I becoming more and more convinced that Dean is toast. I saw the speech and I thought it was a complete non-event. He was trying to rally the troops and they have spun it into some crazed lunatic. We are seeing the Goring of Dean. I seriously don't get it. Even my wife, who is a Bush apologist, doesn't see the big deal in Dean's speech. But it is being played over and over again like Michael Jackson hanging a kid over a balcony. I think the odds are better than 50-50 that Kerry will get the nomination. I also think if this happens, we will have a better than 50% chance that Nader will run as a Green.
But, there is another dynamic here. Dean has a $30 million war chest. He is going to spend all of it in this campaign. If Dean is truly toast and he knows it, what is to stop him from using the $30 million to launch an all out war against Kerry? The little discussed fact about Iowa is that Dean canceled out Gep. What if Dean decides to cancel out Kerry in mini-Tuesday? Kerry better think real hard about this. And if even Kerry does emerge with the nom, what if he is badly bloodied by Dean?
If we assume that Dean is `unstable', he has a ton of cash to do a lot of damage. Kerry better really think about that.