January 19, 2004
Iowa Results
Well, that was completely surprising. Not only were the internetties like myself wrong, but so were most of the campaigns and political analysts. The polls showed something approaching the results, but they just made so little sense that most people thought they were wrong or were missing something big.But instead, we have Kerry more than doubling Dean's support in Iowa. To my eyes, I think a close third place for Dean would have been fine - he would have convincingly been able to spin that as the first step on the road - but, this distant third is going to raise some confusion and doubts.
First, there's the "Iowa is weird" theory - people will complain about Iowans just simply being contrarian. Then there's the strongly-independent idea. That the Iowans were turned off by all these people outside of Iowa writing them letters and telling them what to do.
Me, I'm lending more credence to the theory that the internet thing is still a bubble/echo-chamber. Including the blogs. That doesn't mean that we're not RIGHT, but right doesn't matter if you can't convince over half of the nation. It's just a big silent majority that votes off of things like who is tallest.
What are the good things about Kerry? He's presidential-looking. He's senatorial. He's got a foreign policy resume.
But bad? In my mind, he's also not a leader - he's way too reactive and doesn't set his own agenda. Plus, he's one of the most negative guys in the bunch. It pisses me off how he's managed to release all this negative information through "anonymous sources" while being able to convince Iowa that he was above the fray. One of the most common things said about him there is that he hasn't gone negative and has remained above the fray.
The things you can pull on people that aren't paying attention.