I think that's what he's doing, MadMax. He does seem to be appealing to a lot of people based on his anti-Bush stances. Once he has them energized and in the fold, he'll focus much more heavily on his independent roots and try to win over the undecideds. I really doubt that those giving him support right now will simply stop once he starts really harping on his record. I'm inclined to believe that they are fully aware of it, and are still energized by Dean.
Go Dean go!!! Dean is a one-trick pony. Bush bashing. Where is his leadership on the issues? Where is his *positive* agenda for Americans? A campaign cannot be built on negative propaganda. Dean lacks leadership qualities and must learn to control his temper. Kerry sucked him into a pissing match at their first debate in which Dean looked incredibly angry. Dean lost that debate hands down. He embarrassed himself in grand fashion. This is too good to be true.
The first debate was nearly four months ago, correct? I think his fundraising skills and his pulling away from the herd at this stage is a better indicator of what kind of candidate Dean will be rather than a four month old debate. It was an embarassment in such a grand fashion that he's raised $10 million in the last cycle. I'm sure he'll take that embarassment for the next 15 months. However, if he's doing this well solely on the basis of his Bush-bashing, I'd be a little concerned if I was a Bush supporter.
I have two words for what will bring down Dean: RALPH NADER. [/begin Newman laugh] muahahahahahahahahahahaha. [/end Newman laugh]
RM95 -- I saw your signature...while I always love a good DMB allusion...I am a little baffled by your position with the Trader_johntexx Fan Club. I was hoping you would take a leadership role in my fan club. We are involved in lots of activities including, but not limited to: making fun of poor people; rallying against recycling (mostly just flipping the bird at the BFI guys when they come by to pick up recyclable items); going to local gas stations and just pouring gas out on the street; and intimidating and harassing anyone who isn't white. If these are the kinds of events you're looking to participate in, clearly there's a place for you here. P.S. We have an ice cream social on Thursday at the Lion's Club. Hoping to see you there.
I live in Vermont, and his national surge has taken most of us by surprise. We like him, but didn't think his ideas would translate well on the national scene. He's social liberal/fiscal conservative (Vermont is one of a few states not battling a financial crisis), but most Vermonters thought his small-state status would hurt him. Apparantly not. His campaign managers have done a superb job so far.
I thought it was widely known that I was, and still am, planning on mounting a run for President of your fan club. The current position I'm holding was open and they were begging anyone to take it. I felt bad so I accepted. 3 days.
i suppose that's acceptable. we have a lovely benefits package here that mostly includes chili dog lunches, beer and lots of baseball.
Vermont has an economy???? What, is it dominated by the berry-picking industry? Perhaps by leaf-collectors? Professional environmentalists? I know there's no real industry there, so I'm really not sure what people do in that state.
This has to be very galling for Kerry. He tried to play it safe. He was obviously against Bush's war against Iraq. He voted for it nonetheless like a gutless guy and now he is having problems with Democrats who mostly opposed it. The wierd thing is that Kerry is probably more liberal and perhaps even more against needless wars and occupations than Dean.
And so he served meat. And they came. I think Dean is as formidable as he is an *******. Whatever works. Also, one has to wonder about the second(?) stat in that first article... the one that mentions that 65% of the people still think that Bush will win next year... doesn't that seem like a measure of the flightiness of these voters? I would think that if Edwards started making a move, then the electorate would be receptive to jumping on his bandwagon. How many of these voters are watching polls rather than watching the candidates? Batman, do you think the surf will carry Dean into the south and midwest? I think Dean is beginning to address that very concern right now. If he makes inroads into the midwest within the next few weeks (w/o a Clark candidacy announced this weekend) then I wonder who the DLC will pressure to run? More interestingly, Dean is laying the groundwork for a Clark candidacy imo. The base is annoyed w/ the Senatorial candidates (ps, just saw Hatch come out of the elevator, I should have licked him on the face) and Dean is emerging as a sort of frontrunner... yet w/ too many flaws. If the DLC considers itself relevant, they'll rally behind Clark... Dean's election will paradoxically weaken the DLC (only b/c they flexed their muscle). rm95, that little guy from NC will do ok in the race. Edwards thinks that he's an in as a VP candidate.
I didn't even think about that. If he does get the call for VP (which with Dean or Kerry as the frontrunners, he'd definitely make the most sense), win or lose, he can parlay it into a more successful run down the road.
