Have Iowa and NH decided who the nominee should be in the past?

[_Jumper_]

76'?

[Mass_Liberal]

1. I don't think so

didn't Clinton lose those? Je ne sais pas.

[_Jumper_]

2. Yes

But Iowa was not contested that year because Harkin ran.

[hedda_foil]

3. No. Never in a contested primary season.

This season has been horrendously front-loaded by McAuliffe to produce this result (very early party-blessed nominee). Iowa and NH have never been so close. SC has always been at least a month later in a stand-alone primary. Then there's been 3-4 weeks to Super (mostly southern) Tuesday and a smaller batch of big Northern states in April. The time between primaries allowed for campaign regrouping and scrutiny by the media. This schedule is literally designed to create a media and party driven coronation. Dean's campaign had a great strategy for doing an end run around the strategy by using it to their advantage. However, the weakness of that strategy was the fact that a pile-on by other candiates and the media in the 2-3 weeks leading up to Iowa could kill momentum cold.

Dean's momentum got stopped and driven backward in Iowa. Now take a look at the timing and viciousness of the so-called "scream speech" repitition (now renounced by ABC and CNN). Despite this, he got a lot of his traction back within that week for NH and came back strongly (all things considered). He's been coming in 2nd in virtually every race since then with no paid media, and tons of negative media, but no one would know that, would they? Nope. The party and the media ran a combined take-down.

They've done the same thing to Clark to a lesser (but still damaging) extent and Kucinich to a greater (and longer-term) extent, but the effect is the same.

And voila! Kerry, unvetted becomes newly telegenic and mysteriously "electable" and no one (except a few early true-believers, of course) quite knows why except that's what "everybody" says. Of course, everyone is listening to the same echo chamber which can turn against Kerry just as quickly and just as viciously in the GE.

And will. Unfortunately. Because that's how it works.

[emulatorloo]

4. OK Hedda Foil, One More Time. . .

I live in Iowa. I was undecided between Dean and Kerry. I got serious around Veterans Day and I went to see both several times and really dug into the issues. I became more and more impressed with Kerry.

Kerry really got his campaign going around that time. Kerry worked very hard moving around the state, and spent a lot of time talking with people, connecting with people and getting his message out. Each time I went to see him, the crowds got bigger and more enthusiastic. People resonated with what he was saying. The media had written him off, yet there he was, he was talking to people and connecting w them. People were cheering, being moved, crying, feeling pride in what America could be again. He had strong message of hope and people responded to it. I told my undecided friends about him, they went to see him and they came away convinced.