Since last night, it seems to me the wind has turned again in the media. The expectation game has changed hand. Iowa is now a must win for Kerry and a narrow win for Dean may add some unexpected momentum for Dean's campaign.
Has Dean bottomed out after a week long's brutal bleeding?
-From DFA
Your Support Carries the Momentum
Yesterday, you demonstrated your incredible commitment to what we know will be a tough fight.
In less than 24 hours you contributed more than $330,000 to our campaign-- and hundreds made a contribution to our cause for the first time.
And because of you, Dean for America has the resources to not only fund the current number of volunteers for the Perfect Storm, but to also handle the extra 1,000 people who came to Iowa this weekend.
Now is the time to continue to push forward. Fight like you've never fought before. Contribute to the Dean campaign. Carry the Perfect Storm forward by signing up to go to New Hampshire. Write letters to New Hampshire voters. Sign up for a Victory Day event tomorrow. Together, we are going to take our country back. And together we are going to change America.
-From NY times
"It's gotten tighter; it's gotten a lot tighter," said Joe Trippi, Dr. Dean's campaign manager, as he tried to manage his campaign through its first actual electoral test. "The hammering that we've been taking has taken a toll."
Some Democrats said Dr. Dean might be paying a price for being viewed as the front-runner too early in the process, allowing time for his opponents to attack him and for, at least to some extent, a premature display of the kind of "buyer's remorse" that presidential candidates often have to grapple with when a perception takes hold that they have won the nomination. And some Democratic voters who are making up their mind now may be less likely to support Dr. Dean than the hard-line partisan Democrats who rallied around his tough message from the start.
The uncertainty here has been fostered by the difficulties Dr. Dean has encountered over the last few few weeks, such as when he asserted that the nation was no safer after the capture of Saddam Hussein, a statement for which Democrats as well as Republicans attacked him. One result of these difficulties, Mr. Trippi noted, is that there has been more attention paid to Dr. Dean's scrapping with his rivals over what he has said than to his original appeal.
Mr. Trippi said he thought that Dr. Dean had regained his footing in the race by returning to the themes that worked so well for him until now: a broad denunciation of the war in Iraq and an aggressive presentation of himself as the only major Democrat who can take on Mr. Bush.
"We feel we've got through the worst of it," he said. "I really think the governor turned the corner two or three days ago, when he came in and said to us, `I'm going to let it rip.'
Has Dean bottomed out?