Not only do I lack the relevant campaign experience to evaluate whether the Obama campaign's radical theory of how to win the Iowa caucus will prove effective, but I don't think people with lots of campaign experience have any way to tell, either. Caucuses are unpredictable. But the campaign's reliance on enthusiasm doesn't have a particularly heady history: You have to go back to Carter to find a Democratic primary in which the early frontrunner -- not necessarily the leader in the national polls, but the guy most political observers thought would win -- failed to capture the nomination. Despite enthusiasm-powered insurgencies from Dean, Bradley, Tsongas, Jackson, Hart, and Kennedy, enthusiasm tends to lose out to traditional models of political strength. One really enthusiastic vote is the same as one apathetic vote cast by a hectored AARP member. But we'll see. 9/11 changed everything, after all.
