Kos has an interesting post on the impact of the ubiquitous cell phone on the Iowa Caucus process.
I see nothing wrong about such strategic maneuvering per se, but I'm not entirely clear on the expected result. Iowa and New Hampshire don't matter nearly as much as they pundits all pretend they do so that they can direct their media operations at 2 states and ignore the rest. It's the next set of states which really seems to matter. A win in Iowa and NH followed by a thrashing the following Tuesday would actually be a signal that it might be time to drop out, while the reverse would clearly be seen as a big "come from behind" win.
...just an additional comment. I don't yet think Dean is inevitable, but with each passing day, for better or for worse, I think that inevitability becomes more likely. I do think some people, myself included, are a bit too quick to jump on every tactic of his opponents as being of the "circular firing squad" variety. Not all criticisms of your rivals or campaign tactics will have the net effect of bringing the whole party down a notch or two. But, the types of criticisms which can have that effect - and since Dean is the perceived frontrunner they are directed at him - are the ones which play into the standard Media Stereotypes about Democrats. Immoral, overly secular, soft on crime, soft on defense, unelectable, gonna raise your taxes, and inconsistent. The last two are a bit of a grey area of course. A candidate can genuinely be inconsistent, which should be fair game, or they can be inconsistent if one is Nit Russerting or Nit Picklering.* I expect Russert and Pickler to do this kind of thing, but not the candidates. Raise your taxes is a grey area too. The truth is every candidate - including George Bush - come '05 or '06 at the latest is going to "raise taxes." The only question is which taxes and who will bear the brunt. With Bush it could be the indirect "Bush tax" - massive increases in state and local taxes following massive Federal spending cuts - but it won't be any smaller. Spending as a percentage of GDP isn't going to fall. So, it's fair to say that your tax plan which, say, preserves the child tax credits of the "Bush tax cuts" is better for "working families" than is Dean's as long as you don't pretend that "Dean will raise taxes" while you won't.
*Nit Russerting being the repeated assault onto an Democratic interview subject of pairs of out of context quotes, combined with calls to resolve the perceived (by Russert) inconsistencies to his satisfcation. Nit Picklering being the writing of news stories admonishing Democratic candidates for daring to not explain their own inconsistencies, as demonstrated by Nedra Pickler by the inclusion of some utterly irrelevant detail.
