A Requiem for the Iowa Caucuses

[stickdog]

Dean was not the cool kid in the class today.

There's not much popularity appeal in an insurgent who campaigns like a front-runner. Kerry & Edwards co-opted Deans' anti-war and anti-Bush message, added a lot of expensive and unrealistic promises that they can't possibly keep and "stayed positive." And the media clapped politely for the DLCnamic duo while sticking their knives in Dean from all sides. Dean tried to simply hold on for dear life far too long. Then he went at least two notches too negative in desperation during the final week, sealing his fate.

The media dissected Dean until he started bleeding in 100 places and all the other candidates pounded him mercilessly, forcing him to respond (way too late -- you can never play prevent defense against the establishment), and then kept pounding him with the sacrificial Gephardt while everyone else turned sunny side up.

It was a perfect storm for the political establishment and corporate media. They seem to own the weather machine.

Basically, this was the corporate media vs. old style grassroots campaigning and endorsement politics. And the media flexed its muscles and kicked some serious ass. They turned up the anti-Dean, pro-horse race hype meters to 11 and blew Dean's "stormtroopers" off the court. The only good news of the night was that Dean's insurgence forced both Gephardt and Kucinich to destroy their candidacies to beat him back -- not to mention the large percentage of Kerry's & Edwards' coffers that were spent.

So the media and the DLC win the first round. But Dean still needs to keep fighting this war -- this time without both hands tied behind his back. He needs to keep standing up to the DLC and standing up against Bush. But he also needs to convincingly explain to the less informed public exactly why it's so important for all of us to be doing the same. Because he (and we) may not get many more chances.

Dean needs to stop being insular with (and vaguely disconnected from) his campaign. He needs to stop talking about the energy and commitment he already has generated, and start showing people why they too need to become involved in actually working to try to take back their local communities with the power of grassroots organization. Dean needs to stop focusing on winning strategies and start focusing on spreading his vision of an America with jobs, affordable universal healthcare, borders and ports secure from terrorist incursions, a sensible, moral foreign policy and a lean, efficient government that allows us to keep a decent, livable safety net in place for the elderly and disabled for decades to come.

The truth is a powerful tool. It can be viral if it's encoded carefully. Dean needs to focus on telling Americans only purely distilled truth -- in a sugar-coated way that they can swallow, of course.

Dean needs to come clean with voters about who he is, what he's done and what he stands for. He needs to stop trying to position himself and simply be himself. He needs to low key everything he doesn't believe in 100% and find a way to share his passion for optimistic political pragmatism and his profound and completely legitimate dismay with our current situation -- especially our lack of decent jobs, affordable healthcare, career advancement opportunities and community-based help for young children and their struggling parents. Finally, he needs to communicate that his proposed solutions to these problems are not just pie-in-the-sky campaign promises, but emininently reasonable, wholly practical and easily achievable steps in the right direction.

When Dean talks about standing up for the little guy against corporations and the establishment, he needs to back it up with specific, clear and concise policy proposals -- you know, the ones that other candidates aren't allowed to talk about because they are so tightly bound to the corporate establishment themselves.

In summary:

The first big story of the night is that Dean knocked out the favorite Gephardt and can now make a strong move for his union votes.

The second big story of the night is that the media and party insiders can team up to kill (or puff up) any candidate they want to. And killing a candidate is especially easy if the campaign is reacting rather than aggressively setting the tone.

The third big story of the night is that we aren't going to give in to them.

The fourth big story of the night is that Kerry is everything that was bad about Gore.

Dean's in a great position to defy expectations in NH. He just needs to highlight his honesty, his toughness, his pragmatism, his hope, his legitimate concerns and his zeal to change America for the better.

Dean will reinvent himself as himself -- not a generic front-runner with nothing more than a trite theme of empowerment going for him. Iowa was a blank canvas for the media to paint on; NH isn't. When the media tries to cast Dean as a radical liberal in NH, nobody will fall for it. However, the advertising and barnstorming side of Dean's campaign need to quickly catch up with the revolutionary nature of his grassroots organizing and fund-raising.

