The Dean Meltdown & What It Means For The Blogosphere

Last night was not a good night for many. I had (and still have) the flu and Howard Dean got spanked in Iowa - an event which precipitated a mini-meltdown by the candidate. So given Dean's poor showing and his apparent political tone deafness, where does the race for Bush's opposition stand?

Dean is, in my estimation, as good as done. For all his effort in Iowa he walked away in third. With the runner-up selection of John Edwards in particular (but also with Kerry to an extent), the voters sent a pretty clear message that they want to see a positive campaign: one built on ideas and positions, not on anger and mud slinging. Dean's temper tantrum at the end of the night was the absolute wrong message to send. With it he proved that he is no more than a one-trick pony - and that he is therefore unsuited for the Presidency.

Kerry is a bit more interesting. I personally think that he's pretty clueless (and I've ripped on him more than once in the past for some statements that I thought were pretty dense), but he does seem to be gaining some momentum. In terms of sensing the shift in the politcal winds away from anger and more towards positions, I've noticed that Kerry has caught on relatively well. He is much more astute on the national stage than is Dean, which is most likely a product of having been in the Senate rather than simply working at the state level. A Kerry/Bush campaign would be interesting, but I think that Kerry is just a bit too far out to the left of the mainstream - and while not as bad as Dean, still too prone to political gaffes that would sink his candidacy.

John Edwards provides the most interesting opposition of any of the Democrats, I think. I'll admit to having basically ignored him up until now, but I'm going to have to take a step back and look at what he brings to the table. The fact that he has been running a positive, issues based campaign has probably worked against him to this point, but it does make the job of researching his positions much easier - he actually appears to have some! I would most like to see a the Democrats come up with an Edwards/Lieberman ticket as it might actually provide a real and worthwhile campaign to follow come September and October.

For what it's worth, I still think that Lieberman is the best of the Democratic bunch combining a degree of name recognition with an understanding of the system and a fair amount of reasonableness. I don't often agree with him, but he at least gives me something to think about most of the time. And he understands that the nation is more important than the party - a simple fact that seems to escape most politicians any more.

Getting back to the Dean debacle for a moment, I expect that the significance of his defeat in Iowa will be blown all out of proportion to what it really indicates. Dean was a product of the national media. The media made him, and now the media will tear him down. And I've got to give the big media boys credit, they may have figured out a very Machivellian way to slam him, while protecting their own turf.

As we look back at the fawning articles we've seen about Dean over the last few months, there is a great deal of discussion of about the "grassroots" Internet campaign and in particular about the effect that blogs have been having on his run for the White House. It's almost as if the media has been trying to build up this aura around the Net as having created an invincible mass of support that would carry Dean to victory.

But I'm also pretty sure that the media was aware that Dean's support was nowhere near as widespread as assumed. Knowing this, they allowed the perception to persist (instead of attacking blogs as they have in the past) with the, as it turns out well-founded, belief that Dean would get crushed in Iowa and the supposed effectiveness of the Internet in creating momentum (rather than supporting it) would take a hit as well. As Dean's campaign took a hit, so did the credibility of the power of the blogosphere to influence national elections. Blogs were shown to be a tool, not the tool, a very important distinction and one that plays very well into the hands of the major media.

The more I look at the Internet and the way it is viewed by many, the more I think that it is akin to the way that people think of military air power. For years, some of the brightest military minds have theorized that air power alone would be enough to win a war. Only over Kosovo has air power been enough to dislodge a ground force from territory it held. There still is no replacement for the soldier on the ground. Similarly, the Internet is still not a replacement for the mainstream media. The Net can influence the course of the campaign, but ultimately, the entire battle cannot be waged online.

Iowa was an interesting place last night. A surprise runner-up, the unions were all but ignored, and the "power" of the Internet was again shown to be limited. So the question becomes, what happens in New Hampshire? I think that we're going to see more of the same. Dean should poll better, but he's got a lot of credibility to make up. He has really hurt himself with his outbursts and his other gaffes. But I think that last night showed that even the Democrats want something other than the establishment choice.

And that's a good thing. Politics, as they have usually been over the last few years, were beginning to polarize society and to turn the country into a negative and cynical place.