So it begins....

Congratulations to the Johns, Kerry and Edwards, winners by a mile in the Iowa caucuses. Meanwhile, Dean finishes a fairly distant third. Gephardt will bow out today.

The pundits are all asking: What happened to Dean? Can he recover? Dean's response is that he lost support because he was the focus of everyone's fire. Salon's Josh Benson cautions against reading too much into these results:

Tonight's results are going to be imbued with all sorts of meaning over the next week that they may not deserve: Just as the consensus drumbeat for the last several months was that the contests will be Dean's to lose, his rejection by Iowa voters will doubtless be overinterpreted as a sign that he can't win anywhere. He told supporters last night that he would press his campaign in every state of the nation -- and, perhaps more than any other candidate, he has the money and the organization to do so.

About those pundits who are saying that Iowans got cold feet about Dean because, in the final analysis, they worried he wouldn't be able to beat Bush: Perhaps they're right. Of course, an idea like this can quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Kucinich said to people who said they like him but worry he's unelectable, "I'm electable if you vote for me!"

Speaking of Kucinich, part of Edwards' big gain may have come from Kucinich supporters after the two candidates made a pact to get their supporters to support each other if one of the candidates wasn't "viable" in a particular caucus. Why Kucinich would make a deal like this with Edwards is baffling. Was Kucinich's anti-war rhetoric completely empty?

The silver lining in the Iowa outcome for a Dean supporter is that from now on the media's focus should be on Kerry and Edwards at least as much as it's on Dean. This should mean Dean can spend less time defending himself against charges of being "too angry" or whatever, and spend more time talking about how he plans to improve foreign relations, dramatically decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil, improve education, provide healthcare for everyone, etc.

The media frenzy over the Iowa outcome has already begun with a story suggesting that the boost from Iowa may be short-lived. Will Kerry and Edwards be able to withstand that "frontrunner" scrutiny? We'll see. I think Edwards is a fine candidate (so does Cicero's Ghost) and he's saying many of the right things, but Kerry worries me more, for reasons related to why Clark bothers me. I suspect a lot of support for Kerry and Clark comes from their military background, and that just seems a poor qualification to vote on. We don't need someone in the White House with more experience fighting other nations and other soldiers , we need someone in the White House with more experience fighting for health care and civil rights and the environment.

One other campaign note: Clark won McGovern's support today, which may or may not be a good thing for Clark in New Hampshire.

Meanwhile, Bush gives his State of the Union address tonight where he'll almost certainly tell more lies and make more empty promises. How can this guy have a 58% approval rating?

Posted 05:35 AM | Comments (7) | election 2004