I have little disagreement (*) with this observation:

>What matters is that a terrorist group blew up a train in order to change the outcome of an election, and they now firmly believe that it worked

But what started this thread was:

>...the theory that the terrorist attack had been designed to affect the outcome was dismissed by the Left almost immediately

That's my larger point about this and many posts like it at HZ. How the apparent success of the Madrid bombings affects the strategy of terrorist groups is an interesting and important topic. The way Tom phrased it though, was to score partisan points -- "Here's another dumb thing 'The Left' believed".

(*) I disagree that why the Spanish public voted the way they did is irrelevant. Even if irrelevant to the terrorists, I think it's important for our side to understand how our own public opinion is affected by attacks and government response to them.