GAZING INTO THE CRYSTAL BALL

Iowa caucus night and it's early but it looks like an upset so far. CNN is already grilling Dean on why his poll numbers didn't play out.

I would be surprised except I've been predicting this privately for well over a year. On August 6, 2003 I sent this email to one of Kerry's junior speech writers.

...I think your man has a good chance but I think Dennis does too. Dean I think has built his mo' way too soon and will crash and burn...

On January 1, 2004 I posted the same prediction here.

I think 04 will be the most interesting election season we've seen in decades. I'm not going to post this on Tim Blair but my prediction for this race is that an unprecedented surge of reactivated 60s liberals and newly registered young voters will sweep Bush and his cronies unequivocally out of office. And I'm still predicting the Dean campaign will crash and burn before he gets to Boston. I'm not sure who I think will lead us to this victory but it won't be Dean.

The early results would seem to indicate Al Giordano at Big Left Outside was right about Kerry all along and as far as I know he was the only one saying it. I was hoping Kucinich would be the usurper but I'm happy to see that Dennis' support was strong enough to have an effect in shaping the course of events nonetheless.

The lesson to be learned here I think is, don't trust the pollster's numbers. As the town treasurer once said at the annual Cummington town meeting, "You can cook the books any way you like, but there just ain't no money in the bank."