One of the interesting facets of the too-early presidential campaign is that the importance of the early Iowa and New Hampshire primaries is about to be tested, particularly on the GOP side.
As something of a disclaimer, let me say that I keep on eye on the compendium of polls on the Web site realclearpolitics.com. I believe they provided an accurate picture of what was coming before the 2004 and 2006 elections. They take a variety of results from the major polls and put them together for an average result.
What the RCP average shows with the Republican field is that Rudy Giuliani leads nationally by more than 10 percent (as of this writing) but Mitt Romney has 9-plus point leads in both Iowa and New Hampshire. That's an oddly split result.
Going back to 2004, everyone on the Democratic side was talking up Howard Dean leading up to Iowa and John Kerry was an also-ran. Kerry won Iowa, took New Hampshire, and was suddenly annointed as "the man who could beat Bush."
With that as a historical lesson, what happens when Romney wins Iowa and New Hampshire? Does he become "the man who could beat Hillary?"
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Just how much progress the U.S. military has made in Iraq as part of the surge is open to interpretation, but what there has been has come without help from the Iraqi government. The parliament has just fled Baghdad for a month long vacation, without ever approving anything. There's also been Sunni pullouts from the cabinet.
Meanwhile, our troops are killing bad guys, handing out toys to children (they go bonkers over puppets, for some reason), and building schools, but their own government does nothing to assist.
Among the biggest things we can do in the coming months is to make sure that the regular Iraqis on the street know how much they're being let down, so other people can get voted into office. And, strategically, we have to adjust our goals to not include a strong national government, because we're not going to get one.
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Geez, what to do about the stock market?
There's two answers. First, the one you hear a lot from the wise financial advisors: stay put, you can watch what happens on a day-to-day basis but acting hastily on the market's ups and downs can really mess up your portfolio.
Second, if you have the resources, this is the time to buy in. Buy low, sell high -- or buy low and hold. The fact is the economy right now is pretty strong, and we can eat the losses from these sub-prime mortgages. So while the stock market might take some temporary hits, it will go up in the long term.
That's why the smart investors buy good companies and don't look back.
