Everyone will have their pet theory on why certain candidate did as well or poorly as the did in Iowa. Since I cover
political ads, I have my own: Vicious attack ads did in both Dean and Gephardt.
Dean, of course, was attacked viciously by Americans for Jobs Healthcare and Progressive Values and the Club for Growth.
Dean ran the first ad mentioning opponents by name. That's OK with me. But when he started getting attacked, he attacked back, right when Iowans started paying close attention.
Gephardt, trying to stem the Dean tide, lauched his own attacks. His latest said that you couldn't trust Dean on social security.
These ads drove Dean and Gephardt both down, while Kerry and Edwards (who, actually, ran a pretty clean campaign) pirouetted into the role of positive message candidates. The notion that Kerry ran a clean campaign all the way through is absurd, but he banked on it for the last 2 weeks. Along with a second morgage, it gave him the victory.
Gephardt paid with his candidacy, and Dean finished third behind long-shot John Edwards. I hope Dean learned his lesson: negative attacks don't work. Stay positive. On to New Hampshire!