I have invested enough of my ego and my career on the Internet that I do not want to see "Internet campaign" become a term of political derision, like "Al Gore's endorsement." So, even though I thought that Howard Dean was the second coming of the Internet Bubble and was bound to burst sooner or later, I was sad to see him do so poorly in Iowa.

My guess is that Iowans tend to cast their votes based on personality. It's sort of like the article I read recently about job interviews, which said that studies show that a good rating at a job interview tends to correlate with being liked by the interviewer rather than with job performance. I think Iowans decided that Kerry and Edwards were nice and folksy, while Dean failed to connect. I don't think that the caucuses really sort out issues or message.

But the Internet smart mob proved to be far less potent than even I would have expected.