Jay Reding.com

Lyz Baranowski has been live-blogging the floods in Cedar Rapids and has some stunning photos of the devastation.

I remember the floods of 1993 in Des Moines, and it’s hard to believe that there could be a flood worse than that. Yet it looks like Iowa is getting soaked again. Hopefully waters will recede soon and the long process of rebuilding can begin.

Karl Rove was just on XM Radio’s POTUS ‘08 channel, and he mentioned that fewer people vote in the Iowa Caucus than vote in Wichita, Kansas. He also mentioned that fewer people vote in the Iowa Caucus than vote here in Dakota County, Minnesota. (Of course, he had to mention that nobody knows where Dakota County is…)

Ultimately, he’s right, slams to this county aside. Iowa doesn’t represent a particularly valid cross-section of voters on either side. If you’re part of the Romney or Clinton campaigns, that’s at least some comfort. Iowa’s important because it’s the first real vote, but even then it doesn’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. A good campaign can lose Iowa and still win nationally. Even though Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney lost the expectations game, there are plenty of other states in which to mount a comeback. Romney has fewer options on the Republican side than does Clinton, but even he’s not dead yet.

Well, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee took the top spots in Iowa, and by some impressive margins. Obviously, they’re the big winners tonight as they have momentum into the next crucial contests—New Hampshire for Obama and South Carolina for Huckabee.

The big losers: the former frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney. Clinton can afford to lose Iowa and still keep in the game. If Romney loses to McCain in New Hampshire, I don’t see him remaining viable. He has the money, but he needed to win Iowa or at least finish close to Huckabee. Losing New Hampshire would sink his campaign.

There are two Republicans who should feel good about Iowa who aren’t Huckabee: McCain and Thompson. McCain will probably win New Hampshire, which takes Romney out of the race. Thompson could then benefit from Romney’s loss as his supporters could easily go his way based on conservative credentials—but he’s going to have to tailor his pitch to put them on his side rather than McCain. Thompson needs to do well in South Carolina to stay viable, which means that McCain and Huckabee have to take some dings before then. In some ways, this situation benefits him the most. Iowa and New Hampshire take out Romney, which narrows the field and leaves conservatives looking for an authentic conservative choice—and my guess is that Thompson has a lot more appeal with National Review-style conservatives than McCain and certainly more than Huckabee.

Edwards also places, which keeps him alive. The problem is that Obama could easily steal his thunder, and his speech in Iowa was lackluster at best. In some ways, it would have been better for him to switch places with Clinton—if Clinton and Obama end up clashing, he could come up the middle.

The problem with Iowa, especially on the Republican side, is that it’s an outlier state. Huckabee’s win won’t necessarily translate elsewhere. Remember that in 1988 George H.W. Bush lost in Iowa. In a contest like this where there’s no clear front-runner, Iowa’s narrow reach may not mean all that much.

On the Democratic side, it’s a three person race between Obama, Clinton, and Edwards. On the Republican side, it’s increasingly looking like the race may boil down to McCain, Huckabee, Thompson, and possibly Giuliani. In neither case is the outcome certain. Obama’s lack of experience may hurt him when he comes up in the big states like California and New York. A Romney loss in New Hampshire puts a big bloc of voters who don’t much care for Huckabee at play between McCain and Thompson. Edwards could sweep the South, putting himself in play.

Right now, my guess would be that if Thompson doesn’t do well in South Carolina, John McCain will be the Republican nominee. Huckabee is too divisive. For the Democratic nomination, I’m leaning more towards an Obama win, although I wouldn’t count Hillary out yet.

Obama, to his credit, does signal a break from the Clintonite school of politics which have corrupted American politics for years now. The “campaign war room” and the politics of personal destruction that marked the Clinton years hardly helped America’s politics. Getting rid of that would be a step in the right direction. The problem with Obama is that he’s winning on some vague notion of “change”—while doing little to describe what direction he’d take the country. Obama would be a formidable challenge for the GOP, but ultimately he doesn’t have the executive experience needed to be a successful President. He also votes like a doctrinaire liberal, which undercuts his ability to reach across party lines. He would do better than Edwards, but in the end his appeal is largely skin deep.