[dreissig]

1. Anomalous Iowa

Iowans should have been able to resist all of the pressures you mention, but they didn't. Tonight's anomalous outcome means that Iowa was taken far too seriously. Those people's judgement faded in the bright lights of the cameras. Just as Kerry had done with the IWR vote, they forgot about doing the right thing and did what they thought was defensible. It wasn't.

It's understandable that people get turned off by Dean - he talks too fast and he gets angry, all of that. But the votes for Kerry and Edwards show that something other than normal reasoning was at work here. Kerry has huge negatives among Democrats; how is he going to overcome the defection of the antiwar crowd? Will he ask us to forget it?

Edwards' unmerited second place finish shows wierd defects in the selection process. Iowa will instruct party officials what to avoid in future primaries. Neither Edwards nor Kerry is going anywhere.

[Capn Sunshine]

2. That was exactly the conclusion we reached in Calif tonite

Nice analysis Stick.

Yeah, sometimes our hubris lets us minimize the damage our own can do.I was absolutely stunned atthe all consuming barrage the corporate media laid on our guy.

but yes, New Hampshire is next and they are not midwestern rubes so easily taken in by media soundbites.

But score one for the establishment machine and their candidate du jour Jk.

[Seldona]

7. midwestern rubes?

Insulting and uncalled for.

Bah, not even worth the effort.

[skaterkid]

8. You're right

The Elitist, who thinks he/she is an "Intellectual" is nothing but a lowly slob who isn't worth the time it took you to respond.
Just thought I'd add my two cents worth.

[stickdog]

12. Yes, the key is to get through to the rubes, not denigrate them.

That was a joke, if you have to ask.

[PVnRT]

20. Yes, "rubes" is such an endearing term...

No, wait, it isn't...

I love how insults aren't insults if they aren't talking about you...kind of interesting that way...

Whatever, this midwestern rube needs to get back to his research at one of the top engineering colleges in the country, along with all the other rubes here...

[stickdog]

21. Did you see the part about it being a joke?

I'm from IL, BTW.

[PVnRT]

22. Just because you say it's a joke

does not mean it's not insulting. Sorry you can't see it that way.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

10. Nice:"they are not midwestern rubes so easily taken in by media soundbite"

Dean's going to win tons of the Midwestern swing states if he adopts that kind of attitude.

But we don't need them to win, right? Or the South.

Oh wait...we do.

DTH

[skaterkid]

3. Where to start...

""the media clapped politely for the DLCnamic duo while sticking their knives in Dean from all sides. Dean tried to simply hold on for dear life far too long. Then he went at least two notches too negative""
MAYE I missed something but I didn't see the media clapping politely for Kerry and/or Edwards, but I will agree with you that Dean went AT LEAST(in reality WAY BEYOND that)two notches too negative. In my never to be humble opinion, he lost A LOT of support when he yelled at that gentleman the other day.

""and all the other candidates pounded him mercilessly, forcing him to respond (way too late -- you can never play prevent defense against the establishment), and then kept pounding him with the sacrificial Gephardt""
Pounded him mercilessly?? WHO are you kidding? They were hardly pounding him at all when he started whining that "they're being too mean to me"(not an exact quote but close enough).
HELL, if he can't take what his fellow Democrats dished out to him what the hell is he going to do when Bush and company go after him, cry to his mommy? What a baby!!

Sacrificial Gephardt?? No one sacrificed Gephardt but himself. He's far too arrogant. But then I never liked the man to begin with. And now he's gone. GOOD, I'm glad.

But I'll stop here so that I don't get the mods too mad at me for disagreeing with the theme of this thread too. It seems that one rule for this website is that you're not allowed to disagree with anyones post.
We'll see if this post gets deleted, and gets me bootedfrom the group/website, since I dared to disagree with you.

