Kerry Wins Iowa by Avoiding Negative
Jan. 20, 2004 -- In a contest like the Iowa caucuses, with their unusual process and complicated formula for delegates in which turnout is king, it's often said that organization trumps momentum.
But not always.
With 98 percent of precincts reporting Monday night, Iowa's Democratic voters came out for Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts with 38 percent support, and gave Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina 32 percent.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean finished third with 18 percent, and Missouri's Rep. Dick Gephardt, who won the 1988 Iowa caucuses, finished fourth with 11 percent. The poor showing prompted Gephardt to leave the race today.
Kerry, who weeks ago had been all but written off as the alternative to Dean, much less the alternative to President Bush, pulled off a feat that for a moment at least looks vaguely like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
After a rough staff shakeup last fall and disappointing poll numbers in New Hampshire compared to Dean's, Kerry invested both people and money in Iowa and turned up with a force of supporters that even the Dean campaign acknowledged was widely underestimated.
And Kerry wasn't the only one with the big momentum. Edwards, who despite his considerable oratorical skills and ability to connect with voters hasn't cracked double-digits in most nationwide polls, revved up both voters and his ground game to come in second.
While Dean and Gephardt went after one another over Iowa's airwaves, Edwards refused to attack his opponents, and he swears that that positivism is the key to his last-minute surge. An endorsement by the Des Moines Register last week and an impressive showing in the newspaper's poll on Sunday only added to the perception — now reality — that Edwards was on a roll.
Newsmagazine cover boy Dean had been engaged in a tough fight against Gephardt in Iowa for months, pulling even with the presumptive Iowa front-runner and fueling an organization with young people willing to travel hundreds of miles to sleep in "Camp Dean" and bring on what the campaign called "The Perfect Storm."
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