Friday, January 4, 2008

DOWN BUT NOT OUT


Obama and Huckabee came out ahead in the Iowa caucuses. Huckabee was a blip on the radar just a couple of months ago. But Tuesday night he came from behind to whup Romney but good. Even though Romney has been campaigning actively in Iowa for months and had spent a pile of money there, Huckabee, strongly supported by Evangelical Christians, beat his rival from Massachusetts by 9 percentage points.

Mrs. Clinton took third place in the Democratic primaries, behind Obama and Edwards. Obama picked up a lot of Independents. That will help him when he goes to New Hampshire next week. Senators Joe Biden and Chris Dodd both did so poorly that they decided to drop out of the race.

A poor showing didn’t put a stopper on Dennis Kucinich’s campaign. He is sticking in there until the bitter end, as he did in 2004.

Dr Carl Perrin didn’t do very well in Iowa either. In fact he came in behind Kucinich. Finishing dead last will not stop Perrin either. “Frankly, I didn’t expect to do well in Iowa,” the former English professor said. “I didn’t have the kind of money that the big guys did. What little I have, I’m saving for the general election in the fall.”

Despite the lack of support for Perrin in Iowa, he is going on to New Hampshire. He doesn’t feel a need to spend a lot of money in the Granite State. He knows that people who graduated from Amherst High School will remember him and vote for him. He also depends on support from classmates at Keene Teachers College (Now Keene State), especially his fraternity brothers from Sigma Tau Gamma. UNH alum are sure to vote for him, as are people who graduated from Rivier College, where Perrin got his master’s degree in 1959. He will have the votes of New Hampshire farmers, who will recall Perrin’s father saying, “I’m just a cow shit kicker.”

Perrin is a cowshit kicker from way back. He smiles knowingly. “This is not the end for me. It is a new beginning.”

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