In an election of historic firsts, the late-breaking campaign surges of Sen. Barack Obama and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee point to a shifting dynamic in the 2008 presidential race. And that could lead to a pivotal turning point in U.S. politics.
On the Democratic side, Obama has tightened the race in New Hampshire and South Carolina perceptibly. According to a Dec. 12 Rasmussen poll, Obama leads Sen. Hillary Clinton by 3 percentage points among primary voters in New Hampshire, while a Dec. 16 Rasmussen poll shows Obama tied with Clinton in South Carolina. This is a big change from just one month ago, when Obama was trailing Clinton by 10 points.
In the Republican race, Huckabee has undergone an almost exponential rise—from being considered a second-tier candidate to becoming the double-digit front-runner in Iowa.
The 2008 election cycle will be one for the history books. It has become the longest, and most expensive, campaign in history. Some are even expecting this to be the first billion-dollar campaign.
Other firsts include the possibility of electing the first female or the first black president. And importantly, this is the first "open seat" presidential election—in which there is no incumbent president or vice-president running—in over 50 years
The possibilities brought about by such an election are something that the Obama campaign seems to grasp.
"I just got a sense that the country is in this ferment right now, that everything's up for grabs," said Obama in an August 2007 interview with The Washington Post. "Those moments in our politics don't come that often, where it really is possible in this election ... to help redefine our politics and help point the country in a fundamentally different direction." .
This notion has been pivotal to the Obama campaign. Obama, like former senator John Edwards, has been running as a "change" candidate. His campaign's version of change involves stepping away from the "same old Washington textbook campaigns," including not participating in negative "attack politics" and—in contrast to Clinton's reputation for triangulation and parsing—emphasizing his willingness to speak up about tough issues.
Also central to Obama's message is unity, made most clear with his famous campaign line that there are no red states and blue states, only the United States. In November, he released a list of Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire who will cross party lines to vote for him in the primaries, because they believe he has the ability to break the partisan gridlock in U.S. politics.
Like Obama's crossover appeal to Republicans, Mike Huckabee's sudden rise is emblematic of change within the Republican Party.
The Rovian strategy of partisan politics—and vilifying opponents—has fragmented the party. From Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani to Fred Thompson and Huckabee, there has been no single front-runner for any extended period of time.
Huckabee, like Obama, has an anti-establishment, grassroots appeal. As a former Baptist minister, Huckabee is giving a lot of airtime to playing the religion card, framing himself as a "Christian Leader," and even running a political ad specifically to wish viewers a Merry Christmas.
This campaign may be what has attracted a large number of social conservatives, so-called values voters. According to the Rasmussen polls, Huckabee's support in Iowa is now up 11 points from late November, and he surpasses the next leading candidate—Romney—by double digits in that state. The only other candidate in Iowa who is gaining in the polls is Ron Paul, the other insurgent candidate.
Huckabee's message has not been as welcomed by the conservative establishment, however, which still leans towards other candidates. If Huckabee wins the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, it is unclear how this support for him might shift in the period between then and the "Super Tuesday" primaries on Feb. 5.
Support from the conservative establishment might be key to Huckabee's success, given that he does not have the funding or the organization that other leading Republican candidates have. Obama, on the other hand, has the funding and organization to succeed, but must still face a three-way tie in Iowa, and the formidable Clinton political machine.
Both Obama and Huckabee may have "the big mo," but will their momentum be able to carry them to their respective party nominations? There are two weeks until the Iowa caucuses—a lifetime in election-cycle politics. But regardless of whether they win these races, the narrative of their campaigns has marked a shift in the dynamic of partisan politics, and a political changing of the guard.
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