I always saw Kerry as dead in the water for months, now, yet he won Iowa and surged back in New Hampshire. What happened?
My take on it is this-- John Kerry knew he was in his hour of desperation and retooled and refocused. Several times. People made fun of him for using profanity, driving a Harley, having another campaign kickoff event, and coming up with what appeared to be his tenth campaign slogan (the latest being "The Real Deal"). What we missed is that Kerry was just doing everything he could and sticking with what worked. Do you see him in a Harley, now? No, as we know it doesn't play well at all. Everytime something failed, he regrouped and switched gears until something gained traction. It all seemed to work in Iowa, and now he's polling ahead in New Hampshire.
Contrast this with Dean and the "angry" thing. We can blame the media all we want, but the fact is that noone stopped the Dean campaign and said, "look, we're getting killed with the angry thing. Retool, and work on that voice." We can talk all we want about how lame SNL's opening skit about Dean was last Saturday, but the fact is that Dean inadvertently played into this instead of being more careful, given the opportunity.
I think another good example of this is the letters. At first, they worked great. They were brilliant strategy in the summer and fall. Starting around December, it was becoming clear that they weren't causing any poll movement in Iowa or New Hampshire. Did the campaign switch gears? No, they just kept on writing letters, and the polls went nowhere.
Can Dean learn from his mistakes in time? It wasn't too late for Kerry to shake things up in Iowa, but does he have the infrastructure to run a national campaign come February and March?
