Iowa's Wisdom

Iowa's Wisdom

I personally had a hard time imagining that all those hog farmer and soybean growers were going to vote for Howard Dean. It turned out that they didn't.

I think that perhaps, Dean and his minions fell into the trap of paying too much attention to themselves and forgot that they had to bring others along.

"Experienced politicians and reporters here were bemused by Deanites, wearing their trademark orange stocking caps, roaming the streets of Des Moines and other Iowa cities. These excited activists were misinterpreted as the vanguard of a political revolution. Buying into the erroneous theory that polls were valueless in this caucus state, the experts underestimated the impact of Dean's accumulated gaffes.

Of all Dean's bizarre comments, his opponents felt the most damaging was his statement that mass killer Osama bin Laden deserves a fair trial. While the war in Iraq fueled the Dean phenomenon, its limitations as his overriding campaign issue were reflected in Iowa's entrance polls. Caucus-goers disapproved of the war by 3 to 1, and those that considered it the top issue strongly backed Dean. But they comprised only 14 percent of all voters."