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A Crisis Intrudes On Iowa
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Thus has a wide Democratic consensus defined the choice here as among three different change agents: one tough and experienced, another forceful and angry, the third sunny and inspirational. Biden stands outside their fight, listening to his own drummer.
Democrats have been in this place before. Writing to his friend Newton Minnow about the 1960 nomination battle among John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Adlai Stevenson, the veteran New Deal lawyer James Rowe wondered what all the commotion was about.
"As long as the available mechanism is the Democratic Party, and the troops to command are Democrats, I do not think there would be much difference between the three men," Rowe wrote. "This is the reality and all the sound and fury of 'liberalism' and 'moderation' which all of your gentlemen indulge in are mere chimera."
But here, this late December, the differences among today's three leading Democrats seem real enough, and all the more so now that the world has brutally forced its way into Iowans' already agonized deliberations.
![[slate.com logo]](http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2007/09/27/GR2007092701096.GIF)
