> Well, I dont know much about this, so maybe I am
> mistaken in what I heard. There was a deal between
> Kucinich and Edwards that any "excess" Edward's voters
> in a caucus would go over to Kucinich and that the
> Kucinich camp would act in kind.
I have seen references to such a deal (i.e., after the initial caucus line-ups, Kucinich supporters in caucuses where they were below the 15% viability limit, which would be many of them, would go to Edwards). This raises a couple of questions. (1) Why did Kucinich choose Edwards? Was it some sort of tactical move, perhaps to attack Dean? In which case it seems to have worked. (2) Why would supporters of Kucinich in Iowa go along with it -- after all, they didn't have guns stuck to their heads? I think one has to agree in the end with those who argue that the Iowa caucus thing is a rather peculiar political exercise which has the virtue of putting the candidates on display and applying some pressure to them to show what stuff they are made of, but otherwise is an exercise one can't draw many conclusions from.
BTW, I happened to tune in to the coverage in time to see Dean's very strange speech to his supporters, compete with war-whoop. I haven't watched most of the coverage of the campaign so far, so I haven't actually seen Dean in action. I realize he was speaking mainly to his supporters, trying to energize them for New Hampshire after the 3rd place showing, but did he forget that the rest of the nation was also watching him? If this is typical of his campaign style, he is not going to be nominated, IMHO.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe. -- Attr. to Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile