John had everything going for him, as long as we didn’t step on our cranks. That was why the Secret Service scandal was so troublesome. John’s theme was simple — “Four More Years!” I was nowhere near as unpopular as George Bush would have been at this point. The things that sank GWB — two very unpopular wars, a disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina, and government spending that was completely out of control and had us trillions in debt — those things just weren’t tainting me. Meanwhile I had managed to win my war, had at least partially fixed some immigration issues, and was pushing a relatively popular infrastructure repair plan. The economy was strong, we had gotten through the Katrina recession, and although we still had Wall Street and housing bubbles, they weren’t anywhere near as crazy as they could have been.
John’s mantra was simple. Keep him in place to keep the good times rolling. We were the grown-ups, and we knew what we were doing. John had been at the heart of all the wonderful things President Buckman had done, so let’s keep him in office to keep it all going!
Mitt and Mike were at the two extremes of the party. Mitt was pushing that he was the strong business leader, having run Bain Capital at the same time I had been running the Buckman Group, and we needed to run the country like a business. It wasn’t something we could really use, but I told both John and the top campaign people that Mitt wasn’t all that great a businessman. The Buckman Group had eaten Bain Capital’s lunch on more than one occasion. In addition, Bain Capital had much more of a shark mentality to it then I had with the Buckman Group. We had invested our money along with our clients. Bain had typically invested in takeovers that left the target company highly leveraged. Bain got its money out in fees and preferential treatment; if the target company went belly up or laid off workers, Bain had made their money already. The Buckman Group got its money out in stock appreciation, warrants, and options. The risk is greater, but the upside is very, very nice!
Mitt was unabashedly appealing to Wall Street and the financial sector, and they were funding him lavishly. John was also getting a lot of cash from business interests, but his seemed more diverse. Both men frequently got contributions from the same people, as they tried to hedge their bets. Lower taxes were promised.
Mike Huckabee, on the other hand, was appealing to the party base. He was the designated conservative and Christian, and he was the only one the party base actually trusted. Unfortunately, nobody else wanted him! He could command maybe a quarter of all Republican voters, or maybe even more than that. Unfortunately for Mike, the other parts of the party, like the businessmen and the defense advocates and the libertarian wing, wanted nothing to do with him. Nobody expected Huckabee to do more than win some isolated Southern and Midwestern states, but there was immense concern that he would form a hard right Christian third party and run in the general election. If that happened, he would split the Republican vote and the Democrats would win in a landslide!
On the Democratic side, the only two serious candidates were Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and nobody could figure out who would get the nod. Hillary was the first really serious female contender, and she had all the old style Dems and women supporting her. Obama was the first black candidate who actually had a chance of winning white votes, and he was very appealing to the minorities who were a major part of the Democratic base. Money was pouring into both of their coffers. They were battling each other tooth and nail, and it was incredibly ugly. Both candidates were promising ‘Change!’ It wasn’t clear to me what they wanted to change, other than to increase social spending programs. Keeping the budget balanced would be accomplished by massive cuts in the military and making business pay its ‘fair share’, whatever that meant (probably a tax hike.) Both candidates were very much old school Ted Kennedy style liberals. Otherwise, the only other significant candidate was John Edwards, who had a lot of name recognition from his run for V.P. in 2004, and the exact same platform as the other two. None of the rest, and there were at least another half dozen with their names on ballots, had a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting a single delegate to the convention.
The first primaries were in January, beginning with the Iowa caucuses on January 3. I will never understand how the whitest, most conservative, and most religious state in the nation got to choose who would be the candidates for national office. If you won in Iowa, or at least beat expectations, you got a major boost going into future races. Donors would start coughing up cash, and you would be able to keep going. Some of the long shot candidates only ran in Iowa and New Hampshire, praying for that long shot victory which would get them the credibility to continue.
Mike Huckabee won Iowa big on the Republican side, getting about a third of the total vote. McCain and Romney basically tied at number two, with a quarter of the vote each. Everybody else picked up a few dribs and drabs. Even the television pundits discounted this win for Mike, since the only reason he won was because most of the state was fundamentalist Christian, and he had them sewn up. He was not expected to win in New Hampshire, which was a more diverse state. He didn’t. John took New Hampshire with a strong showing by Mitt, and Mike took a distant third place. After that, Romney took his home state of Michigan, beating John by a nose, and both spanked Mike. It was very even going into Super Tuesday.
On the Democratic side things were very unclear. In Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, despite boatloads of cash being spent, Obama and Clinton were tied dead even. Edwards was way in the back. Obama won big in South Carolina at the end of January, and this was very significant. South Carolina was the first primary in a state with large numbers of black voters, and it told. I suppose there was a black voter who voted for Hillary, but I don’t think anybody ever discovered her name. Otherwise, he took every black vote in the state. He whipped Hillary by over two-to-one, and put a real kink in her plans.
Super Tuesday was February 5, and was the day that everybody had to win. All the wannabes on both sides had dropped out by the end of January. The only ones left on the Republican side were McCain, Romney, Huckabee, and Ron Paul. Ron had zero delegates and zero money and zero chance, but he was staying in to get his libertarian agenda out there. The Democrats were down to Obama and Clinton, with Obama having about a 10 % lead at the moment. Even John Edwards had quit, but he was making lots of noise about being the best candidate as Vice President. He was hoping that Obama and Clinton would fight such a nasty fight that the eventual winner wouldn’t choose the other one as their running mate. It was the same strategy that got him selected in 2004 as the V.P. nominee.
I’ll be honest and admit that I was surprised by the strength of Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. The three men weren’t as close as the two leading Dems were, but I had expected John to be the prohibitive front runner at this point. I was doing what I could for him. He certainly had my public endorsement, but that was to be expected. If I didn’t endorse my own Vice President as my replacement, I was telling the world I had picked somebody unqualified, which would reflect poorly on me. Behind the scenes, I was making as many phone calls as I could. John’s big chance was to take Super Tuesday. Over 40 % of the Republican convention votes would be divvied up, covering 21 states, on that one day. John needed to smack down Romney and Huckabee decisively.
John spent a lot of January on the road, campaigning. I had a chance to speak to him towards the end of the month. “How’s it going, John?”
He smiled and asked, “Getting worried, Carl?”
I made a wry grimace. “I wouldn’t say, worried. Maybe concerned is the right word. I never thought Mitt or Mike would be anywhere near this close to you.”