DONALD DEAN

In 2004, Howard Dean was soaring in the polls with his strange group of followers he called the “Perfect Storm.”  They frequently showed up in orange hats.  Dean was drawing record crowds and going into Iowa he was leading in the polls by over 20 points.  But, Dean not only didn’t win in Iowa, he came in third.  The person who won in Iowa was John Kerry.  Kerry had spent a lot of time there and had built up a major organization.  Sound familiar?  When Dean realized he lost, he melted down with the famous scream during his “victory speech.”   It was obvious that Dean was not Presidential material.  John Kerry had the nomination wrapped up by March 2.

The similarity between the Howard Dean campaign and the Donald Trump campaign is obvious.  Both were drawing huge enthusiastic crowds.  Both seemed to be immune from attacks by other candidates.  Both were soaring in the polls.  Both expected to win Iowa.  Both lost.  Both melted down.  If anything the Donald Trump meltdown was even worse than Dean’s.

I  couldn’t help but notice that both Dean and Trump tried to kiss up to evangelicals by quoting scripture.  Dean said his favorite New Testament book was Job.  Donald quoted from two Corinthians.  It didn’t work.  Evangelicals are not that stupid.

Howard Dean never recovered from his meltdown after Iowa.  If history repeats itself, Donald Trump may not recover either.  In both cases the candidates looked like they were defying gravity.  t was obvious to a lot of people from day one that neither man had the temperament to be President of the United States but it didn’t seem to matter.  Until it did matter.  We really didn’t learn anything new about Donald Trump after Iowa.  He just made the problems impossible to ignore.

Trump may literally be laughed off the national stage.  I do not know who will win New Hampshire, but I sure won’t be surprised to see Trump do poorly.  I also expect Bush and Christie to do poorly.  Kasich may improve some, but it is unlikely to be enough to matter. We could easily have a two man race between Cruz and Rubio after New Hampshire.

TDM