So How's the Clever Plan Working?

Pretty good it seems. Howie's now wearing sweaters and hiding in his plane - Dodgy Dean in Presto Change-o:

GRUNDY CENTER, Iowa - The tightening race in Iowa has turned the once-confident Howard Dean into an uncertain candidate.
He's changed his wardrobe (adding sweaters), revised his stump speech (it's shorter, sweeter) and started dodging the traveling press (which has been questioning his front-runner strategy).
...
The situation led to a bizarre moment this week that Dean sat in his plane for nearly half an hour rather than come down the steps and answer questions from reporters waiting for him on the frozen New Hampshire tarmac.

Meanwhile, Weasley Clark, the Bozo from Burpelson, seems to be coated in Teflon. He stumbles from one bizarre utterance to another and the press never seems to make a fuss. But some folks have noticed that there's something a tad odd. See (via PoliPundit) Matthew Continetti's Does Clark Have a Prayer?:

As the press van makes its way toward the event, where Clark will answer questions from voters, I talk with a reporter from one of the major news networks who has followed Clark for several months. It's the usual chitchat--where we're from, where we went to school--and after a few minutes, we fall back into silence.

For a moment, anyway. "It's funny," the reporter says eventually, under her breath. "I can't believe [Clark's] doing so well all of a sudden."

"Why is that?" I ask.

"Because he's so damn crazy."

We've noticed that too.