Charley,

We did talk about the Dean loss a bit on some Iowa Caucus threads. There were several strands to it, one of which was a legitimate failure of the campaign. That was a failure to engage the Democratic Party machinery of Iowa directly. Joe Trippi (Dean's Campaign Manager) thought that the insurgency factor and the grassroots factor would be enough to carry the day. Meanwhile, Kerry hired well-known Democratic Party figures to be his precinct captains. Many of these people were also the local precinct chairs. They mobilized their friends and neighbors while Dean flooded the neighborhoods with canvassing volunteers. Kerry got more people out.

Charley says that "I wouldn't blame his loss on an over zealous media, although they surely played a minor role." But in fact they played a major role. According to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, the trajectory of each candidate directly reflects the media coverage in the two weeks prior to the Caucus. Edwards, who outperformed expectations the most, got 100% positive coverage: no negative network TV coverage at all! Kerry, who outperformed expectations strongly, got 96% positive coverage. And Dean, who performed below expectations, got the worst coverage of all at only 58% positive; 42% of the stories about Dean were negative! This is fascinating, as Dean is the only candidate who has publicly stated that if elected he would limit the size of media conglomerates and regulate them more closely.

There was also a great deal of shady caucus manipulation in Iowa, such as the situation you witnessed if you watched the Dubuque Caucus on Cspan: the Caucus chair was a Kerry supporter, and he controlled everything from where the signs went to where the preference groups met. So while all the business was carried out, everyone was sitting facing Kerry signs, and the other candidates' signs were invisible. Then he split the caucus into preference groups, without ANY of the discussion of issues that is supposed to be the whole point of the caucus. Anytime anyone tried to raise an issue, he said "we're just trying to, you know, move things along here," and would not let a discussion start. He grouped everyone together by candidate and then made them march off to different rooms. He made sure the Kerry people and the Undecideds were right next to each other, then sent off the other groups one by one. By the time the Kerry group left, the undecideds had not been able to talk to anyone but the Kerry folks, but they had had at least fifteen minutes in close proximity to the Kerry group.

These are not exactly "dirty tricks," of course, as they're within the rules of the caucus process, but they're exploiting the letter of the law at the expense of the spirit of the law. More than that, they set up obvious conflicts of interest between a party member's roles as Kerry Supporter and Caucus Chair, which ought not to exist. Still, Trippi's lack of connection to the important, on-the-ground party apparatus is exactly why he was replaced. Nobody will say this officially, but it was his big (and perhaps only) failing, and it's one of Roy Neel's strengths.

The New Hampshire outcome was due almost entirely to the press distorting that clip of Dean's Iowa speech, claiming that he was "unbalanced," or "a lunatic," etc., etc.

Beyond this, there were actual "dirty tricks," including robo-calling as detailed in my post above (calling undecided voters at 2-4AM in New Hampshire, claiming to be from the Dean Campaign; Calling Dean's strongest supporters in Iowa, claiming to be from the Dean Campaign, and misinforming them about the address of the caucus, which is crucial because you can't participate in a caucus if you come too late). There was even dirtier calling, a push-poll, asking if the listener thought it was okay that Dean was raising his children not to believe in Jesus. (The kids are being raised Jewish like their mother).

Nobody can prove whether John Kerry was behind these calls, but it's a pretty safe bet. Nobody else had an interest in hurting Dean in BOTH Iowa and New Hampshire, AND had the organization on the ground to identify Dean's "ones" or strong supporters.

Another thing that has not helped is that John Zogby, the guru who runs the most influential polls, is an open Kerry supporter. On his website a few days before the New Hampshire Primary, when Dean suddenly lost a suspicious number of supporters and Kerry gained the equivalent number, Zogby felt the need to defend the numbers, quite defensively pointing out that "I've never called New Hampshire wrong." His explanation of the sudden change was that it wasn't a defect of the polls but a reflection of the fact that (and I quote) "the people of New Hampshire have decided to select a possible president rather than send an angry message."

But Zogby's being so obviously partisan raises another question: did he raise expectations for Dean early, through falsified or distorted polls, then create a free-fall for Dean and "momentum" for Kerry later, by suddenly correcting his numbers over three days? If he did this, of course, it explains the disappointment of many people like Charley, who thought Dean had "many advantages that a campaign could wish for" going into Iowa. But were those advantages exaggerated by the pollster in order to manufacture the disappointment Charley feels? There's no way to know. I think a pollster should be strictly impartial, but that's not the way it works with the Washington Political and Media elite.

So as you can see, there are many questions about the results in Iowa and New Hampshire. Now Dean has essentially conceded the Feb 3rd states in an attempt to take Feb 7, 17, and March 3 states which have a much greater delegate count. Remember what I said above: Dean is STILL the front runner in the delegate count, and that's what matters in the end.

BTW, "Momentum" as a concept pisses me off, because it is another way the media attempt to control our votes. They love to have the power to create "momentum" for a candidate. If primary results were kept secret until the voting was over everywhere (i.e. no media reportage) people would vote for the candidate they liked best regardless of "momentum." Wouldn't we then get the candidate that most people liked? Wouldn't that be better than getting a candidate handed to us by media-manufactured "momentum?"