IS THIS ANY WAY TO PICK A PRESIDENT?


The post-NH punditry is of course filled with eulogies. Lieberman is "dead", Edwards and Clark are "on life support," and Dean's "best chance to win has passed." Taking a step back, however, is the reality that all of this wisdom is based on 2 elections which combined to select a whopping total of 67 out of 4,322 Democratic delegates. Why on earth should the voters in states with say, cities, or racial minorities or decent Thai resteraunts let the voters of IA & NH pick the field they can vote for?


The reason of course is 1) the media parcels out airtime according to the results, 2) the party machers funnel money according to these results, and 3) voters in the other states lazily go along as well. None of these things is ordained from above - the lemming-like behavior can be stopped if there is the will. If not, that the least we can hope for is that a real state, with a significant population that represents a cross-section of America (like for example my native state of Pennsylvania) takes on the self-appointed guardians of American democracy and moves its primary to the the front of the line.

NOTWITHSTANDING THAT PRIOR POST, DEAN IS PRETTY MUCH FINISHED


Dean canned Joe Trippi, the genius who effectively created the Deaniac phenomenem by unlocking the potential of the 'Net for a former Gore staffer. So Dean is going to beat Kerry as a outsider by running like an insider? That has about as much chance of working as the Panthers winning the SuperBowl by airing it out 40 plus time this coming Sunday. Unlike the senator from their home state, the Patriots most likely will actually have to win, and not simply wait for the opponent to self-destruct.