There are a few things we can take away from these surprising results. Perhaps the most obvious dynamic has been that of negative campaigning. When Dean took a lead among contenders, he faced increased attention from the media, and increasingly negative advertisements in Iowa. Most of those came from Dick Gephardt, who was running second in Iowa at the time. Dean decided that he needed to defend himself by responding with a negative campaign directed back at Gephardt. This followed up a long streak of negative Dean ads targeted against his fellow Democrats, and especially against President Bush. Two winners quickly stepped out from this cloud of negativity: Kerry and Edwards. By the weekend, Edwards had gone from single digits in the polls a few weeks back to a close fourth, Kerry was leading the pack, and Dean and Gephardt were scrambling to pull their harsh ads from the air.

While Iowa isn’t a perfect representation of the country as a whole, the need for a positive, upbeat message might well be part of a new trend in American politics. Bill Clinton certainly thinks so, and while he’s been giving advice to all of the candidates, it’s Edwards especially who has been following in the last President’s footsteps.

Moving to New Hampshire for Tuesday’s first primary, there’s now increased pressure on Dean to step things up. (I wrote this last week, so tell me what happened.) Perhaps his biggest challenge will be to connect to voters in a more personal way than he was able to in Iowa. He’ll have the advantage of being from neighboring Vermont, but this will also serve to raise expectations.

Edwards and particularly Kerry will be riding the Iowa wave into New Hampshire. The Dubuque caucus I watched was representative of many across the state in at least one respect: when the Gephardt supporters realized that their candidate wasn’t viable, most switched to Edward’s side. If this trend continues now that Gephardt has bowed out for good, Edwards should be able to perform at least modestly in New Hampshire and be in good shape heading into his home turf of South Carolina. Kerry on the other hand, is already leading the pack with 31 percent in New Hampshire according to a recent Boston Herald poll. He should be able to make at least modest gains in the next few days, and Dean and Wesley Clark have a scant few days to fight back the tide.

The most encouraging piece of all of this has to be the high turnout in Iowa. While watching streamed CSPAN, I happened to be talking to a friend in California who was not at all interested in the caucuses, or politics in general for that matter. What I found interesting though, was that in the course of offering up a list of reasons for her apathy, she spoke of several social issues that worried her. I think (and hope) that we may be seeing here the first signs of a changing American attitude towards politics and its role in societal issues. But hell, even if that’s all bogus you should still keep an eye on this race. It’s looking like it could turn out to be a good one.

Matthew Shanley