Is tonight. 4 years ago I was...well, the caucus hadn't taken place yet. Let's look back

The real story should be why we placed third when our own internal polling had us ahead. Our ones were soft is the simplest explanation. (Ones are people rated as "strong Dean supporters" when identified...Fives are strongly for someone else and threes are neutral.) We had a strategy to get tons of people who hadn't participated in the caucuses to show up and vote for us. Well, tons of people did show up. Attendance was one of the highest ever. Those newbies just didn't vote for us...they voted for Kerry or Edwards. Another factor was that Kucinich supporters went for Edwards, after the two campaigns worked out a strategy beforehand. Now I feel the same way about Kucinich people as I did about Nader people last year. But finally, and more importantly, our ads were awful. We had an army of people on the ground, but voters weren't being convinced by us because ads had already told them that Dr. Dean was going to "privatize social security" (someone actually told me this! an Iowa voter!) and raise taxes and end democracy as we know it. And our rebuttal ads had the good doctor in front of a white screen talking calmly. It was very lame.

I'll predict right now that it'll be Edwards/Obama/Hilary. We'll see though...the softness of support seems lower than in previous years, but both Obama and Hilary are trying the Dean approach of "getting out new voters" which just doesn't work, in Iowa. Let's recap, Elftor style. Yeah

If any dc residents want to meet up and watch the fireworks, buzz me.