April 28, 2004
Kerry's Nomination
Given Dave's two posts (here and here) I thought I'd follow up with my own question is, to what extent does Kerry owe his nomination to the quirkiness of Iowa's caucuses? As I have noted before the Iowa Caucuses are sound very similar to a Borda Count. And the notably thing about the Borda Count is its unpredictable nature when candidates are either added or deleted. So was Kerry's "victory" (IIRC Kerry got the largets percentage, but that percentage was still under a simple majority) there really due to his being the first choice amongst the voters? It is hard to say, but it does leave one wondering. Winning there could help in contests held in other states. The win there would likely bring in more money, get media attention (free advertising), get the attention of the party big wigs, and could have a bandwagon effect.
Also, the field of Democratic contenders was pretty thin for the most part. They all looked rather similar in terms of policies. Bush tax cuts bad (well okay not really, just parts of them). The deficit a huge problem (unless we are the ones causing it). Iraq is a giant problem that needs to be dealt with (but we'll stay the course, but with more international help). So on those issues they weren't that different from each other...or Bush. On health care they were/are different than Bush, but not each other. The only real differences was that Kerry and Clark had very, very respectable military records.
But with regards to Clark he may have crippled himself at the outset by ignoring Iowa. By ignoring Iowa there was no way he could score points there, which in the next contest made Kerry look relatively stronger by comparison. The bandwagon effect.
My guess is the Democratic Party would probably be happier right now with John Edwards. A good looking articulate guy (and being articulate doesn't mean coming up with overly long tortured sentences that can be read a number of ways). Also an amazing success story of poverty to riches. Oh well, too late now.
Posted by Steve at April 28, 2004 06:42 AMOh, goody, another sweet-talkin' Southern lawyer. Just what we need right now - NOT! Especially since we desperately need tort reform.
Been there, done that for 8 years.
Posted by: Sandy P. on April 28, 2004 07:22 AMEdwards public career was far too short, lacking in executive level experience, or military and intelligence and security matters, to be the right man in this post-9/11 situation. I think these defects in his resume will also prevent him from being the otherwise logical choice as Kerry's Veep choice. And he looks some 20 years younger than his still young (in presidential terms) 50ish age, again, further reducing the gravitas factor.
As to Iowa's effect, that state's system is so quirky that prior to Jimmy Carter's victory there appearing to hurtle him to the nomination, nobody gave it a second thought as to national importance-- that was all New Hampshire's.
Others later trying to use Iowa as a springboard have failed, even after winning there. Gephardt won there in his first bid. In '88, Bush 41 lost there to both Dole and Pat Robertson, coming in third.
This time, Iowa was important because Gephardt was so invested in winning there that he savaged Dean, who responded in kind, and as Joe Trippi analyzed, Gephardt's extreme attacks destroyed his candidacy, and crippled Dean's campaign as well. Then the DeanScream the night of the caucuses, and the media's frenzy over it, finished off Dean.
Clearing off those two contenders wasn't an inevitability of Iowa, but it worked out that way, and then the deck was cleared for the pre-primary favorite, Kerry, to emerge as the fallback pick.
Posted by: sofla on April 28, 2004 03:36 PM