Finneran: As Iowa Fades, New Hampshire Rises

Friday, February 05, 2016
Tom Finneran, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

Iowa’s cornfields are dormant. They are heavily trampled too, by herds of candidates, volunteers, and reporters whose quadrennial invasion is akin to locusts. Call any Iowan today and you’ll learn two things—

What truly nice people Hawkeyes are and how relieved they feel, now that the barrage of political ads have vanished from their TV screens.

IMPRESSIONS:

JEB BUSH: Jeb Bush is coming across like a spoiled brat. His temper tantrum I’m taking-my-ball-home attitude is ridiculous. Does he have some kind of entitlement attitude regarding the White House? His relentless attack ads against Kasich and Rubio might be “just politics” to him and his many consultants but I don’t think it sits well with voters. This is a guy with a pretty good record as a two-term Florida governor who has raised whopping sums of money from really big-time donors. His two percent vote total coming out of Iowa speaks more to the mood of the electorate rather than to his solid stewardship of Florida. That said, his disappointment and his looming outright defeat are not grounds for attacking other more successful candidates. His mother and father should intervene. There’s a high road to take, even in defeat. He should take it.

CRUZ, TRUMP, and RUBIO: Each of these three candidates has held contradictory positions on the question of immigration reform. And yet each of them boldly tries to manufacture a theme of hard-line consistency on this hot-button issue. How refreshing it would be to hear any one of them say that the hard facts of immigration realities have changed since they first considered the issue and that now, today, those hard facts have forced them to reconsider their original position.

Some of those hard facts? Paris I. Paris II. San Bernardino. Syria. Isis. Terrorism. The refugee crisis in Europe. Horrific dysfunction in our immigration and border control agencies. Persistently high unemployment among low-skilled Americans. Stubborn resistance to assimilation. State budgets, community schools, and public hospitals utterly overwhelmed………..the list goes on and on and on. The candidates could show some real maturity here.

BERNIE SANDERS: The Bern is having the time of his life, tormenting the Clintons and dictating the terms of the Democratic debate. He’s on a roll. He should enjoy it while he can.

America is not even vaguely “socialist”. And winning campaigns are not built on fevered college kids and aging Woodstock hippies. As the race moves South and West, Hillary Clinton’s establishment advantages will assert themselves and she will win the nomination. I don’t pretend to know the net effect of the Sanders candidacy on Hillary and her fall campaign. Suffice it to say that she is not, at the moment, a very happy camper. Bernie and his followers are like a swarm of mosquitoes at a high-end lawn party. The hostess is quite distressed.

TED CRUZ: He is impressive in debate and he seems to be both well organized and well prepared. That said, he does not appear to have a single friend in the Senate. That puzzles me. Think of it for a moment—he has 99 colleagues from all across the country and from all walks of life, folks of vastly different experiences and political views. Cruz is not able to name a single one as a friend. If that was our workplace we’d have at least a few dozen or more friends, some liberal, some conservative but all genuine friends with whom we’d laugh, fight, and socialize. There’s something amiss here.

IRONY WINS: The Democratic Party purports to celebrate diversity, claiming outreach to youth and minorities. Yet all the Democratic candidates are very old and very white. The Republican Party is described by the press as quite old and quite white, but their candidates included a black surgeon, an Indian governor, a woman CEO, and two young candidates of Hispanic origin. Indeed, my out-on-a-limb prediction is that either Cruz or Rubio will be the Republican nominee, guaranteeing a Hispanic at the top of the national ticket. Should Carly Fiorina be chosen as the Republican vice-presidential nominee the Republicans will have checked all the boxes that the lily-white New York Times deems so precious. Such a Republican ticket would also severely limit Hillary Clinton’s field of choices. Inside tip here—bet on Julian Castro as Hillary’s VP pick.

RE THE SUPER BOWL: The local mood is not the same since the Patriots loss. It’s quiet here in New England. I might be the only guy in Massachusetts who is rooting for Peyton Manning to play well and to win. I think that he’s a great quarterback. I also think that his recent string of injuries is worrisome enough to his family that this will be his last game. I always root for the old guy shuffling out the door as I did for Larry Bird and as I’ll do for Tom Brady when his time comes. Cam Newton is young. He’ll have other chances. Go Broncos.

Tom Finneran is the former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, served as the head the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, and was a longstanding radio voice in Boston radio.