The worst case scenario is an Edwards/Huckabee match, in which case I’ll say to hell with it and end up voting for Ron Paul just out of spite for such big government paternalists. Ideally, I’d like to see an Obama/Thompson contest—Obama’s idealism is a nice contrast to the general pessimism of the Democratic Party, and Fred Thompson has the strongest grasp of policy. An Obama/McCain race would also be interesting for much the same reason.

What the ripple effects of Iowa may be are not quite yet apparent. Hillary Clinton is certainly down, but she’s not out. The same may not be true for Mitt Romney. Will Mike Huckabee cruise to the GOP nomination and end up splitting the party? Could John McCain consolidate the conservative vote after his now-likely New Hampshire win? Iowa has provided an interesting start to the formal 2008 race, but its only a start. What happens in the next few weeks could provide quite a few more surprises for us all.

While I have no idea what the outcome of Iowa will be (and I doubt anyone else does either), I’ll venture a few predictions for tomorrow’s matchup in Iowa:

On the Republican side, Huckabee peaked too early. The attention he got caused people to take a look at his record, and it’s not good. Huckabee sailed in on homespun congeniality, but the more people look, the less substance he has, and where has has substantive positions they usually rub the Republican base the wrong way. I would cautiously predict that Huckabee will do worse than expected—mainly because he has nowhere to go but down. His support is soft, and he doesn’t seem to be moving in the right direction to take a convincing win.

It’s safe to predict a Romney win, since he’s poured so much into Iowa. However, to be viable, he has to pull off a convincing win. If Huckabee is sliding, that benefits Romney.

There’s not one, but two dark horses in Iowa. McCain and Thompson are fighting for third place, and both have been doing better than expected. Thompson needs a strong third-place finish in Iowa to remain viable. McCain hasn’t campaigned in Iowa, but does have a base of support there. Zogby is showing a late breakout towards Thompson. If Fred can get 15%+ that keeps him alive until South Carolina. If McCain does well (double digits) that keeps him alive until New Hampshire, where he has a chance at the top. It all depends on where those last undecided voters go—if Thompson were to pick up a lion’s share of undecided voters (which seems possible), that could give him the finish they need. If they go to McCain, that puts McCain a real edge given that New Hampshire will give him a boost as well.

The real story of the Republican side of Iowa is not who wins, but who gets out alive. I’m guessing that we’ll lose Rep. Hunter by the end of the week, since he has no traction nor any chance of gaining it.

Rudy’s out of Iowa—last year he was the front-runner, now he’s running a dangerous game that could easily put him out of the race before he really gets started. He won’t break single digits in Iowa, but what he needs is for Iowa and New Hampshire to be won by different people so that no front-runner emerges. If Romney wins both, Giuliani may be in trouble.

On the Democratic side, Clinton, Edwards, and Obama are all in play. I doubt Edwards will win, although he’ll come in a strong third. His brand of economic populism plays well with the Democratic base, but he’s not electable, and he’s been running for office longer than gaining experience. He couldn’t win his old Senate seat back, and he and Kerry lost ground against Bush. Kerry was smart enough to realize that he was damaged goods—Edwards is too vain to notice.

The Obama-Clinton race will be the one to watch. Obama’s run a campaign much like Howard Dean’s, except smarter. He also has the same problem that Dean has—his base of support is with people who don’t tend to vote. Still, I wouldn’t count him out. My sense is that he could very well win in Iowa, which would put Mrs. Inevitable in a very tight spot. Obama’s playing a dangerous game, however. The Clinton smear machine has him in their sights, and while their first shots were weak, sooner or later they’ll take him down.

If Clinton wins, it puts Obama in a tight spot. He has to perform, and he needs national momentum to do that. A Clinton victory puts the spotlight on her, and without an upset, Obama’s strength in Iowa will be put a roadblock to her path to the nomination.

