All Over But The... Huh?

All Over But The... Huh?

Hillary Clinton ran the campaign she should have run in Iowa. Less scripted, more questions, shorter, less wonky speeches. Taking more chances -- beceuse she HAD to. If she had run that campaign here, she might not have won (there's still substantive stuff like the refusal to apologize for the war vote) but she could have been a strong second.

The "tears" thing was probably as calculated as the stage-managed Iowa campaign; notice that even in the middle of it she managed to get the "experience" message out. But whether it was real or not, it had some truthiness to it. She proved that she could do the retail thing -- at least for a long weekend.

Let's see if she can do it in the long haul, or if she'll revert. If you're the nominee, Hillary, we're a swing state. Please come back and do that Q and A event at the University of Iowa that you blew off doing in the caucuses. I still want to see how you handle the UI Antiwar Coalition. Or, lest anyone say I'm spoiled, let's see it on another campus between now and Tsunami Tuesday.

Were the polls wrong? Probably not. Polls are a snapshot and the subjects move. Cats run off, the kids lose that cute look on their faces, John Edwards blinks and ruins the shot over and over and over again. And New Hampshire voters broke late.

And the polls had that dreaded Heisenberg Effect of interfering with the process they were observing. The independents saw the numbers, figured Obama was safe, and wanted to be sure McCain beat the Mitt. That's twice now McCain has muddled a New Hampshire Democratic primary; he screwed Bill Bradley in 2000. That was decisive, this isn't.

But stop fantasizing about a brokered convention. This gets decided on Tsunami Tuesday. Before that: We go to Michigan, where Hillary gets a free throw and Obama either steers people to Kucinich or spins a write-in result into a moral victory. Nevada's next; if Hillary loses she complains about the caucus process like she did with Iowa. (UPDATE Friday 1/11: It's already happening.) South Carolina is an epic battle, then after that they both screw the early states pledge and go to Florida.

And the GOP? Who knows? But where's the Ron Paul REVOLution? He's never going to find friendlier ground than New Hampshire; isn't that the state Libertarians decided to move to and try to take over? And Ron was at 8 percent in 5th place. Explain that away, Paul people. A lot of noise, but very little reality.