just heard on WQXR, and apparently in on the NYTimes.com. news came in an email sent to supporters by dean last night.
from AP, via Yahoo: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=514&u=/ap/20040205/ap_on_el_pr/democrats&printer=1 -- Howard Dean (news - web sites) told supporters Thursday he will be out of the race for the Democratic nomination for president if he fails to win the Wisconsin primary, declaring "all that you have worked for these past months is on the line on a single day, in a single state." Asked if Dean plans to end his campaign if he loses in Wisconsin on Feb. 17, Dean spokesman Jay Carson said: "It's a moot point because we are going to win Wisconsin. ... This is an e-mail to supporters to let them know how important Wisconsin is to the campaign." In the e-mail distributed in the early hours of Thursday, Dean wrote: "The entire race has come down to this: we must win Wisconsin. ... We will get a boost this weekend in Washington, Michigan, and Maine, but our true test will be the Wisconsin primary. A win there will carry us to the big states of March 2 and narrow the field to two candidates. Anything less will put us out of this race."
He's the mayor, remember? (we have to be careful not to disrupt his fragile bubble of denial otherwise it might send him off the deep(er) end)
if he loses, and edwards wins VA and TN, what will the deanics do? Kerry and Edwards are the same on the war. will the deaniacs stay home? maybe go here?
As a self-professed Deaniac, I'm still pulling for the good doctor. But his chances are virtually nil. I like Kerry though (of course, I will NEVER get over him voting for the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and the Iraq war). I can see supporting a Kerry/Edwards ticket. That said, I'd vote for what Gary Coleman dropped in the toilet this morning if there was a (D-) in front of its name.
if he loses, and edwards wins VA and TN, what will the deanics do? Kerry and Edwards are the same on the war. will the deaniacs stay home? maybe go here? Dean inspired a lot of his support from people who have a loathing of Bush. Ultimately, I think the majority will support any reasonable candidate who can reasonably beat him.
I don't rightly understand why you'd suggest Dean supporters would go with Nader, basso. Is it that you agree with the wrong idea that Dean's especially liberal (even though Kerry's record is more liberal than Dean's) or is it that you think Dean supporters are addicted to lost causes? The danger for the Democrats is not that Dean's voters, having by and large not participated in politics before, will choose another candidate. The danger is that they will stay home. The danger for the GOP is that Dean voters may be sufficiently pissed off about the state of affairs in this country that they will swallow their ideals and even vote for someone they deeply despise and distrust rather than allow the single worst president of their lifetimes to continue in office. (I had a lot of friends from the Brown 92 campaign that did that with Clinton. I, for the record, was not among them.) But to suggest they'd move to Nader in significant numbers is to suggest you just don't understand the Dean movement.
Howard Dean said he would support and campaign for whoever the Democratic nominee is. As he says, " Anyone would do a better job than George W. Bush." I doubt anyone who has followed Dean up to now will vote for anyone but a democrat. Now the Kucinichites on the other hand....
You know, I was never a big Dean fan, but I feel genuinely sorry for the guy; his rapid fall has been tough to watch.
sorry, it was meant to be a midly ironic comment....i do think dean tapped into a lot of people that were disaffected with politics in general, similarly to Nader. whether they're the same people os doubtful, but the dynamic was similar. dean's one great calling card, his distinguishing feature, was that he was rabidly anti-war, and anti-bush. Kerry sort of coopted those arguements, and combined with some mistakes on dean's part, that was enough to change the dynamic of the race.
basso: I wholly disagree with your characterization of Dean as "rabidly" anything. Dean's true strength was his passion for fairness and truth in government -- a quality woefully lacking in our political system. His strength was not to be "anti-" anything, though his opponents and the media that followed their lead, certainly enjoyed spinning it that way. It was in standing up for what he and his supporters believed in, regardless of political consequences. His opposition to the war (and let's try and remember he supported the last several US-led military actions) was a principled one at a time when that position was overwhelmingly unpopular. It was the strength of his convictions, not any position for or against any particular issue, that won him support. Kerry and Edwards can't retroactively co-opt that.
basso: There are three or four other threads on that. I don't mind repeating myself, but look at the other threads first.
