Iowa caucus goers are pretty darn good at coming up with questions and generally don't need help. And real people want to ask about the issues -- it's the journalists who ask about the horse race stuff.
With the Democratic candidates moving into end-game, take-shots mode in what's increasingly becoming the race to be Not Hillary, the party loyalty question comes to mind: if you lose the nomination, will you back your rival?
There's no way for a candidate to win with the answer (unless, perhaps, you're Ron Paul). Even acknowledging the question is a faux pas, as it's a tacit acknowledgement that you're going to lose. Just like the only answer to a bad poll is The Only Poll That Counts Is Election Day. The reporter has to ask, the candidate has to offer the b.s. answer, no one buys it, everyone prints it. It's part of the choreography.
Say you answer the loyalty question with a no, you risk alienating the party loyalists who pack primaries and caucuses. But if you say yes, you undercut your whole attack. And if you dodge the question, you look like Just Another Politician.
While that eventual support may be less than enthusiastic (one suspects Bob Kerrey and Jerry Brown wrote themselves in, in 1992), it usually comes. The last major candidate to answer that question with an emphatic no was John Anderson, who bolted from the GOP and ran as an independent back in 1980, rather than back Ronald Reagan and his fundamentally different vision of the GOP. In retrospect, Anderson led the moderate wing out of the GOP, but not all the way to the Democrats.
This year, Ron Paul, a former third party nominee, also has a fundamentally different vision of the Republican Party than his rivals. It's impossible to see his supporters being loyal elephants and backing the Rudy or the Mitt or the Fred. So will he bolt? He started to answer last month:
No, I don't plan to run in a third party. That's not my goal. But if we have a candidate that loves the war and loves the neocon position of promoting--" MSNBC Interviewer Norah O'Donnell cut Paul off at that point, and did not return to the topic during the rest of the interview.
Last week's $5 million fundraising day shows there's something real behind the Ron Paul REVOLution. At what point does that max out -- how many small-l libertarians are out there? Hard to say as we're in uncharted territory. But a three-way Dem-GOP-Paul race looks a heck of a lot like Clinton 42 vs. Bush 41 vs. Perot in 1992.
The Democrats have about zero tolerance for party disloyalty at the presidential level; the wounds of Ralph Nader still ache. And Democrats, unlike Republicans, have a clear national front runner in Hillary Clinton. So her rivals are more on the spot with the loyalty question than maverick Republican Paul.
Most on the spot, because his attacks are the sharpest, is John Edwards. He's taking the Won't Answer approach when asked if he'd support Clinton 44, telling The New York Times:
“I’m not willing to talk about that at this point,” he said, waiting silently until the next question was asked.
In contrast, other rivals dance the dance but ultimately say yes:
When asked the same question last week, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois did not hesitate.
“I am a Democrat, and I would support the Democratic nominee,” he said. With a smile, he added, “I intend it to be me.”
Neither did Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, who declared: “Of course. What’s the choice, Rudy Giuliani?”
The Dodd campaign pounced on Edwards' hesitation, quickly releasing this statement from their candidate:
"I am surprised at just how angry John has become. This is not the same John Edwards I once knew. Of course, we should all come together to support the nominee. I wonder which of the Republicans John prefers to Hillary?"
Later in the day Tuesday, Edwards revised the statement and, while it's not absolute, it's more within expected bounds: "I fully expect to support the Democratic nominee, and I fully expect to be the Democratic nominee."
With the split-decision reviews out of Jefferson Jackson Saturday (Obama excellent, Edwards very good), the race dynamic continues. Neither candidate scored a knockout punch, and they are still splitting the bulk of the non-Clinton support right down the middle.
The winner-take-all dynamics of American politics push most contests toward the bipolar, and in the post-Nader era Democrats are especially fearful of the spoiler phenomenon. Scratch an Edwards supporter, and odds are you'll see Obama just under the surface as a second choice. What you won't see in the second choice column is Hillary Clinton.
In Congressional Quarterly, Craig Crawford rhetorically asks Edwards: "Do you dislike Hillary Rodham Clinton enough to ultimately abandon your own race and endorse Barack Obama if it comes to that?" With his national poll perspective, Crawford ignores the three-way top-tier race in Iowa and the lightning-fast movement that's likely between Jan. 3 and Jan. 8, the anticipated date of the New Hampshire primary. He could ask the same question of Obama.
No one's ever named a running mate in the presidential primaries, though Ronald Reagan had a brief ticket with Sen. Richard Schweicker in the pre-convention period in 1976. But Iowans know the concept. In last year's Iowa gubernatorial primary, two candidates -- Patty Judge and Bob Vander Plaats -- dropped their own campaigns and formed tickets with rivals.
One gets the idea that if Barack Obama and John Edwards could get together and flip a coin for the vice presidency, they'd be a juggernaut.
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