IOWA ROUNDUP
Matthew J. Stinson has a good roundup of the Sunday morning talking head shows, including the parts I fast-forwarded through to get to the round tables. He even has This Week, which I finally quit watching once George Stephanopoulos took over as host.
Dan Drezner rounds up the polls and media analyses and adds some solid analysis of his own. The short version: “Kerry wins in Iowa, but Edwards gets the biggest boost.”
Kevin Drum writes, “[B]arring something genuinely bizarre, we pretty much already know the results: Dean, Kerry, Gephardt, and Edwards are all going to do fairly well. I wonder how much the exact numbers matter at this point?” Of course they matter! This is the most important caucus in the most important presidential election in human history. (Or so I hear.)
RealClear Politics has links to a lot of op-eds on the subject as well. Frankly, I’m sufficiently tired of it that you’ll have to read them yourselves rather than get my usual handy-dandy excerpts.
Jeff Quinton has some guesses, too.
My SWAG: Dean, Gephardt, Kerry, and Edwards in that order.
The new format of This Week (which is actually Stephanopolous’ second redesign of the show) makes it better, though Meet the Press is the only one consistently worth watching even when the roundtable is lame 🙂
I should probably just start TiVoing it and then fast forwarding through the sucky parts. But I already get MTP, FSN, and the Chris Matthews show so there’s already quite a bit of overlap.
“Frankly, I’m sufficiently tired of it that you’ll have to read them yourselves rather than get my usual handy-dandy excerpts.”
translation: half time is nearly over
It’s good to find somebody who sees Iowa the same way I do. That way if I’m wrong I’ll have company. 😉
I stopped watching This Week once Stephanopalous took over also.
There will be a divergence between what the polls say and what the outcome is. The polls measure private preferences, while the caucuses are expressions of public preferences. The key to a caucus in a contested primary is the organization’s ability to mobilize participants and then to make a rather resounding case.
“This WeeK’ is still on? I quit watching when David left.