independent candidacy by New York Mayor Micheal Bloomberg.
It's a bit of an outrageous year politically, and so here are my outrageous political predictions for 2008.
The Republican nominee will be John McCain: I predict McCain will win New Hampshire and that will springboard him past Giuliani in big states on Super Tuesday. McCain is just conservative enough to get religious right support should Huckabee falter and his steadfast support of the surge in Iraq shows he is politically courageous and has some foreign policy smarts. He's run a horrible campaign, but I think he takes it anyway.
The Democratic nominee will be John Edwards: The last poll I saw from Iowa had Edwards finishing second. I think he'll actually finish first and his candidacy will steamroll from there. I don't buy the argument that America isn't ready to elect a black or a woman President. I just think Edwards will win because he has a clear message of the 'two Americas' that resonates with so many, especially Democrats. The economy is the number one issue right now, and Edwards is speaking to it on a level that no other candidate is with a passion others seem to lack. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I can certainly see its appeal.
Michael Bloomberg will run and has a shot at winning: Some political experts are saying Bloomberg won't run because he has no chance of getting the 270 electoral votes needed to win. I don't think he does either, but I think he'll run anyway, spend hundreds of millions of his own dollars on a 'big state' strategy and earn enough electoral votes to throw the election into Congress. If Bloomberg was also the popular vote leader, a Democratic Congress would have a difficult time electing the Democratic nominee just eight years after Al Gore won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college. Besides, I think many Democrats would view Bloomberg despite his Republican pedigree as a man they could work with.
All my picks on this New Year's Day are long-shots, so give me credit for not playing it safe. You can ridicule me later when the political process proves me completely wrong. I'm betting though that you won't remember my outrageous picks months from now because the evidence is pretty clear most Americans really don't care much about politics.
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