If I had to guess, I’d say the former frontrunners will be the future frontrunners: which means narrow wins for Clinton and Romney. Huckabee leaves Iowa intact, but the pressure on him won’t go away, and he’ll do poorly in New Hampshire. Thompson needs a strong third place finish in Iowa and a win (or near win) in South Carolina to stay alive—which means that Thompson will need to campaign hard in South Carolina to keep Huckabee down.

Of course, all these predictions are going by the polls. The polls, as in 2004, could be entirely wrong. Thompson’s Iowa barnstorm could turn him into the John Kerry of the GOP, the single-digit candidate who suddenly became the frontrunner. Huckabee could collapse as Dean did, and for some of the same reasons. Clinton could sink and Obama could soar. Edwards’ populism could propel him to the top. McCain could surge in Iowa and then take down Romney in New Hampshire, putting him ahead.

Part of the fun of Iowa is watching expectations crash and burn, and there could be a lot of political wreckage strewn from Council Bluffs to Dubuque after tomorrow night.

UPDATE: Bob Novak predicts Hillary will come in third in Iowa. That would be a real blow to her campaign. However, I think the “Dean factor” is at play here—a candidate that excites younger voters doesn’t do so well in caucuses which are dominated by older voters who are deeply entrenched into politics. Then again, a narrow Clinton win doesn’t help her much, as it leaves two viable competitors who could present further challenges down the road.

Fred Thompson has a lengthy video message to Iowa voters, which lays out in some detail the case for his candidacy:

What struck me about this message is that Sen. Thompson reached out to Democratic voters as well:

You know, when I’m asked which of the current group of Democratic candidates I prefer to run against, I always say it really doesn’t matter… These days all those candidates, all the Democratic leaders, are one and the same. They’re all NEA-MoveOn.org-ACLU-Michael Moore Democrats. They’ve allowed these radicals to take control of their party and dictate their course.

So this election is important not just to enact our conservative principles. This election is important to salvage a once-great political party from the grip of extremism and shake it back to its senses. It’s time to give not just Republicans but independents, and, yes, good Democrats a chance to call a halt to the leftward lurch of the once-proud party of working people.

So in seeking the nomination of my own party, I want to say something a little unusual. I am asking my fellow Republicans to vote for me not only for what I have to say to them, but for what I have to say to the members of the other party—the millions of Democrats who haven’t left the Democratic party so much as their party’s national leadership has left them.

For all the phony populism of the Democratic Party, they’re not the party of working people, no matter how much they protest to the contrary. The Democratic Party in its modern incarnation represents the interests of the secular coastal left. They have to adopt a populist veneer because if they were honest to the American people they would never win election in a country where self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals 2-1. What do they stand for? A United States with a foreign policy that fecklessly thinks that Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can be talked into ending their campaign of terrorism across the globe. A United States in which Osama bin Laden is given the same procedural rights that Tony Soprano would have. A United States of higher taxes, unlimited abortion on demand (at taxpayer expense) and a United States that would follow the failing model of Britain’s NHS or Canada’s socialized healthcare system. Is this really the United States that is envisioned by the mainstream of American society? The Democrats are deluded enough to think that if they can wrap the bitter pill of Fabian socialism in enough sugary rhetoric, the American people will swallow it.

The American people deserve better than that.

Sen. Thompson represents the basic principles of the Republican Party—a strong national defense, respect for the values which create a successful society, and the sort of limited government that our Founders intended. It seems that the primary critique of Sen. Thompson—that he doesn’t campaign hard enough—is a substance-free critique. The reality is that Sen. Thompson’s campaign is the more intellectual strenuous, the one with the best policy positions, and the clearest in its goals and objectives.

What this country needs is not someone who can claim to “feel your pain” while letting this country continue to slide. What we need is a leader, someone who is willing to make the hard decisions that will need to be made in the next few years. The next Administration will almost certainly have to deal with an entitlement crisis that will quickly consume trillions of dollars. Who is best equipped to handle that crisis? A candidate who talks about the problem or a candidate who has a plan on the table that can realistically solve it?

There’s something to be said for style, but it doesn’t substitute for real substance. This country needs solutions, not more empty rhetoric. Sen. Thompson has put those solutions on the table, which is why he deserves the support of Iowa voters this Thursday.