This morning's Des Moines Register (the bible of politics in the first key state), runs a lengthy feature on Dick Gephardt's fade.

This is most notable because Gephardt won the crucial Iowa caucus in 1988 and was expected to take it again. He comes from neighboring Missouri, has a powerful organization there, and the real race was expected to come down to second place.

Iowa is crucial to everyone (probably more important than even New Hampshire, now), but must-win for Gephardt. If he can't win in his own back yard, he'll look completely unviable. And he never polls/runs great in NH, so that will leave him 0 for 2. And if he lost his last run with the big boost from Iowa, what's he going to do without it. If he doesn't win here, the press will write him off, the money he's already struggling to raise will cease, and he'll be dead in the water.

So it had to be terrifying to him that a New Englander (Dean) pulled ahead in the Des Moines Register poll of Iowans a week ago. Now the paper takes an in-depth look at why Gephardt is failing to rouse his public.

The reporting could have been more thorough, but it does provide some on-the-ground analysis of what's going on in the most important state, from the most reliable source on that subject:

Doubts prevail in Iowa on Gephardt victory

Iowa Democrats, like their peers around the country, seem drawn this summer to fresh faces in their hope of finding a candidate who can defeat President Bush. That's bad news for Rep. Dick Gephardt.

The Missouri congressman who ran for president 16 years ago lacks the newcomer mantle of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, and several Democratic supporters interviewed doubt he can return their party to the White House.

"I just don't know what he's done since he ran last time to convince me he has that extra kind of thing that might propel him to be president," said Windsor Heights Democrat Gloria Lintner, a retired human resources manager who said she favors Dean. "He's a good man, just maybe not in fighting trim."

...

Last week, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a story citing several Iowa Democrats, whom the Gephardt campaign claimed as supporters, who never agreed to support the congressman or never were contacted by campaign representatives.

Council Bluffs Democrat Steve Gorman attended a Gephardt campaign event this year, but he said he told campaign staff then he would remain uncommitted. Gorman said he was surprised when he saw an item in the Council Bluffs Nonpareil newspaper in June that included his name on a list of Gephardt supporters provided by the campaign.

"I like Dick Gephardt, to be honest with you, but it's time we get a new voice in there," said Gorman, a member of the Pottawattamie County Democrats central committee and co-owner of a Council Bluffs mortgage company.

It will be interesting to see if this story and last week's poll accelerate Gephardt's decline in Iowa. When the major paper in the state starts to signal your obituary, a lot of volunteers, donors and party activists might start looking for a new home.