By Logan Scisco
This is a “transition” year for domestic politics questions in extemporaneous speaking. What I mean is that this is the last full season extempers will have to read about the Bush presidency. When the 2008-2009 season begins, extempers will only have to deal with the Bush presidency until the Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin at the latest. After that point, all questions about the Bush presidency will become more evaluative in terms of his performance over eight years in the White House and extempers will have to study and learn the names of a new batch of administrative officials, not to mention the ideology and temperament of a new president.
However, the first step in this “transition” year for domestic extempers is to focus on the presidential primaries. This is a unique election season because it is one of the first times in recent memory that a sitting vice-president is not contending for his party’s nomination. As a result, the Republican Party has been thrown into chaos and has been divided in its attempt to fight off a rejuvenated Democratic Party in the 2008 elections.
For many presidential contenders all roads to the White House go through Iowa. Its unique caucus format, which will be explained in this brief, tests the skills of presidential contenders in terms of fundraising, building a solid support team, and their ability to charm voters. Iowa is the first presidential contest on the primary calendar and the candidate who is able to harness a victory in the state has the ability to use that victory to enhance their position in the race. Just look to John Kerry’s reversal of fortune after he won the Iowa caucus in 2004 to get a glimpse of that.
Since the Iowa caucus is the first presidential primary contest it will receive a large amount of media coverage for the first half of the 2007-2008 season. Although the date of the Iowa caucus has not been set, political pundits are forecasting an early January date, if not a date in late December. Extemporaneous speaking questions on the Iowa caucus are bound to arise and even if extempers do not confront a question about the Iowa caucus directly they will need to include an analysis of Iowa in almost every question dealing with presidential contenders and their chances of winning the nomination of their respective party.