With three days to go in Iowa, the wheels are coming off angry dwarf Howard Dean’s campaign:
January 16, 2004 – Democratic presidential contender John Kerry opened a five-point lead on three tightly bunched rivals in Iowa three days before the state’s caucuses, according to a Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby poll released on Friday.
I figured the Dean campaign would self-destruct sooner or later, because shoot-from-the-hip pandering doesn’t work as well as the calculated pandering of political pro’s, but this early decay, which is also happening in New Hampshire, is surprising. Apparently Dean got a lot of early attention by taking extreme positions and running more of a sustained temper-tantrum than a campaign, and as the time comes for voters to take a closer look, he’s not holding up too well, even in the uncritical eyes of Democratic Party regulars. This was the same dynamic that took John McCain down, so it’s utterly predictable.
With his back up against the wall, Dean has rolled out the heavy guns on his behalf – Martin “Jed Bartlett” Sheen and Rob “Meathead” Reiner are campaigning with him in Iowa, all the better to reach the “off their meds” demographic who believe Sheen is president and Reiner’s a political activist.
And it’s working, judging by the Saturday poll that shows Dean wiping out Kerry’s lead. Now there’s a man who knows his demographic.