Iowa's Two Largest Exports are Corn and Equivocation

January 5, 2008 9:30 AM

Iowa Post-Caucus Speech Round-Up: Clinton, Edwards, Huckabee, Obama, Romney, and Thompson.

Also up, for those interested, are Chris Dodd's and Joe Biden's withdrawal speeches. The Des Moines Register also put up highlights from Ron Paul's and Bill Richardson's speeches. Everyone else had either decamped for New Hampshire before the results were in, or didn't bother with Iowa at all.

(Most of this information can be found at Slate's pretty cool Map the Candidates Google Maps Mash-Up.

posted by Weebot (22 comments total)

Thanks, without this post, I'd never have been able to find these.
posted by empath at 9:46 AM on January 5, 2008 [3 favorites]

Could you please summarize all these in one word?
posted by Krrrlson at 10:08 AM on January 5, 2008

"FAIL"
posted by absalom at 10:12 AM on January 5, 2008

Charade.
posted by wfc123 at 10:22 AM on January 5, 2008

hoover2
posted by pyramid termite at 10:28 AM on January 5, 2008

Could you please summarize all these in one word?

Yeah!
posted by Muddler at 10:30 AM on January 5, 2008

ChangeChangeChangeChangeChangeChangeChange

Is that one word? It's all a blur.
posted by empath at 10:39 AM on January 5, 2008

On the other hand, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel (as well as Republican Duncan Hunter) have been cut from ABC's presidential debate Saturday Night.

Anyhow, the Guardian did a piece on Gravel this week well worth reading and watching.

And here's Kucinich this week on Bill Moyers.

Screw broadcast television. YouTube and 'teh internet' is where is the action.
posted by humannaire at 10:55 AM on January 5, 2008

I didn't know there was an election until MetaFilter saved me. Thanks MeFi!
posted by cotterpin at 11:09 AM on January 5, 2008

Could you please summarize all these in one word?

Check one:

[ ] Dreadful

[ ] Tedious

[ ] Depressing

[ ] Hopeless

[ ] Sparkly
posted by ZenMasterThis at 11:19 AM on January 5, 2008

Come on, y'all are too cynical.

None of you got even a little twinge of pride and hope from Obama's speech?

Let's just all cross our fingers and hope that Obama really is what we really want to believe he is.
posted by empath at 11:22 AM on January 5, 2008

Pride and Palpitations

And in that moment, she verbalized exactly what was on my mind, and I dare say what was on the minds of a considerable majority of the African Americans watching him call down verbal thunder in those minutes.

We...were afraid.

I found myself not unconsciously scanning the roaring crowd, praying to not see a weapon pop above the throng and point at him. I couldn't stop myself. When the camera lingered on him too long during stretches of the speech, I averted my eyes for a few seconds, fearful that I might catch a tragic moment playing out in horrific real-time. I'd look back again a second or two later.

I found I couldn't really absorb or analyze the speech as I'd have liked. I was too busy checking out cameras in the crowd held aloft, and wondering about security. “Jesus, he gets so many people at his events! How the fuck is he gonna secure the venues? Ohhhhh man...”
posted by empath at 11:24 AM on January 5, 2008 [3 favorites]

Let's just all cross our fingers and hope that Obama really is what we really want to believe he is.

Face it, empath: under the current system, anyone who's capable of getting themselves elected should under no circumstances EVER be permitted to serve.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 11:27 AM on January 5, 2008

Well, then I guess you should just ignore it and let people that give a shit vote.
posted by empath at 11:30 AM on January 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

I give a shit and I vote, yet I'm not a fan of the frontrunners in either party (or Ron Paul). where does that leave me?
posted by item at 11:37 AM on January 5, 2008

None of you got even a little twinge of pride and hope from Obama's speech?

I liked the part where he shouted out his wife. That was genuine. If he let himself be like that more often, I'd like him a lot more. He's way too put together.
posted by scarabic at 11:38 AM on January 5, 2008

Obama winning in a state that's 93 percent white -- that is, in my mind, really something. It looked to me like people looked beyond race (for maybe the first time ever in presidential politics, Jesse Jackson's run notwhithstanding) and saw the person and, to a lesser degree, the message. That spells progress to me, at least in terms of race.

I hope Obama wins it all; he's got my vote if he gets that far. We've had a long sequence of old codgers as president, and I'm ready for someone young(er) to give it a shot. I wouldn't mind Hillary either, though. I have a bit more confidence in her ability to jigger with health care, and it'd be nice for the ultimate sexist glass ceiling to be shattered too. I'd really like to see them both on the same ticket in the general election, but I suspect they're both too much 'alpha dogs' to accept the vice presidency. I have no probs with Edwards either, for that matter. It's a good time to be a liberal; the field seems very strong this year.

Giuliani sure seems to have disappeared from the news. Good. He's a one-trick pony, and his one trick (keeping our cities and country safe) is a trick he apparently does fairly poorly anyway. I do like his socially liberal stances though, especially compared to Huckabee.
posted by jamstigator at 11:43 AM on January 5, 2008

I absolutely cannot believe Huckabee put an INTERNET MEME on stage during his victory speech.
posted by Mikey-San at 12:14 PM on January 5, 2008

I don't mind admitting Obama's speech stirred me. I do worry for his safety, and that nervousness increases the more successful he is. But I also hear the rumble of history in his campaign, and after eight years of Bush, a lot of us want to believe very, very badly. That's not to be underestimated, a neither is Obama's strong performance among 'independent' voters. Don't know about you, but every Republican I knew in 2000 calls themselves and 'independent' in 2008.

item - Ron Paul won't get the Republican nomination. As much as I would love him to, it won't happen. But, keep an eye on Michael Bloomberg and this Independent run for the White House he's considering. Should he decide to go through with it, he'd be a fool not to try and talk Ron Paul into coming along.

Again, I would love to see Paul get the GOP nomination, but I just don't see how that could happen.

jamstigator - Giuliani is out of the news just now because he's hanging back in South Carolina and Florida, hoping to win big there. There's an awful lot of New York expats in Florida, so it could be a smart move. Now, if they're expats who liked Giuliani's run as mayor remains to be seen.

Just caught Giuliani on the news at a New Hampshire event. Anyone want to guess what single day of his mayoral experience that weasel cited as a reason to vote for him?
posted by EatTheWeak at 12:29 PM on January 5, 2008

Giuliani is out of the news just now because he's hanging back

I don't get this on two counts:

1) Isn't there time to campaign in every place you need to? Maybe not but I don't know very much about it and it seems crazy to step back and give your opponents this kind of press.

2) Even if Giuliani hasn't visited Iowa, stepped out of a train and kissed some babies, yadda yadda, isn't he still the national leader in the polls? How could he fare THIS poorly, just for a lack of timely, local campaigning? Does the frikkin' road trup bullshit really make that much difference?
posted by scarabic at 12:57 PM on January 5, 2008

scarabic - my guess is that he didn't like his chances in Iowa or New Hampshire, and thus decided to get started early working on some of the later primary states, so that he could make a stand in those races without a proper 'loss' on his scorecard - I don't think he made any concession speeches after Iowa - certainly none that were aired here in Washington State. The Giuliani campaign is basically treating Iowa like it doesn't matter, and spent very little energy on it.

That said, I was delighted to see Ron Paul beat him out.
posted by EatTheWeak at 1:13 PM on January 5, 2008

In other news, Bill O'Reilly gets beat down by the Secret Service.
posted by afx114 at 1:15 PM on January 5, 2008 [1 favorite]