There’s plenty of analysis on Iowa from…well, pretty much every website that exists. Alas, I don’t think I have anything particularly fascinating or unique to add. With that in mind, I’ll just add my two cents and move on.
In the off chance you rely exclusively on The Carpetbagger Report for information, the all-but final results out of Iowa are as follows:
Kerry — 38% (17 delegates)
Edwards — 32% (15 delegates)
Dean — 18% (7 delegates)
Gephardt — 11% (0 delegates)
The only thing I know for sure is that the entire race for the nomination just got a lot more complicated.
Kerry — The reports of his death, it turns out, were greatly exaggerated. This is a tremendous victory for a candidate who did everything right for the last two weeks. All that talk about Kerry “finishing strong” in all of his races turned out to be absolutely true. Will this give him a bump going into New Hampshire? Of course it will. But Kerry needs to start thinking seriously about what happens the day after the primary. His success in Iowa will guarantee him a better finish in the Granite State, but he’s running short on cash and the early polls in the Feb. 3 states aren’t encouraging. The victory in Iowa will give him momentum and positive attention that he’ll need to raise some money and boost his support among Dems nationwide.
Edwards — Guess those polls showing him surging were right after all. As the weeks go by, I like Edwards more and more. Edwards’ strong showing in Iowa will garner his campaign a strong second look by a lot of people who had written him off. In some ways, it’s a little like the position he was in after the first quarter of 2003, when he surprised a lot of people by raising more money than his rivals. Unfortunately for Edwards, he lost that momentum to Dean over the summer. Now he has a second chance at a second look (or is that a third look?). Like Kerry, however, he’s short on money and support in several Feb. 3 states, so he’ll need to strike fast to take advantage of last night’s success. I hate to say it because it sounds insulting to him, but Edwards’ stock as a VP has just skyrocketed.
Gephardt — It’s hard not to feel bad for the guy. He’s had a great career and it’s ending on a sad note. Gephardt will withdraw this afternoon.
Dean — The coronation march just took a detour. Dean’s failure in Iowa is, for my money, almost unspinnable. His campaign’s futile attempt at spin came up with: “If you had told us one year ago that we were going to come in third in Iowa, we would have given anything for that.” Ouch. Dean wasn’t battling the expectations of a year ago; he was up against the expectations of two weeks ago. Dean campaigned in Iowa longer than any of his rivals (starting in the fall of 2002), he spent more money in Iowa than any of his rivals, he boasted of having the most sophisticated GOTV network Iowa has ever seen, and as recently as Sunday, his staff was still insisting that he’d win here. And yet, his support was less than half of Kerry’s once voters actually registered a preference.
The funny thing is Dean’s Iowa campaign, which enjoyed a substantial lead up until very recently, appears to have no idea why things went wrong, which, of course, makes it hard to fix. Bill Schneider, CNN’s utterly useless and clueless political commentator, said Saddam Hussein’s capture caused Dean’s support to drop. This strikes me as insane. I believe Dean’s collapse is a little easier to explain: people got tired of him.
Clark — In some ways, Iowa’s results were the opposite of what Clark’s campaign wanted to see. Gephardt’s gone, which is good because it helps narrow the field, and Dean’s momentum has been stopped, which may help in the long-term, but Kerry and Edwards are getting a boost, which doesn’t help at all. Clark was anxious to get the campaign down to a two-man race: he and Dean. Now, realistically, it looks like a four-man race.
It’s not all bad news for Clark. I still believe he’s well positioned to take advantage of Dean’s troubles — Clark has more money than Kerry and Edwards, and enjoys stronger support in early primary states like Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and South Carolina.
Stay tuned…