So, Dean came in 2nd, 12% behind Kerry. Not total victory, of course, but definitely enough to keep Dean a serious contender. I also seem to recall reading a statistic that nobody has ever become President of the US without finishing either first or second in New Hampshire. If true, then Dean is still well placed for victory. And as I recall, Clinton won niether NH or IA.
One neat thing that happened tonight - I was watching the election results come in over at the Plough and Stars with a bunch of the SF for Dean crew and during Dean's speech, about halfway through, he paused, looked down at some people, and said, "wow, there's people here all the way from San Francisco" (or words to that effect). The entire room went up in a big cheer at that. A reporter from the local ABC affiliate showed up about 10 minutes after Dean's speech had ended. He'd have gotten much better footage if he'd gotten there earlier, but he interviewed a few folks anyway.
I still have trouble understanding Kerry's appeal. I watched his victory speech tonight and I found him boring, full of platitudes -- in short, a typical politician, with no special fire. And I would really like to know how he can justify voting for both the Patriot Act and the war on Iraq when he did NOT vote for the first war on Iraq.
I'm not going to cut my nose off to spite my face. If Kerry wins the nomination then I of course will vote for him. I may not like the guy but I'll take any Democrat over the current occupant of the White House.
Still, I want Dean to be the nominee, not Kerry. I haven't been able to do much on the ground to promote Dean, since the majority of campaign activities take place on Saturdays when I'm at work. But I'm going to try harder to find some that I can do when I do have time off.
