Bob Novak’s column this morning suggests that if John Edwards wins Iowa, he could end up cruising to the nomination:
His nomination is not that remote a possibility. Edwards is staking everything on the Iowa caucuses, where he periodically leads the state’s polls. If he wins there to begin the delegate selection process, he could be unstoppable (as John Kerry was after winning Iowa). Even though Edwards may end up as the party’s nominee, prominent Democrats are surprisingly candid about him. Mark Siegel, a party insider for 35 years, told me: “He came to Washington as a ‘New Democrat,’ but he’s not that kind of Democrat anymore. He’s into class warfare.”
For a moment, let’s look at this through the eyes of an Edwards supporter: Novak says we can win, great! But wait, Novak is the Dark Prince of conservative journalism, this must be a trick somehow… he’s trying to discourage Democrats from voting for him. But wait, he doesn’t want a Democrat to win, so he must be afraid of Edwards! He must see Edwards as the party’s strongest nominee! But wait, Democratic caucus goers and primary voters know this, and don’t trust him, so they might be concluding that this is an elaborate ruse by Novak to trick Democrats into nominating him, so they won’t vote for him… but wait! What if he knows that we know that he’s trying to trick us, and so he reversed his opinion to make sure that we do nominate him…