CNN reports the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows Kerry ahead with 35%, with Dean following at 23%. If Dean loses Tuesday, it won’t be the first time an eventual front-runner lost both Iowa and New Hampshire. Here are the results for the 1992 New Hampshire primary:
Tsongas: 55,663 (33%)
Clinton: 41,540 (24.8%)
Kerrey: 18,584 (11.1%)
Harkin: 17,063 (10.2%)
Brown: 13,659 (8.0%)
The precentages look familiar, don’t they?
But if Dean starts losing beyond this, then he’s in real trouble.
On Kerry winning the Iowa Caucus, I have only this to say.
1992 RESULTS:
Harkin 76.4%
Tsongas 4.1%
Clinton 2.8%
Kerrey 2.4%
Brown 1.6%
1988 RESULTS:
Gephardt 31.3%
Simon 26.7%
Dukakis 22.2%
Jackson 8.8%
Babbitt 6.1%
Hart 0.3%
Gore 0.1%
Iowa means nothing. The eventual Democratic front-runners placed third in both caucuses. And so did Dean this year. Really, this could go anywhere.
The New Yorker on Howard Dean: “Last summer, Joe Trippi told U.S. News & World Report that he had given Dean a curious piece of advice: ‘I tell him the only way he can win is to believe in his heart he cannot win. We?ve got to act like we have nothing to lose.’ That, as they say, was then. When I asked Dean, in mid-October, whether he still subscribed to the Trippi wisdom, he replied, ‘In part. I think the problem with the Democratic Party in general is that they?ve been so afraid to lose they?re willing to say whatever it takes it to win. And once you?re willing to say whatever it takes to win, you lose?because the American people are much smarter than folks in Washington think they are. Do I still believe it? I think you have to be ready to move forward and not just try to hold on to what you?ve got. I truly believe that if you?re not moving forward you?re moving backwards in life. There?s no such thing as neutral.'”