[isbister]

4. "Dean needs to come clean with voters about who he is..."

Has the thought ever occured that there may be people who look at the candidates, where they stand on the issues, and choose their candidate according their beliefs?

I will never rely only on any candidate for President's promises alone. I rejected Dean a long time ago primarily because his record didn't match what he and the corporate media were telling me.

[stickdog]

6. Kerry's record doesn't reflect the way he's enabled Bush since 9/11.

Why is Dean responsible for the way the media has tried to destroy his campaign by portraying him as a wild-eyed socialist?

And when did Dean mislead you about his record?

Note that I can understand why you might think Kerry's record is superior to Dean's. But that's not what you said.

[hellhathnofury]

5. I could agree more. Let Dean be Dean.

:yourock:

[PurityOfEssence]

9. Dear Joe Trippi and others: Kerry and Edwards aren't "copycats"

That's just silly. The next thing we're going to hear is that workers' rights and trade fairness are something that Dean invented.

When I heard Trippi say that, it sounded absolutely puerile. These guys didn't "take his message". It just gets astonishing to hear the ego of this guy and certain of his supporters; everything on earth is not the doing of Howard Dean, and this is precisely the message we constantly hear. Dean's snap that the press "needs to get a life" is beyond reckless: it's one think to insult and kick fellow Democrats, but thumpin' on the press is just incomprehensible.

There's a "how dare you not accept our moral superiority" from much of this campaign that sickens many of us, and would probably be almost as distasteful if it was even slightly accurate. This campaign has essentially told all the rest of us that we're cowardly, duplicitous and insensitive. Gosh, thanks.

[stickdog]

11. I've been watching both Kerry & Edwards campaign since 9/11.

When each finally found his voice, it sounded REMARKABLY like Dean's.

Kerry's, in fact, is almost identical.

Meanwhile, Edwards is now the kinder, gentler Bush-hating populist.

The only one who HASN'T co-opted Dean's approach is Lieberman, and look where sticking to his relatively pro-Bush guns has gotten him.

(Note that Kucinich & Sharpton were strongly anti-Bush before it was cool to be anti-Bush.)

It's just like TV shows. One gets popular, and the others copy from it. What Dean forgot was that simply being groundbreaking doesn't allow you to keep winning the ratings game. The message needs to be constantly honed and the production values need to be constantly upgraded to stay ahead of the competition.

[emulatorloo]

13. From an Iowa Rube

Sorry, we are independent minded here.

I can tell you the media never tells *me* how to think.

We get to meet the candidates here, talk to them, examine them. We have a lot of unfiltered access. We think about who can best beat GWB, who can best make America better. We talk to our neighbors and friends, people we respect, about what they think.

Kerry and Edwards ran very good campaigns here, and people liked what they heard and saw.


on edit: GRAMMAR!!!

[Clark Can WIN]

24. Doesn't matter now Iowa

Congratulations, you and your neighbors and family and people you respect are now on the ever growing list of members of the anti-Dean conspiracy list. Either that or you are just poor, uninformed sheeple.

You rube you. <sarcasm off/>

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hep]

16. Score one for the status quo

n/t

[stickdog]

17. How is Kerry going to win the South, Will?

How is Kerry going to respond when Smirky smirks him off?

How is Kerry going to learn to be comfortable with regular people and to talk a little like one?

Just wondering.

[emulatorloo]

25. Kerry was very comfortable w "regular people" in Iowa

He was not "stiff" "partrician" "cold" 'boring" or any of the other things I have seen written about him. He was warm, funny, full of fire and caring.

He spent time with people and he listened to them. He connected w people individually and in crowds. He moved people to tears w his speeches.

He will handle GWB's smirks. He is full of fire re GWB's cronyism, arrogance, failures and he backs it up w his own plans.

