Reply #15: Fineman in Iowa: Edwards crowds are good and "fired up"...

[IndyOp]

Fineman in Iowa: Lots of things look different on the ground with a week to go
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22411315 /

John Edwards has set the pace, and dictated much of the tone, of the Democratic race -– a tough, populist, anti-corporate message. Perhaps he can win on the strength of it. His crowds are good, too, and more of the “fired up” variety. He’s got a lot of union organizers straight out of the old-school, shouting slogans through megaphones made of rolled up posters.

But I (Howard Fineman*) remain skeptical, for one reason: these are for the most part good times in Iowa. If you listen to WHO radio, the legendary, 50,000-watt clear-channel station that covers the state, you know that corn and soybean prices are at an all time high. Farmers are flush, and so are a lot of other people. If Edwards wins in the face of that, it’s a huge signal about the future of economic fear.

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* Howard is known to many of us as the man who admitted not to long ago that he and the other media elites gave Gore a hard time during the fall of 2000 because Gore was leaving Bush too far behind in the polls and the media wanted an "exciting match".

:thumbsdown: