The Daily Troika: '08 Buzz From IA, NH and SC
Sen. Barack Obama will meet 2,000 screaming Iowa Democrats at Sen. Tom Harkin's annual Steak Fry in Indianola, IA this weekend. Accompanying him will be Steve Hildebrand, who helped Al Gore win the IA caucuses in 2000 and who now serves as an adviser to Sen. Tom Daschle. Meanwhile, Gov. Mark Warner will try to shake the hand of every Democrat not preoccupied by Mr. Obama.
Sen. John Kerry attends The Game in Iowa City tomorrow; tonight, Sen. Evan Bayh addresses the United Auto Workers convention in Des Moines.
On Sunday, Sen. John McCain serves as grand amrshall at the Sylvania 300 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series at the NH Int'l Speedway in Loudon, NH
The Hotline's Jonathan Martin, writing in National Review Online, about South Carolina: "Since 1980, no Republican presidential candidate has won the nomination without winning the South Carolina primary. And in every contested nomination battle since that time, the man who delivered those winning Republican votes was Carroll Campbell. In 2000 there was little doubt whom Campbell and his friends would get behind. The Campbells and the Bushs were like family. And once again, he came through with a must-have victory, stopping the bleeding from another Bush loss in New Hampshire. Without Campbell, there is no unified political operation ready to get behind a favored Republican. John McCain can’t be taken out if there is a) no George W. Bush to do the taking out and b) no ready apparatus to crush the insurgency. Whether there will be one of the former – a consensus establishment candidate with backing from both the country club donor wing and evangelical activist wing of the party — is an open question. But nothing resembling the latter exists today within the South Carolina Republican party, say observers there."
Also today: Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) is in SC.