OK, I gloated for an hour.

I'm only a little surprised.

A few factors contributed to the success.

1. The big management change in the Kerry camp in November. Strong organization on the ground.  
2. All the candidates spent a year turning up voter turnout. With high turnout, a GOTV machine isn't a competitive advantage.  
3. Kerry put all of his energy behind one punch. Can he keep his balance and sustain that level of effort? Will the same tactics that worked in a 2.9 million person state scale to one with 35 million people?  
4. The whole message thing changed then too: They Let Kerry Be Kerry. He's great with people. Great on discussing issues. Totally affirms my view that campaigns are conversations.
5. Bush bagging Saddam elevates warrior status. Kerry served in combat, highly decorated. Served on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee for 20 years. A long time architect of America's war on narcoterror and political terrorism.
6. Dean and Gephardt nuked each other. Not civil, and Iowans punished them for it. It's to Dean's credit he survived.
7. Kerry and Edwards have a higher Emotional Quotient (EQ) than Dean. Dean wasn't very likeable in the debates or in interviews. One long note of derision, frustration, just ready to burst out of his skin. Other candidates, like Kerry and Edwards, showed many emotional notes, in appropriate circumstances. 
8. By process of elimination (angry Dean, babyfaced Edwards, civilian Gephardt) you're left with Kerry.

What should Dean do?

• Keep on plugging, the machine was working.
• Work on yourself. Get high, drunk, a massage or something so surgeons can expose your warm fuzzy side, the side that laughs, giggles, cries. Your true believers know it's in there.
• Go two weeks without mentioning Iraq. It'll scare the bejeezzus out of Clark.

What should Kerry do?

• Franchise your HQ. Start building tools so your volunteers can do more kinds of things. "Franchising" your headquarters roles lets each metro area lay solid groundwork before you come to town. (Call me. 510 444 8234)
• Get six hours of sleep and keep eating your oatmeal.
• Money follows support. Put supporter enrollment above donor armtwisting.   

All said, I'm proud of my local team. Our small crew has five people on the road in Iowa and New Hampshire. We're actively working on our campaign craft, studying from old hands. We're doing the basics badly but learning from each experience, better each week. We're communicating well with each other, despite our circle growing.

Slowly those of us who were afraid to commit are becoming true believers. We can say things like:

John Kerry is the Real Deal.

We're sending a president to Washington, not a message.

He's the one we want on the podium opposite Bush.

and believe them.

And we have the nerve to ask people to join us.  

• Come to a Kerry meetup this Thursday night.
• I'm shopping for a media relations strategist for the Bay Area, to help us take back the White House.
• I need a team that understands precinct, CRM profiling, and direct marketing software, so all Americans can have health care at least as good as Federal employees.
• Curriculum developer wanted, so we can build the Opportunity America we all deserve.
• Speech communications professor, to give voice to the average American instead of powerful interests.
• I need a conversation with someone who can coach newbies on project templating, so 20% of our children don't go to bed hungry.
• A digital artist, to bring sunshine and transparency back to government service.    

Call me. Or write: phil@dijest.com.

You're not seeing a lot of me here. I'm doing most of my blogging over on EastBayKerry.com (all politics is local). And spreading myself thin in bulletin boards, other people's blogs and doing campaign related stuff. My apartment flooded, throwing off my schedule and keeping me away from my computer for a week. Small stuff.

[a klog apart]