Cruel bite of Iowa's verdict

By RUPERT CORNWELL in Washington

Is there a more visceral, exhilarating, cruel, humbling and downright enthralling business than politics?

The Iowa caucuses, the traditional starting point for American presidential campaigns, provided a compendium of human emotions. They threw wide open the battle for the Democratic nomination, which had appeared a coronation march for Vermont's former Governor Howard Dean.

And triumph, disaster, tragedy and resurrection were all there as well, rolled into one extraordinary evening.

The triumph, however ephemeral, belonged to John Kerry and John Edwards, the two mainstream United States Senators, whose campaigns barely a month ago seemed on life support.

The lesson, it would seem, is that much-derided political professionals from Washington should never be written off.

The disaster, or at least the most brutal of wake-up calls, has been inflicted upon Dean, who instead of finishing first or a close second, came a distant third.

Rarely has there been a more humbling experience for the media and other purveyors of conventional wisdom.

In Iowa, it was said, Dean had the endorsements, the money and the organisation deemed essential for success - as well as a hard-edged anti-war stance that appealed to Iowa Democrats, held to be strongly opposed to the invasion of Iraq.

But none of this mattered. Iowans huddled in their church basements, school halls and front rooms and turned the conventional wisdom on its head.

And then, the sad spectacle of a dream ended, a moment for private sorrow - but which politics cruelly demands must be enacted in the full glare of the TV cameras and watched by millions.

That was the lot of Dick Gephardt, once the favourite in Iowa, whose 30-year career as a pillar of his party was vapourised in half an hour.

Iowa is only the beginning. The contest now moves to New Hampshire for a last week of retail politics before the primary next Wednesday.

Then the contest goes national. Money and momentum become critical. Campaigns move from shaking hands on the streets and flipping pancakes in diners to TV ad blitzes and giant airport rallies as candidates scurry from state to state, all the while trying to gather enough money to keep the adventure alive.

The possibilities are endless. Maybe Dean will make a comeback in New Hampshire, where he needs a strong performance if his effort is not to unravel.

He still has far more money than his rivals, and a broader organisation.

And he is back in the underdog's role where he once thrived.

More likely, however, Kerry will next week build on his victory in Iowa, and reclaim his natural New England territory.

And what of Edwards, who is starting to look like the re-incarnation of Bill Clinton he was advertised to be when he entered the race 18 months ago?

A performance in New Hampshire to match his second place in Iowa will leave him well-placed when the election caravan rolls towards his native south early next month.

As with Kerry, favourable headlines will win him a second look from voters - and a piercing second look from the media.

It was the media's scrutiny of a frontrunner, so clumsily handled by Dean, that contributed to his reverse in Iowa.

A similar trial by fire almost certainly awaits Kerry and Edwards.

How they deal with the experience will say much about their ability to challenge President George W. Bush in the election, where Republican "opposition research" - better described as systematic character assassination - will be at its most ruthless.

And finally, what of the former Nato commander Wesley Clark, the sleek and laser-focused general who is becoming a more effective candidate by the week?

Having skipped Iowa, Clark has used the interlude to buttress his position in New Hampshire where - until Kerry's triumph - he was running a threatening second to Dean.

As the smoke of the Iowa battle clears, it seems old orthodoxies are reasserting themselves.

A year ago, Kerry, with his gravitas, his heroic military service in Vietnam and his knowledge of national security issues, was considered the Democratic candidate best equipped to win the nomination and beat Bush.

Instead his campaign bumbled as the candidate failed to connect. But the Kerry act has finally come together, and a wheel may be coming full circle.

Equally important, Dean may have now served his purpose.

His rivals have watched him electrify the Democratic base with his pummelling of the President, his argument that the party must be true to itself, his insistence that Bush cannot be beaten by "Bush lite".

Now they are taking pages from the Dean script. To their Washington-bred expertise with the issues, Kerry and Edwards have added passion - while avoiding the overheated language, the brittleness and ill-temper that may be the undoing of Dean.

One way and another, this is bad news for the White House. Bush's handlers could never conceal their belief that Dean would be the easiest Democrat to beat.

But Iowans have now voted with their heads, not their hearts, picking not the most outspoken anti-war candidate, but the one they deem to have the best chance of beating Bush.

Casualties of war

We spent a long time as the supposed front-runner and we paid the price that front-runners pay.

- Howard Dean in New Hampshire.

Those of you who came here intending to be lifted by ... a lot of red-meat rhetoric are going to be a little disappointed.

- Dean is more subdued than in Iowa, where he alienated some with his fiery tone.

Today my pursuit of the presidency has reached its end. I am withdrawing as a candidate and returning to private life after a long time in the warm light of public service.

- Congressman Dick Gephardt ends his second bid for the presidency.

- INDEPENDENT