The Bierbauer Report

by Charles Bierbauer

You don’t have to win the Iowa Caucuses, as presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee have just done. You just have to beat expectations.

Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Mitt Romney came up short. On to New Hampshire for a second, perhaps final, chance for trailing candidates. Time is short.  They have five days to change their fortunes.

An Iowa loss is not fatal, no more so than losing the first game of a football season. Ohio State and LSU both made it to this year’s NCAA championship with blemished records. In the past 32 years, only Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush won contested Iowa caucuses and then the presidency.

But losing in Iowa is painful when, like Clinton, you are expected and expecting to win. Or like Edwards, you have pretty much invested your energies and resources on the first roll of the dice, hoping that Iowa will push you to the head of the pack and replenish your bankroll. Or like Romney, you have outspent your opponents by a factor of 20 or 30 to one, but been outscored by a challenger (Huckabee) who was an asterisk in the polls only a couple months ago.

THE DEMOCRATS

Obama has shattered the expectation that an African-American candidate cannot win in a state where even the Democratic voters are 93% white. Obama neither mentions that, nor campaigns as an African-American. But TVs talking heads note his Iowa victory changes the expectations about a black candidate winning the white vote.

Donna Brazile, an African-American strategist who was Al Gore’s campaign manager, says Obama has “momentum for New Hampshire and beyond,” meaning South Carolina and its large proportion of African-American Democrats. CNN analyst Bill Schneider speculated that black voters may not want to block the first legitimate chance for a black candidate to gain his party’s nomination.

Hillary Clinton had expected to share the African-American vote with Obama, in part because she appeals to older women, in part because Bill Clinton is still the favorite politician of many blacks. Hillary’s organization and funds are deep enough to withstand a second loss and make an uphill climb. But no more third place finishes if she’s to do it.

Edwards may barely make it to South Carolina, so top heavy was his investment in Iowa that even a second place falls short of Edwards’ early expectations. And he cannot realistically expect to win the state he was born in with Obama and Clinton in the race.

THE REPUBLICANS

Huckabee, needless to say, has dramatically exceeded expectations. He has captured the vote of the so-called religious conservatives who had been searching the political wilderness for their candidate. He has captivated the media who have crowned him “frontrunner.” In an irony, Huckabee does not now need to win in New Hampshire. Indeed, he is not expected to.

Romney, on the other hand, really needs to win New Hampshire before the primary campaign swings to the South where Romney is not expected to do as well.

John McCain, largely ignoring Iowa except for a late flurry that put him in a virtual tie for third with Fred Thompson, could improve his overall chances by further weakening a wobbly Romney in New Hampshire. A rejuvenated McCain and a plucky Huckabee would then be expected to fight for the next surge here in South Carolina. (Frankly, I don’t know what to expect of Thompson, but I’m not alone.)

Rudy Giuliani wound up sixth among Republicans in Iowa, leading analyst David Gergen to opine on CNN that “Giuliani’s strategy worked.” You can’t lose Iowa if you don’t play. Giuliani was in Florida, noting he’d “paid attention to the states others haven’t paid attention to.” He’s gambling on getting past Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, but it’s one way to beat the expectations game.

Note to candidates: If your name is not mentioned here, you’ve exhausted your expectations and may already be a former candidate.

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Charles Bierbauer followed the campaign trail from Iowa to New Hampshire and beyond as a CNN correspondent in elections from 1984 through 2000. He is dean of the College of Mass Communications and Information Studies at the University of South Carolina, though the views here are his own and not those of the university. Bierbauer is senior contributing editor and a consultant to SCHotline.com.