Reading comments in Trapper John's "
Make Yer Pitch" thread and talking with others, I have noticed the common theme of being discouraged with Dean for his erosion in Iowa.
We need to be honest about the basic reason for the erosion: he made a few mistakes, but no more than any of the other candidates, but was also under constant attack from the other candidates and even moreso from the media. Kerry and Edwards got a free pass.
So what?
Come November whoever the Democratic candidate will be will be under constant attack from Bush and even moreso from the media.
I watch Kerry go completely to pieces locally in Massachusetts and NH under relatively little media pressure earlier in the year. He and Edwards bubbled up in Iowa because the pressure was completely off of them and they were able to present themselves entirely through very good TV ads.
Dean needs better ads.
But the bigger picture is that we all need to be honest that any of the candidates can look bad under a cynical, snide onslaught by the media, and that anyone who's trying to be active and confident, a confidence that other Americans need to see, you need to stick a little more strongly to your convictions rather than make decisions based on TV reporters.
In other words, Dean can only fight the "angry" meme if all of us, whatever candidate we support, push back; the same will be true when other candidates come under the purview of the Whack-A-Mole media.
It's very likely that Dean will get bumped back to underdog status with a second or third place finish in NH as Kerry surges, and the media will laugh and mock Dean as a marginal candidate representing the "angry liberal", which is utter nonsense.
The reality is that this is a competitive field and that people should be taking more than 30 seconds to decide who to support.
In a future entry I'll argue why it is dangerous to support a candidate because you see him as having the best chance to beat Bush because of qualities such as likability and charisma.