Iowa madness
Well, I'm procrastinating, so what better way to do it?

Anyway, I was as surprised as anyone by the Iowa caucus results, having pretty much resigned myself to a Dean march to the nomination, whether I liked it or not.

I'm still deeply ambivalent about Kerry. Whenever I actually read something about him (which hasn't been all that often lately, for obvious reasons), I always end up feeling good about him, and from a tactical standpoint he has the requisite gravitas on security issues to compete with Bush (though he arguably overdoes it), but I can't help but worry that the REpublicans will be able to succesfully brand him as another New England patrician. I feel like invoking the name of Dukakis is a little unfair to him, but how can I help it?

Well, it certainly seems like all of the arrows that Dean took as the frontrunner ended up taking their toll on him; the question is whether Kerry will end up suffering the same fate, or whether he can avoid accumulating the amount of dislike that seems to have sunk Dean.