Who Voted For Hillary Clinton in Iowa?

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
— Winston Churchill

A better title, rather than “Who Voted For Hillary Clinton In Iowa? might be “Who Did Not Vote For Hillary Clinton In Iowa?

Hillary Clinton had the opportunity to make a concession speech for her third place finish behind Obama and Edwards that would have been the antithesis to Sally Field’s Oscar winning speech: “You don’t like me. You really, really, really don’t like me.” She would, of course, be referring to the women voters of Iowa.

Clinton does not have a plan b. She has been campaigning with an air of inevitability and arrogance. It never occurred to her machine that she would lose Iowa until the last few weeks. So she quit answering questions the last few days. She was assured a lock on the women voter by her pollster. She still has a lock on the Black vote. Or does she. Of course Iowa is 95% White and there was not a test of the Black vote for her there.

Her pollster, Mark Penn, who is operating on a slippery slope because he is her senior strategist as well, has predicted that not only would Clinton get most of the Democrat women vote but would also capture 25% of Republican women voters. This, according to his polling data, has revealed that women would vote for Clinton because of the emotional appeal that she could be the first woman president. This is the dubious result of having your pollster as your senior strategist–his judgment is clouded.

To further add credence to the intro quote by Churchill, and to shed light on Penn’s reasoning for his strategy, here are a few quotes from women who would vote for Clinton:

One voter asked Clinton if she thought it was acceptable to support her based solely on her gender.

“That’s what having a woman in the race does! Can you imagine? It’s terrific that they are up there arguing about who is going to be a better president for women.”

“Just as a woman, I feel that a woman can represent my interests better – no matter how liberal or progressive a man is.”

Since we have so few women in elected office, is seems to me that it is vital to get a female president into office- no matter who it is.

Because she actually has White House experience!

As the former First Lady Hillary Clinton visited countries all over the world.

I can’t help but want to support my own gender,

Having Bill as the helper would be good for America.

Honestly I’ll take just about anyone over who we have now.

Hillary needs to be in there, we need a woman to show that she can do a man’s job. I think people would like to vote for Hilary Clinton because she would be the first woman in American history to be a president. Some people just believe that she is very intelligent and she would be a great candidate against “George Bush” is in there, then the job will get done and it will be done RIGHT.

After the smoke cleared in Iowa, 70% of the Democrats voted against Clinton. Obama got 38% of the vote, Edwards got 30% and Clinton ended up with 29%.

What went wrong?

Obama won 35% of the women’s vote–that’s what went wrong. Clinton only received 30% of the women vote. With the young women voters under 24 years of age, Obama won 51% and Clinton won only 19%.

If Clinton can’t even get the majority of her own parties women to vote for her, how can Penn be so assured that she will draw 25% from the opposing party?

The Clinton Machine is trying to downplay the Iowa caucus as not that important and they will just move on to Hew Hampshire. That would be a patently astute answer if she had not taken Iowa so seriously and did not show much interest in the win. The glaring problem is that she spent an enormous amount of money, time, energy and strategy on her inevitable win in Iowa. Now she is moving on to New Hampshire with just a few days to come up with a viable plan b.

Can Bill Clinton help her at this point?

While Hillary has moved her rhetoric to “vote for a change”, she is dragging the carcass of Bill Clinton around with her that not so subtly screams we are circa 1990s—hardly a change.

Bill Clinton is now saying his wife can be the “comeback kid” just as he did after his loss of the first few caucuses. The problem is he was not the self anointed party nominee for president before the caucuses started and was not a formidable front runner that was leading in the polls up until a few weeks before the caucuses started.

Now on to New Hampshire where things are going to be different, the Clinton Machine is insisting. The new Rasmussen poll numbers for New Hampshire, as of today, for the Democrats:

Obama 37 (+9 vs. 12/18 poll)
Clinton 27 (-4)
Edwards 19 (+1)
Richardson 8 (nc)

Clinton had led Obama by double digits in New Hampshire a short while ago.

If Barack Obama, as the latest polls suggest he will, wins the predominantly white votes in New Hampshire as he did in Iowa, that will put Clinton’s “lock” on the Black votes in terminal jeopardy moving into the Southern states such as South Carolina, where Black voters number half. In earlier polling, Obama did not poll as well as Clinton with the Black vote, but part of the problem was the question of his electability and can he beat Clinton. He put those two questions to bed in Iowa.

Another situation that presents itself for Clinton after losing Iowa are the voters who felt compelled to vote for her because she was the inevitable winner.

That question was answered in Iowa and probably will be answered in New Hampshire. Now that he has demonstrated his electability he can take that along with his wave of momentum into the Southern states’ caucuses.

Clinton has put her self in the same precarious situation that a champion pugilist would be in if he discounted his opponent to the point of not sparring before the fight. After getting knocked down a few times, his corner is in the position to come up with and implement a plan b in the middle of the fight. This unpreparedness usually does not bode well for someone who was so sure they would not take a hit but instead gets knocked down and then tries to shake it off without ever having practiced how to carry on after taking a hit in training.

The Clinton Machine, facing the same problems as an addict, must first admit they have a problem to cure the problem. So as Clinton is probably going to step up the negative attacks on Obama, she should ask herself: “Is the problem Obama or is it Clinton?”