I've been watching and listening carefully to the candidates, to the polls, and to the pundits during these closing days of the campaign in Iowa, and while I obviously won't pretend that I can predict the outcome any more than the next person, I do think that there is a useful point of comparison that could shine some light on what could potentially happen tonight in Iowa. (Although I do like all of our major candidates on the democratic side, I am heavily leaning towards voting for Obama, so if you don't want to read a diary that's optimistic about his chances, feel free not to follow me over the jump).
As my pseudonym on this site reveals, I'm a Massachusetts resident. As someone who was around for the last governor's race in this state and as someone who's been watching a fair number of clips of Obama's closing stump speech in the past few days, I can't help but hear echoes of Deval Patrick leading up to the first voting in the primaries in Mass from two years ago and can't help but see some parallels in how the media and those who have worked in politics thought about and treated the candidacies of both Patrick and Obama.
As is the case now with Obama, Patrick relied very, very heavily on both engaging independents in a meaningful way that did more than just pander to what was least offensive to the greatest number, that helped those without a solid political affiliation connect with the progressive ideas and policies that he was talking about, as well as on bringing new people into the political process - both young voters and those who had chosen not to take part because they felt that politics was a cynical game played by inauthentic hucksters and fools. Leading up to both the convention (where candidates have to qualify for the primary ballot) and the primary, everyone wondered if all of these voters who don't usually participate or who had checked out would actually show up for Patrick. The pundits predicted that he was putting too much faith in the unreliable and not focusing enough on the so-called "likely voter." Many said those who Patrick had spent months reaching out to and trying to engage in order to bring them into the campaign and back into the political process wouldn't show. But they did, and in a big way. Patrick won handily against candidates who had been better known before the convention and crushed those same opponents in the primaries as well.
This is obviously a different race, and the caucus process is nothing if not unpredictable, but there was most certainly something about Patrick's message about changing politics and how policy gets made and the way in which he delivered it that really connected with voters and convinced people who may not have voted or cared in the past to turn out and take part. They turned out and they took part despite what the pundits and political veterans predicted and regardless of what they wrote about a candidate who they said was too long on hope and too short on substantive policy particulars and experience.
I think that Obama has the same ability to connect with those people who have either never paid attention to politics or who decided long ago that it just didn't matter if they played their part as engaged citizens and believe that there is a potential that people may be genuinely surprised about the outcome and who participates tonight.
That, at least to me, seems like something encouraging to think about with the caucuses only a few hours away.