The moment when Dean went very publicly crazy and issued the scream heard round the world came after his candidacy had imploded with a third-place finish in Iowa.
The lesson of the 2004 Democrat nomination contest is that implausible candidates (Dean, Clark) can look very strong but that they ultimately obey the law of gravity and come crashing to earth. When they do, plausible candidates can come from nowhere (let alone second place) to win.
Everybody in the Republican field this year is an implausible candidate, except Fred. Giuliani is an authoritarian statist. Mitt is a managerial statist. Hucksterbee is a religious statist. McCain has no ideological compass at all. None of them makes any sense for a conservative party.
On this basis alone Fred stands out more than enough to win. Starting in Iowa, voters will makes sense out of the chaos and they’ll do it with surprising speed.
so in other words, insider trading is essential for an efficient market...and the insiders were not for Dean.
how did Dole win the nomination in 96? couldn’t we compare phil graham to fred?
When they do, plausible candidates can come from nowhere (let alone second place) to win.
***That’s why I’ve been saying Hunter is a bargain at less than 1%. Then, of course, the FredHeads will start focusing on the “plausible” aspect of your sentence and we all go round & round.