At least, that’s the impression that I’m getting here. Admittedly, back in 2007 the fun didn’t really start until the second half of the year, but the general take from that piece seems to be …Ehh. Hillary will show up, and we’ll go rah-rah, and then she’ll win and that’ll be that. It’s not that they’re jumping up and down for her; it’s that nobody apparently really expects that Hillary Clinton will be seriously challenged in Iowa this go-round, so she might as well take it slow.
I would normally at this point note that a dynamic and exciting alternative candidate might take advantage of this lack of agency on Hillary’s part. The problem for the Democrats is, they don’t actually have one of those mythical beasts handy. The closest substitute is an elderly college professor/first-term Senator from Massachusetts who has about as much real-life experience as Barack Obama does…
Moe Lane
PS: I love it when my opposite numbers are kind of ‘meh’ about a state that I hope to win in an election. Love it, love it, love it.
Democrats have always hated those farmers in Iowa, Harkin is probably the only reason Democrats pretended to care about Iowa. Now that he’s gone, and replaced by a Conservative woman and GWOT Vet they hate it even more, and don’t care that much to hide it.
Because democrats nominate the early favourite… almost never.
Al Gore being the sole exception that I recall, and he was a special case, having practically all the advantages of incumbency.
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I should note that Jim Webb has actually been fairly active in Iowa. I had to run a search on it, because it hasn’t really made the national news. But he’s been there, doing what you’d expect a candidate to be doing.
And I doubt he’s the only one.
The media wants to choose the Dem nominee just as much as it wants to choose the Rep nominee. Hillary will get undeserved exposure, other candidates will face a blackout. And when the bidding ends and cards are shown, the “unexpected” result will do more damage to her campaign than nearly anything else could.