Contrary Iowans

I've always had a special fondness in my heart about Iowa, due to the Music Man and "Iowa Stuborn". Especially the phrase, "You really ought to give Iowa a try, provided you are contrary."

Part of me really hopes that Iowans are contrarians, and that I would be welcome and recognized as one of them.

Tonight, they seemed to have shown their contrarian side to the rest of the country and to the media. Obama won tonight in the Democratic Caucus and Huckabee won the Republican Caucus.

Why was it a contrarian view?

Guiliani was the media's appointed boy after McCain flamed out early. Romney, while not #1 or #2, was still one of them. Huckabee and Paul aren't. Both McCain and Guiliani finished BEHIND Ron Paul? C'mon, if that's not contrary, what is?

To me, I'd have liked it if Dodd did a better showing, but he seems to be wearing the mantle of crusader for the Constitution quite well. Had you been able to stick around until February, I'd have been proud to have cast my primary vote for you, Senator Dodd. It wasn't until your (threatened) filibuster to stop the FISA bill that I had made up my mind to vote for you.

Clinton is much the media's and country's idea of establishment. I just read Arianna Huffington's op-ed about the primaries and the reason why she lost, but I think it really wasn't just Bill and what he said. I believe that most of the reason why she lost is because we just had 20 years of Bush-Clinton. Do we really want another 4 years of Clinton and to the general public, is there any separation of Bill and Hillary?

Biden and Dodd has dropped out but their total combined support was less than 2%. Kucinich didn't even register. Richardson got 7%, a better showing than I'd have thought. As for Gravel not dropping out of the race, my only response is, who?

So now, back to wondering who I'll vote for. I'm leaning towards Edwards, but truth be told, there's strengths and weaknesses in all the candidates. Boy, this is going to be hard.