Still, you can duck reality for a while. If Dean squeaks a win in Iowa tomorrow, he’ll be “perceived” as having done less well than expected. If he loses Iowa and then narrowly wins New Hampshire, he’ll be the comeback kid. That seems entirely possible. Unlike Iowans and the rest of the country, Granite State Democrats know Howard Dean well, and they’re voting for the dull, centrist Vermont Governor they have known for a decade, not the crazy guy who has been on the loose the last year.
I have to say I see no evidence in my part of the state of a Wesley Clark surge, though that might be because it’s been 50 below for the past two weeks and no one wants to get frostbite taking the Dean sign down from their yard and putting up one for Clark. I’d still bet on Dean in New Hampshire, though it will be narrower than it would have been, and it will present Mad How with awkward problems as he moves on to South Carolina. What a difference a month makes for the supposedly inevitable candidate.
The whole thing is here.