Le Monde, France

United States: the Iowa Caucuses Kick off the Primaries

By Corine Lesnes

December 30, 2007

France - Le Monde - Original Article (French)

Five days from the beginning of the process of selecting the Democratic and Republican candidates for the presidential election in November 2008, both parties face the greatest uncertainty. The Democrats are facing a essential choice to try to determine which of a woman - Hillary Clinton - or an African-American candidate - Barack Obama - has the best chance of beating the Republican candidate in the race for White House. The conservatives, for their part, face an existential choice: what will be the Republican Party after George Bush?

The candidates are nominated state by state. Hostilities begin in Iowa on Jan. 3. This rural Midwest state has adopted a "caucus" system. Voters must all be present simultaneously to vote and not at their convenience throughout the day, as in primaries. This imperative makes predictions very arbitrary, as the mobilization of voters depends on such circumstances as the weather (in the opinion of experts, snow will fall on January 1st but the sky should be clear on the evening of January 3).

This year's caucus date falls during the school holidays, and Mr. Obama is relying heavily on the mobilization of students. "If Obama does not win, it will be because he has not succeeded in attracting this category to which he refers as the youth, who will participate in the caucus for the first time," says Ann Seltzer, responsible for the daily polls of the Des Moines Register in Iowa.

Each party has 1784 caucuses (one per polling station). During these meetings, activists move in favor of the candidates and discuss their choice. The Republicans proceed to a simple show of hands. The Democrats have adopted a feature that makes the process more complicated (some say undemocratic). To remain in the race, each candidate must collect 15% of the votes. If this threshold is not reached, his supporters have thirty minutes to give their vote to another candidate.

At this stage, negotiations are fairly obscure. While it may be suggested that the voters of Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, should lean to Hillary Clinton, the choice of supporters of the governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, for example, is unclear. Not to mention the fact that voters will also decide on the basis of haggling over more local considerations.

“DESPAIR”

In this context, pollsters consider the margin of error. The latest polls show a very close race between Senator from New York and former First Lady Hillary Clinton, the senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, and the former criminal lawyer who fights for the poor, John Edwards, who has concentrated all his campaigning on Iowa: they attract 29%, 26% and 25% with a margin of error of 4 % points, according to a Bloomberg / LA Times survey. According to Ann Selzer, the Democrats are anxious. "They do not want to make a mistake. They want to make sure that their candidate can win the presidency and be effective in the White House."

Mrs Clinton hopes to take advantage of the return of foreign policy in the campaign, after the assassination Thursday, of the former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Mr Obama, who stumbled over the subject of Pakistan in August, has had to defend his right hand man, David Axelrod, who managed to connect in the same sentence the attack against Ms. Bhutto with the vote of Mrs. Clinton on Iraq.

In a message entitled "Despair" Mr. Obama has called on his supporters to send money to defend his candidacy in the face of the establishment: "Washington counter-attacks with whatever it can - negative ads, insults, dishonesty, millions of dollars from outside groups and anonymous donors, to try to stop us. The Obama campaign has already spent $ 8 million in the state, three times more than John Kerry, the Democratic candidate who was chosen by Iowa in 2004.

On the Republican side, polls give a clear lead to Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and Baptist pastor, ahead of its main rival, Mitt Romney, by about 10 points.Mr. Romney, who was the favorite, is now forced to run advertisements against Huckabee and against John McCain. But the pastor could also be adversely affected by the sudden importance of Pakistan in the campaign. After requesting that the state of emergency was lifted in Islamabad – which was done two weeks ago - he saw in the situation in Pakistan another reason to erect a fence at the Mexican border against illegal immigration. This has not been seen as a sign of subtlety.