A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Caucus

[election_2004]

http://www.votewithavengeance.com/articles/funnything.html

So there I was, sitting in my living room in rural Wisconsin - - drenched in absolute shock.

Much to my astonishment, John Kerry had won the Iowa Caucuses, with 38% of the vote. Perhaps even more surprising, John Edwards placed second, garnering 32% of the vote. Meanwhile, Howard Dean, whom the media had been touting as the "frontrunner" for the past few months, came in at a distant third, with 18% (half of what Kerry received, and almost half of what Edwards received). Dick Gephardt, who placed fourth, is officially dropping out of the race today.

Conventional wisdom had long been that Gephardt was the one to beat in Iowa. Then, as Dean recently began to surge, it appeared as though Iowa might become a grudge match between Dean and Gephardt.

All of a sudden, Kerry seemingly came out of nowhere, making Iowa into a competitive three-way battle. Kerry's victory isn't completely without logic: the Massachusetts senator had been working away at Iowa voters for quite some time. But in the most recent months, who would have ever imagined that John Edwards would place second in Iowa, beating out both Gephardt and Dean?

I certainly didn't.

Like many race-handicappers, I had assumed that first-place honors would go to either Dean or Gephardt (with the other possibly coming in a close second), and John Kerry would most likely get third. Edwards, I'd predicted, would place no higher than fourth.

Instead, in the course of less than a month, John Kerry and John Edwards managed to turn the entire Iowa Caucus upside-down.

More...

[SheilaT]

1. There are any number of lessons to be learned

from all of this.

One of which is that common wisdom is often wrong.

[lovedems]

2. The pundits sure looked like fools!

You know, all the ones who spend their time praising the chimp! Just goes to show, they really don't know what the American people are thinking. Take that all you dribbling idiots who think the chimp is unbeatable! You got Iowa wrong, I hope you get the 2004 POTUS wrong to!

[PATRICK]

3. one lesson

is the limits of math when ignoring the personal appeal of candidates. Take the persona out and it might get blandly predictable such as our worry wart DLC number crunchers reading donkey entrails. The candidate- the voters- the rest are astrologers.