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Days before caucus, other candidates reconsidered

BY CRAIG GORDON | craig.gordon@newsday.com

December 30, 2007

WASHINGTON - For nearly all of 2007, 2008 looked set.

The road to the White House was going straight through Gotham.

Hillary vs. Rudy. Rudy vs. Hillary. Cue "New York, New York" and pull up a front-row seat to history -- a grudge match between the mayor from 9/11 and Bill-and-Hill, The Sequel.

For the first time ever, a woman -- a former first lady, no less -- seemed this close to becoming her party's nominee, and who knows? Maybe the nation's next leader would be called Madame President.

But then, just like that, voters on both sides seemed to reconsider. Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton looked a bit stale. And Rudy-and-Judi (and don't forget Bernie) just seemed ... well, a little too New York.

So now a race that voters groused was going on forever is down to its last 100 hours or so before the voting starts in Iowa, and no one -- no one -- knows what's going to happen next.

With no sitting president or vice president on the ballot, it's quite simply the most wide-open election in half a century.

And by the end of this week, those one-time front-runners could be looking a bit tarnished -- particularly Rudy Giuliani, who is running in fifth place in some Iowa polls. Hillary Rodham Clinton is locked in a three-way tie there.

What happened? A restless and war-weary public started giving other candidates a fresh look -- perhaps none more than Barack Obama, a trailblazer in his own right, as the first African-American to be within reach of a major party nomination.

"There have been women who have run before. There have been African-Americans who have run before, but never have we had a circumstance where a woman or an African-American could actually win the nomination, and that, more than anything else, makes this historic," said Michael Fauntroy, a professor at George Mason University who has studied African-American voting.

There are other would-be history-makers as well. Democrat Bill Richardson would be the first Hispanic president. On the Republican side, Mitt Romney would be the first Mormon. John McCain would be the oldest to be elected: 72 at swearing-in.

Even Giuliani would make his mark as the first Italian-American president, and the first New York mayor to make it.

But don't look to the voters for clues -- they can't make up their minds. Four in 10 Republicans in one recent poll said they've switched candidates in the past month. Two-thirds say they just might switch again, and half the Democrats, too.

And good luck to whoever gets the job. That person -- that president -- will likely inherit not one but two wars (only the fifth time a president has taken over even one), a military stretched thin, and enemies plotting the nation's demise.

He or she could inherit an economy that has slipped into recession, with gas prices rising and home values falling.

And that person will take over for a predecessor who has grown so unpopular that you can buy a countdown clock that shows how many days George W. Bush has left in office (387, if you're counting.)

It's a big reason many pundits are calling 2008 a "Democratic year." But which Democrat?

Clinton is a woman who didn't really run as a woman but did run as though it was inevitable she would be the nominee. For most of the year, that seemed about right, as she was practically doubling-up Obama and John Edwards in the polls. But Iowans -- always a cantankerous lot -- seem less than eager to host Clinton's coronation. Third place isn't out of the question.

Obama is an African-American who didn't run mainly as an African-American but did run as a different kind of politician promising "change" -- not change because of his race but because of his style, portraying himself as a break from the tired old battles of Washington.

But at age 46, with not even a full Senate term under his belt, he has had a tough time convincing even some African-Americans that he's "the one," no matter what Oprah Winfrey says.

John Edwards practically took up residency in Iowa for the past four years and could pull off a win, though anything less could cripple his candidacy.

On the Republican side, Giuliani spent most of the year seemingly running the last race, with a strong tough-on-terror message based on his experiences on 9/11.

But what worked for Bush in 2004 isn't working as well for Giuliani, who has seen his moderate social stances and his messy personal life catch up to him with core Republicans.

Republicans right now are even more confused than Democrats -- so much so a man most wrote off as finished, McCain, is staging a mini-comeback, while Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson battle it out for the hearts of Christian conservatives.

So maybe Rudy vs. Hillary doesn't look quite as likely as it did just a few weeks back. But take heart, New Yorkers: Mayor Michael Bloomberg has still got a few million bucks he just might spend on a race.