On the beat: Kerry visit

I am now covering the Kerry event on Macalester's campus Wednesday, which, alongside the Edwards rally on Sunday has surprisingly thrown me right into the middle of the national campaign for the first time since my November pilgrimage to Iowa (though the stories of Kellen, Andy and Adam at the Iowa Caucus made it far more colorful--and insightful).

With Dean's sudden deflation, my wandering political spirit stumbled onward yet again. I'm genuinely happy that the Democrats haven't torn themselves to pieces, and evidently Edwards doesn't plan to attack Kerry, or so he told us on Saturday. That in itself is a big step for the Dems.

The gang around here is flocking to Edwards, but I've hemmed and hawed about where I stand altogether. I think his image works great, I think he's making an impressive run that a lot of people said would never even get this far. That's a lot to his credit. There were plenty of Dean backers sporting their colors at the rally, so naturally, I am supposed to gravitiate there. But is Edwards' glossy inexperience ultimately a liability? (Additionally there's an incestuous sort of lawyer love going around among this crew, whether or not they admit it :-)

In the end Kerry seems to be steamrolling all the way down, and what's coming Wednesday will reflect that. Yet the Iowa and Wisconsin campaigns revealed Edwards poll spikes at the very end. Would Minnesota finally be the site where Edwards beats the man on top?

In sum, I am still ambivalent, and heck, since we are conducting entrance polls to the caucuses for Empirical Research Methods, I probably wouldn't even have time to caucus even if I wanted to. At this point, I may be more interested in watching the pretty pieces assemble into one glorious mural than really come down on it either way.

Posted by HongPong at February 23, 2004 01:46 AM
Listed under Campaign 2004 , Macalester College , Media , News .