Iowa and NH not very important?

"Sometimes, like a river at flood tide, a presidential campaign washes away tradition and flows in a completely new direction. "

A USA Today article suggests Iowa and NH may not be key to selecting the nominee thsi time, giving Clark, Lieberman, and Edwards a chance to win the nomination with a minimal shoowing in IA and NH.

In addition, although "the candidate with the most money in the bank on Jan. 1 of the presidential year invariably wins the primaries" may also not hold this year. If Dean "busts the spending cap" will the negative backlash sink him?


see:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&e=5&u=/usatoday/20031015/ts_usatoday/11902878

here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=108&topic_id=60074

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=108&topic_id=59449#59896

With the larger group of primaries coming just one week after New Hampshire, there won't be the bump as seen in the past. There won't be as much publicity and there won't be much fund raising time. Also there is little incentive for anyone in such a large group to drop out. Why should they? There are so few delegates at stake in NH and Iowa. These delegates will be divided between all those that receive over 15%.

On Feb 3rd there is more than just South Carolina. It seems like even pundits are living in the past. Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, New Mexico, and Oklahoma combined with South Carolina have a lot of delegates to be won.

On Feb 4th, there will still be five or even six candidates still standing.....depending on their funds.

1984 Iowa: Mondale
1988 Iowa: Gephardt, Simon, Dukakis in that order.
1992 Iowa: Harkin gets 74%.
1984 NH: Hart 37%, Mondale 28.
1988 NH: Dukakis
1992 NH: Tsongas

That makes 2 for 6. Notice that these primaries have always been won by the candidate from either the state of the primary or a neighboring state, with the exception of the 1984 New Hampshire primary, where there were no New England candidates.

So do these primaries set trends? Not a bit. If Dean knocks off Gephardt in Iowa, that's a big story for Gephardt. Similarly to the loser of Dean v. Kerry in NH.

Thus neither Clark, Lieberman, nor Edwards need to win or place second in these two. In South Carolina, the only candidate who needs to win would be Edwards, and possibly Kerry if he loses to Dean in NH.

The real races to watch are MI, TN, and VA. MI is win or die for Gephardt, and should show which two candidates are going into the final round. TN and VA should also contribute to this filtering, since only one person will likely have the momentum going into the 3/2 and 3/9 elections in the southern states.