Interesting post on our compressed primary schedule

[ProfessorPlum]

Also from Digby's blog: (http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/)
Digby always wins my "I wish I had written that" internal contest.

<snip>

So, while it is certainly true that Kerry is not even close to attaining the required number of delegates, he is the winner because he has won and that means he will keep winning. And that is exactly what the Democratic Party wanted. The entire point of pushing up the primaries was to get a winner as quickly as possible. The DNC apparently knew that Democrats in these new early states would have no clue that they were playing a hugely important role in picking the nominee so they'd go with whoever Iowa and New Hampshire chose simply because they figure those guys "did the research."

And, if there are two states in the country that we can rely on to pick winners for us it's Iowa and New Hampshire.
.....

Still, there is one important lesson to be learned from the past. By drawing out the primaries the way they did, the Democrats had far too much time to think about who they were voting for and they often voted for someone who wasn't a winner. If Bill Clinton couldn't win Iowa and New Hampshire, he had no business being the nominee. But, nobody told the voters or the press (who were fixated on Ross Perot at the time) so he managed to eke out the nomination when it was obvious that either Tom Harkin or Paul Tsongas should have run against George Bush.

It is a good thing we've learned from our mistakes. We won't let that happen again.

.....

The Dean rise and fizzle is an interesting story. But, the continuing obsessive attention it is getting is not only destroying Dean's chances of coming back, it has ruined everyone else's chances of getting any oxygen whatsoever. Kerry wins the nomination because he beat Dean in Iowa, period. The press framed the election in those terms and those terms seem to be propelling the voters to assume that this is the contest. Nobody else exists, except as they relate to Howard Dean.

.......

"Dean fucks up. Kerry wins. Let's move on to the general election."

</snip>