It really doesn't surprise me. Between talk radio, Sunday morning "Meet the Press" type shows and Fox News, we would seem to be living in the angry rhetoric and sarcastic one-liner era. This may be to be expected after feeling attacked, scared and vulnerable - something we in American aren't really used to. Nevermind the debacle that was the 2000 elections. Dean seems to really be feeding people's frustration and anger. The problem is that angry rhetoric and one-liner's don't really solve any problems. But, seems like folks aren't patient enough to deal with the real long-term solutions that are usually inevitible with big problems. It would be great if things like the war in Iraq could be wrapped up nice and neat like a two hour movie where we all salute the flag and say God Bless America before rolling the credits. Unfortunately, life is much more complicated than that.
I was wondering this myself, Major. I remember waiting for Gore to take the gloves off and it never happened. Not in my opinion. Of course, I kept waiting for Clinton to come out swinging against Bush as well and Gore kept him on a leash. Clark needs to announce soon and he needs to come out raising hell about this administration and it's policies if he's going to have a shot at the top of the ticket. I hope he does.
He does seem like a great fit... of course candidates can choose whomever they want, but it seems like he is the young talent, and that party would do well to groom him (it doesn't seem like he'd hurt the top guy; if the top guy is Clark I assume that Clark would go for a longer tenured Senator, but what do we know). btw, I finally looked it up, b/c I didn't think that I should squash the next democratic Senator's chances w/ the phrase "little guy"... Erskine Bowles was the man who challenged Dole... I agree Jeff... I'd add though that the President has set this situation up, for good or for bad for the Democrats. When you factor it all in: Cleland, the aircraft carrier photoshoot, lies about Iraq... and the party tucked its tail between its legs on Iraq(necessary qualifier: except for Graham)... the only thing for the electorate to do is to reclaim themselves by asserting themselves in this next election. People are furious... and they're involved in politics once more. Who knows, maybe Dean will save the party; maybe... maybe he'll kill the party... All that said, I am in awe of Clark's power right now. He could so easily announce Monday and knock Gephardt, Kerry and Lieberman out of the race. This thing is so dynamic.
Hiliary is polling higher!! ************ SAG HARBOR, N.Y. -- Sen. John Kerry spent the weekend in the Hamptons but never got to the beach. There is no time for sand and sea when you are gathering money for a presidential campaign. Richard Reeves The man from Massachusetts had a pretty good couple of days. Several dozen New Yorkers (mostly) paid $500 each to hear him at a brunch in Southampton, where he was introduced as the candidate with: "the war record of John Kennedy, the brains of Bill Clinton (news - web sites), the toughness of Lyndon Johnson and the hair of Ronald Reagan (news - web sites)." A good time was had by all, even if you heard the occasional grumble of, "What the hell is she doing out here? What is she raising money for?" "She" is Hillary. The senator from New York was down the road in Easthampton, getting ready to do her own gathering at a $250-a-head cocktail party. Pretty good for a freshman senator. But Kerry, who has served 19 years in that august company, is not concerned about Hillary the senator. He is worried about Hillary for President -- and well he should be. The race for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 has changed totally in the past few weeks. At the beginning of the summer, Hillary could comfortably deny having national presidential ambitions because the comfortable conventional wisdom was that it didn't really matter who the Democratic candidate would be, because President Bush (news - web sites) had a lock on re-election. (I'm sure that the thought has never crossed her mind that it would be better for her if Bush won in 2004, leaving her a clear field in 2008.) But now! With Bush looking more vulnerable because there are not enough jobs at home and not enough peace abroad, Sen. Clinton has to check some numbers. If a Democrat, say Kerry, defeats Bush next November and then runs for re-election in 2008, then her next chance to run would probably be in 2012, when she will be 65 years old. And who knows what the world will look like then? For the record, our new senator has said she was not interested in the presidency. So has former Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites), who might be rethinking his own future. Not for the record, though, Hillary and her advisers, including her husband the ex-president, her money men and pollsters, will meet shortly after Labor Day -- Sept. 6, I hear -- to discuss whether or not she should go for it. It is a decision that has to be made earlier rather than later because of November and December filing deadlines for the early primary elections that will almost certainly (and very quickly) identify the 2004 Democratic nominee. The contest, again almost certainly, will be over by March 2 at the latest, and possibly as early as the end of January. California, New York, Texas, Ohio and eight smaller states will hold primary elections on Super-Super Tuesday that second day of March. There is even a chance that if the same candidate, say Kerry, could win the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 19 and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 27, he could win early enough to cut off the financial and journalistic oxygen of other Democratic runners. If Hillary decides to do it -- you get to be president only by running for it -- she will have to meet filing deadlines by announcing her candidacy before the end of this year. Sen. Clinton is in the same high-stakes dilemma as one of her predecessors was 35 years ago. In 1968, New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was the most celebrated Democrat