1 I keep misjudging Dean. Overestimating him I mean. Seriously overestimating him. I overestimated his appeal to the Dem base, which seems to actually be a group of mature, sane, determined folks. I also overestimated his political acumen with regards to the message delivered quite decisively by Iowa Dems. Although I thought he would come out in NH with a kinder gentler personality transplant, I read in my local paper (no right wing rag, believe me) that he was mocking the way President WALKS yesterday. Apparently Mr. Dean, and his supporters also, are very slow learners. My paper also had an entire page of reactions to his...'concession speech' - from Dems, and they were not complimentary. I am writing Dean off for now, and am going to turn my attention to the people that apparently still matter, like Kerry, Edwards and Clark.

2 Well, luckily you and I aren't in Karl Rove's position. From where I sit, the mistake in analysis of Dean is not that hard to make, and it's hard to get around for the layman. The problem I kept having in analyzing the Dean bloc was based in the understanding that a small group of highly-energized and mission-oriented people with a purpose will probably overcome a much larger group of unfocused people who mill about without energy and without purpose, even if the second group should be the the winners in a walk-over. Example 1: The Battle of France, 1940. I've read things before that suggest that the French army should have walked all over the Wehrmacht, due to better weapons and larger numbers. However, history demonstrates clearly that the Germans won that battle. Example 2: The Bolsheviks of Russia. On paper, they probably never should have been able to gain power. However, Lenin, Trotsky, et al were able to keep their focus, their eyes on the prize, if you will. Their political and military forces overcame all comers---including Western Alliance forces!---even though the White Russians probably should have won. I'm also thinking about the McGovern crowd in 1972, and I was considering the front-loaded nature of the primaries. McGovern was a fruit loop, but he managed to ride the tiger that was the New Left, and benefit from the reforms in Democratic nomination enacted after 1968. It seemed that all one needed was momentum, and from all appearances, Dean was the only one generating any real momentum. Admittedly, it wasn't much, but in a blind city the one-eyed man is king. I had a lot different response prepared to your remarks, but I think I decided to clean it up for eventual publication as a free-standing article.

3 Yeah...you know, another couple things. This supposed "Dean Bloc" just didn't show up as far as I could tell. The caucuses I watched on CSPAN were populated by mature, thoughtful folks. I just didn't see any whackos. Who exactly makes up the Dean Bloc? Whoever they are they either cannot or did not vote. Personally, I feel that my use of the internet affected my judgement about what was going on. I read and comment on blogs a good bit, and -almost all- the Dems that I communicate with in this way are nutty. They say things that are patently untrue -and 90% of folks KNOW they aren't true-, they are really foul-mouthed, tinfoil hat wearing nutsos, totally detached from reality. But who are these people really? Kids on computers I think. I'm 45 but I'd guess I'm pretty old compared to 99% of the people out there hitting the blogs. What I'm trying to say is, my 'Dem Sample Group' is messed up. I don't know what's really going on with Dems because I'm not really talking to normal Dems, I'm talking to lefty nuts on the web. I'll tell you though, I found the Iowa caucuses very sobering. My confidence went way down. Those folks were smart, mature, determined and very focused on beating Bush. They scared me straight. This is going to be a tough fight, that's perfectly clear to me now.

4 Er...and I guess you caught the clip of Dean not knowing the words to the National Anthem right?

5 Actually, no I didn't. For some reason, my level of interest in 2004 has been significantly less than it was in 2000, which was a drop from 1996 as well. Why is that? I'm not exactly sure. It may have something to do with the candidates, but even that's uncertain. My favorite theory runs something like this: I've actually had the opportunity to do political work and understand how things work, and also to gain some insight on the way things are in terms of elections, along with a couple of understandings about the American electorate and the American media's involvement in electioneering. I may know more about the way things work, but I'm also a lot more dispassionate about it. Hopefully that means I'm en route to being capable of functioning at a professional level, in terms of analysis and operations. This would bode well for me, since my interests are more towards being a guy in the back room (the "undisclosed location") or one of the "serious men" brought in to make sure that things go well in the Administration, be it in Richmond or in Washington.

6 A little foolishness, enough to enjoy life and a little wisdom to avoid the errors, that will do