On edit. . .added quote marks for emphasis

[terryg11]

15. seriously though

What it boiled down to for many last night was who can beat Bush. While I think that any of our candidates is a better choice than our current president I also know what we will be going up against later this year and so do most of us here. Many that turned towards Kerry last night did so because of his experience and history. I agree when they say that Kerry is probably the only one who can stand up there on a stage and rightfully claim to have more foreign policy experience than GW. Also, his military background will help him when it comes to that ignorant patriotic question the repblicns are so fond of.

[leyton]

18. I'm sick of hearing sour grapes about "media beating the grassroots."

Okay, I have some problems with Dean, and I definitely prefer Clark, Kerry, and Edwards. But my biggest problem is with Dean's supporters who whine about grassroots and the media.

The voting system works like this:

Candidates get lots of loyal supporters to go out and drum up support for their guy. That's grassroots.

TV and newspapers cover what happens. They publicize the polls, which indicate current support, and they run process stories. That's media.

And then people in the caucuses choose. That's voting, and in democracies, that's how it works.

What's so virtuous about grassroots support? What is it about flooding a state with volunteers that suddenly makes that candidate one who 'plays by the rules'? What is it about getting endorsements and bussing in kids that makes that candidate deserving of the first place prize? Yeah, it's a testament to Joe Trippi's skills, but it doesn't mean that Howard Dean deserves to win Iowa or be President. Not many have said it outright but I sense from many Dean supporters that this the feeling. Please explain this to me, because I could have sworn that the voters get to choose.

And second, why blame the media? These candidates have been stumping in Iowa for months and especially during the past few weeks. John Edwards hit every single county. I imagine Kerry and Gephardt and Dean probably hit most if not all as well. If you live in Iowa, there's no reason you can't go see a candidate speak, and there's no reason you can't find out what their positions are. Do you honestly think that they log on to CNN.com the morning of the caucuses, see the headline about Kerry, and go vote for him? Do you honestly think that? I think that sort of thing might happen in the general election. But in the Iowa caucuses, where the media representation of a candidate does not stand in for the candidate himself (herself)?

Finally, what makes you think the party insiders anointed Kerry and Edwards? They were written off a long time ago. Gore (who I think held some sort of government position at one point) endorsed Dean. Bradley (did he ever run for public office?) endorsed Dean. Harkin (where's he from?) endorsed Dean. Chip Carter (no relation to for the former President, I'm sure) endorsed Dean. Dean as of a few days ago led in endorsements in Congress. You can't blame this on the "party insiders."

People voted for Kerry and Edwards because they like Kerry and Edwards. That the two of them combined captured two-thirds of the vote without having to rely on unions or endorsements or sending troops of volunteers to Iowa is more of tribute to their skill as speakers, the trust they inspire, their credentials as liberals, and their electability than anything else.

You are upset because Dean lost. I understand that. But don't blame it on the media, because I'll bet Iowans aren't paying attention to the media, and don't pretend that because of his fine organization Dean deserves anything more than a "best organized" medal.

[Walt Starr]

19. Kerry is everything that was bad about Gore.

If it didn't violate the rules, that would be my signature line.

[dreissig]

23. Gore, Again

What we don't want is a repeat of the Gore campaign. Gore's reasons for running weren't clear: he didn't give people a reason to vote for him. He was ultimately undone by bad personnel decisions - Donna Brazile as his campaign manager, and Joe Lieberman as his running mate.

[emulatorloo]

26. No, Kerry is a fighter

and will continue to be one.

His turnaround in Iowa disproves your point.

[Walt Starr]

27. You're free to have your opinion

just like I'm free to believe Kerry is nothing more than a corporatist masquerading as a liberal.

[emulatorloo]

28. You are free to your opinion as well

but I hope you will be responsible enough to make sure that it is well-considered and backed up w facts.

At any rate, Gov. Dean will have my full support should he win the nomination. As will Edwards, or Clark.

On edit: some clean-up and clarification