Looking back at Iowa

I have spent the past 40 hours cogitating on the result in Iowa. I was thoroughly flabbergasted over the last week as Kerry and Edwards surged from the basement to the penthouse.

I still am not sure that anyone really has explained what happened. Many pundits point to this or that and proclaim the answer found. I think they are all right and all wrong.

Let us consider the fact that of the four serious candidates in Iowa, two moved up and two moved down. Had it simply been a case of John Kerry catching fire (something that is hard to imagine) then one might think that this was nothing more than outstanding political operations on his part. But Edwards too? And how to explain the tandem free-fall of Dean and Gephardt?

The major factors that I think brought about the current alignment are as follows:
1. Dean began imploding in December, with his idiotic statements on various international issues.
2. The capture of Saddam Hussein hastened the process as Dean began to look loony even by liberal standards.
3. Gephardt paid dearly for his unstinting (for a Democrat) support of the Iraq War.
4. Old-line union support ain't what it used to be.
5. Kerry and Edwards were the comfortable middle ground left between the old hat, boring, pro-war Gephardt and the manic, angry, anti-war Dean.

Americans are moderate when gauged against worldwide standards of conduct, even our loony left. In the end the Iowa voters opted for what they saw as the calmer, nicer, liberal but not nutty, against the war but not totally, choices.

Then, Howard Dean proved that they were right about him. He proceeded to go nuts and act like a mad dog. Caucus night he bounced out on stage, whacked Sen. Tom Harkin a violent high-five, handed Harkin his coat, yanked the microphone from him, and went into an enraged tantrum of weird behavior before the nation's eyes.

Dean is finished. At this point a Kerry-Edwards ticket seems likely. Stay tuned.