| Winnowing in Iowa |
27 October 2003
|
Lieberman, Clark Drop out of Iowa Race
The announcement last week that Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and General Wesley Clark (D-US Army) would both drop out of the Iowa caucuses in their presidential bids came as no surprise. Caucuses require intense organizing and major commitment in resources. General Clark is hasn't had the time to set up an adequate organization, and Senator Lieberman hasn't had the ability. The General will live to fight another day; the Senator is finished.
The caucus is an American institution without parallel. Delegates to the national convention are selected by a process that begins in the living room of a local precinct boss. Registered Democrats come over for coffee and desert and to argue over whom to back for president. Senator Kerry's people go stand by the fireplace, Governor Dean's by the rocking chair. Eventually, a few people are selected to represent the precinct at the county convention, which picks people for the state convention, who select the delegates for the national nominating convention.
It is inefficient, it is ugly, it is democratic in the most fundamental sense -- like the town meeting of the 1600s, or the city-states of Greece. Above all, though, it requires a committed core spread broadly across the state. General Clark has not been in the race long enough to have the forces in place to commit to such an undertaking. Like any good general, he knows to fight on his own terms and not to waste forces trying to take ground merely for the sake of taking it.
Senator Lieberman has less of an excuse. He's been in this race from the start, and as the party's 2000 vice presidential candidate, he is known to all of Iowa's political activists. That makes his inability to fight for Iowa damaging in the extreme because the party's hardcore won't back him in the farm states. That doesn't mean he can't win the nomination (although there is no way he'll be the nominee), but rather it means he can't win the general election. The battleground in 2004 will be those places that Mr. Bush barely carried in 2000. If the good Senator were wise, he'd bow out now and save himself the grief.
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