I was perusing the BFA archives (fascinating to see how much changed from the beginning of January to the end), and came across
this entry from January 11 (less than two months ago!):
It's being reported today that Flat Howard, Renee, and the rest of the Ohio grassroots have built a strong lead ahead of their Super Tuesday primary:
Dean 29
Clark 17
Gephardt 16
Kucinich 11
Lieberman 11
Kerry 7
Edwards 5
In order to get to Ohio, we've got to win Iowa...
How true that last bit was, eh? I mean, look at the order of those poll results. Totally upside down. Which makes me wonder...
Was the "grassroots" any good at all beyond Iowa (or maybe Iowa and NH)? Was it a mistake to air ads in those other states, spend money on campaign organisations there? Isn't the lesson of this year that Gephardt (and later, Kerry) had the right idea: put all your marbles on winning Iowa, and if you do that, there is no hurdle that can't be overcome with a huge Iowa "bounce" (more like a rocket launch)?
I won't deny that I was glad Dean got taken down in Iowa and that this cascaded into his being taken out of the race (I frankly don't think "the scream" had as much to do with it as the CW would have it). But nevertheless, I don't think this is a good, democratic way to choose a nominee. Sure, one could argue that no one forces voters in later states to rubber stamp the choice that comes out of Iowa. One might even argue that voters who didn't tune in until January just broke to Kerry (and Edwards) everywhere, and that Iowa was not a cause but merely an early example of this phenomenon...but I don't buy it.
I think, as I've been saying for months, that things need to be shuffled up. Because if nothing has changed by the next time there is a contested race for the Democratic nomination, the circus Iowans saw this time will be dwarfed by the onslaught they will see then. Candidates will throw everything into Iowa, will camp out there a year or two years out and just ignore the rest of the country. A few thousand mostly homogenous caucusgoers should not have this much power in the party.
