Iowa Bigger Than Ever?

Iowa Bigger Than Ever?

LA Times thinks so, but more importantly they give the quote love to one of the JC Dems' own:

The courtship of key activists has been underway for months. Sarah Swisher, a nurse and labor leader in Iowa City, has spoken with more than half a dozen prospective Democratic candidates soliciting her views on healthcare and angling for support.

"It's been intense," Swisher said.

"Key activists" always sounded so mysterious before I got into the ball game. Now after 16 years in Iowa, activists is pretty much everyone I know, and my own keys have a flash drive attached.

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Felt uninspired to write over the weekend as I was satidfied with my instant take on the Bayh witdrawal and the near-simultaneous Announcement announcement from Edwards. That's a pet peeve of mine: the announcement of the Announcement. The ACTUAL newsworthy announcement is the pre-announcement, the Announcement itself is a staged op that should by ignored. Edwards' New Orleans photo op might help some folks down there, but the political story is redundant; he's in.

My least favorite ever was on one of Nussle's house re-elects when he had an Announcement after the papers for re-election were filed. "I'm running for re-election!" Gee, we figured that, what with your name on the ballot and all.

But back to Bayh and Edwards. Bayh gets credit for figuring out there's no room for a nobody, and that proves he's smart enough to be a somebody later. Same with Mark Warner (though he's reportedly reconsidering). My guess is Richardson also bails soon,. Kerry, Biden and Dodd will slog it out because age leaves them no other option - though Biden and Kerry each have Senate re-elects in `08. Kucinich will plays the issues martyr and protest not being mentioned in every single story. But I got the intangible sense last time that this is less about issues and more about Dennis Puchinich and Dennis Kucinich's ego.

No, no room on this stage for anything but giants and rock stars.

That leaves the Man From Mt. Pleasant. And the more I look, the more he feels like a stalking horse, allowing Hillary to take a pass on our distasteful backslapping and potluck suppers and skip straight to Nevada and New Hampshire.

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Here's a couple semi-random things:

A Kos thread on Senate appointments; Grim Reaper political geeks like me had to do something with all the Tim Johnson research.

Junk crawling goes all green and trendy. Gee, and I though I was just a cheap scrounge who lived like a college student (you mean the silverware is supposed to match?)

The second D in ADD: disorder, or difference? Hence the semi-random.

No mood for holiday music: Warren Zevon instead.