It Was No Surprise

The rumblings a couple weeks ago were that Wesley Clark wasn't going to last very long in the Iowa caucuses, what with liberal Gov. Tom Vilsack publicly questioning Clark's "Democraticness." And those rumblings were absolutely right. Clark made it official Sunday; he's skipping Iowa.
Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Gordon Fisher is insisting that most activists haven't made up their minds and Clark should stay and fight. The truth is, the Democrats who attend the caucuses are more liberal -- often much more liberal -- than the mainstream and Clark recognized that a guy who spent his life in the military wasn't going to get a lot of votes out of that crowd.
If Clark had tried the result would've resembled John Glenn's 1984 campaign, which imploded here in a big way. Glenn turned out huge crowds and the talk was that he was going to give former Vice President Walter Mondale a serious challenge. In the end, Democratic caucus goers gave Mondale about 50 percent of their votes and Gary Hart was the alternative candidate at roughly 17 percent. Glenn was so far back -- behind George McGovern, Alan Cranston and others -- that his presidential aspirations were finished. What happened was Iowans of all political stripes were turning out to see former astronaut John Glenn but liberal Democratic activists were not voting for moderate presidential candidate John Glenn. It wasn't until just about the end of the campaign that political analysts figured out big crowds don't mean big numbers on caucus night.
Clark's decision was smart in the short-term, but long-term dumb. He's a political novice surrounded by people thinking Clark's candidacy will be a firewall against whichever candidate becomes the frontrunner, but those firewalls very rarely work. The bloom is off the rose for Clark; look for more amateur mistakes from him as this thing goes on.
On the same day that Clark made his announcement, Joe Lieberman decided to toss in the towel here. Word is he'll leave an office open; there just won't be much more than a receptionist working there. "No natural constituency in Iowa" is what the political analysts are saying here.
Well, if you were your party's vice presidential nominee just three years ago and you have "no natural constituency" you have a problem. Like Clark's strategy, Lieberman's is short-term smart, long-term fatal.
Which brings us to John Kerry and John Edwards. Neither has been able to build much support here in Iowa. I can only suspect that they're both ticked at Lieberman for beating them to the punch and getting out of town before they did. It's too late now; they're going to have to stay in it until the end now.
If things keep going as they are, look for a Dick Gephardt, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich -- one, two, three -- finish. OK, I'm just kidding about Kucinich. Maybe. It'd be a heck of a lot easier for my Democratic friends to take him seriously if his literature didn't say, "Kucinich, rhymes with spinach."
No one really likes spinach.