in the country after President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not run -- after almost being defeated in New Hampshire by a critic of the war in Vietnam, Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota. Kennedy threw caution and old non-candidate promises to the wind and entered the contest against McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey. There are great similarities between then and now, and between New York's carpetbagger senators -- Bobby from Massachusetts, Hillary from Arkansas -- beginning with their name recognition, their armies of admirers and enemies and their dominating position in polls. And polling could drive Hillary's decision, beginning with Bush's popularity ratings. On her own side, Democratic polls right now show Kerry, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, former House majority leader Richard Gephardt and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean as the Democratic leaders, each of them with 15 or 20 percent of the Democratic vote nationally. Throw Hillary's name into those polls and she gets between 37 percent of the vote (ABC News poll) and 48 percent (Quinnipac Institute). Kerry and the rest drop to single digits. Unfair? Of course. If Bush is in trouble, Kerry and Dean could be the Gene McCarthys of their generation if Hillary decides to be Bobby. hiliary
http://www.msnbc.com/news/958099.asp?0cv=KB10 Dean: From ‘Player’ to Front-runner So confident are his handlers, they may skip matching funds HIS OWN HANDLERS are so confident about his prospects that they are seriously planning for the long haul—which means, in their eyes, foregoing federal “matching” funds so they can be free to raise and spend as much as they can next spring and summer once (they hope) Dean locks up the nomination in March. No final decision has been made—and there is the little matter that Dean promised long ago to stay within the system. But the sense I get from talking to his inner circle is that he will, indeed, skip the match. Here’s the arithmetic behind it: As of last week, his Internet-based campaign had amassed a donor list of 100,000 individuals. The average donation, campaign sources say, is $77. But the contribution limit for individuals is now $2,000—which means, in theory, that Dean already has a potential pool of $200 million—a staggering figure compared with the $40 million or so he might be eligible for in matching funds. Eschewing the federal match has other strategic benefits. Dean would be free to spend as much money as he wants in any state—including the early ones such as Iowa and New Hampshire, where he now has a lead, and where he will soon come under attack from his rivals. Should he win the nomination, he would be free to raise and spend cash in what has become the defining middle third of the presidential campaign—the March-through-August season before the general election in the fall. In the meantime, the issues are breaking his way. Party leaders—such as they are—once dismissed Dean’s anti-war based message as too narrow and liberal to reach the Democratic mainstream, let alone the swing voters in swing states the Dems need to win the White House back. That argument looks fatuous now, with public patience with the war in Iraq eroding, and with the combat deaths and financial costs mounting steadily. In the latest polls, by Newsweek and others, his views—if not his aggressive, anti-Bush style—are as mainstream as can be. Dean’s lack of military service is seen, by many, as a fatal flaw. Not if the anti-war tide rises further. And we are only seeing the beginning of what is soon going to be a rip-roaring guns-and-butter debate, one that could put President Bush in real political peril. The war is costing $1 billion a week—and soon may cost more. Other countries are paying little. Voters in the Newsweek poll expressed irritation at these spending levels, and they are beginning to make the connection between the overall health of the American economy and the amount of money we are spending on a war they still support—but don’t want to pay for. Rivals are going to begin focusing their fire on Dean. Another angle of attack is that his social policies are too leftish for the country—he, after all, signed that civil unions law in Vermont. But I don’t see that costing him much, if anything, in the Democratic primaries themselves, where activists turn out and where the electorate is left of center. The Bush White House would, of course, try to paint Dean as a flower child of Vermont, a way-out-of-the-mainstream social liberal. But the Republicans don’t want to risk making such matters the centerpiece of their campaign. To do so would give too much prominence to their own Bible Belt base. Bush wants that support but, come next fall, isn’t going to want to feature it in his own hunt for swing voters (who tend to be rather laid back on social matters.) The Bushies—and Democratic rivals before them—also are going to try to paint Dean as a “pacifist” (a top White House aide’s word) who would rather negotiate and talk to the French than take the fight to the terrorists around the globe. But if his style of campaigning is any indication, Dean is no pushover—and would argue that he wouldn’t be as commander in chief, either. UNSTOPPABLE? Who can stop Dean? You need to know, first, that there is no “party leadership.” There are no guys in the back of the room. There is no room. Members of Congress, who control nomination “superdelegate” votes, could unite behind someone—but haven’t and probably won’t. Joe Lieberman says nominating Dean would be a disaster for the Democratic Party. He may be right, but the way things look at this moment, the Democrats are going to get a chance to see if Lieberman is right. In the end, Dean’s biggest obstacle may be—Howard Dean. Sooner or later, he is going to come under enormous pressure, and his response will decide his fate. He can be imperious, and he has a temper, and he tends to be a know-it-all. He is no longer an insurgent, but a frontrunner—and that is still the most dangerous place to be before the voting begins.
