Nation-Building

Our mistake, to hear the pundits tell it, was to go negative, specifically on Dick Gephardt in Iowa. As a result, caucus-goers went for more "positive" candidates, Kerry and Edwards. This sounds pretty negative to me. "That's the first time I have heard a general be so dismissive of lieutenants, who bleed a lot in wars." That's John Kerry (who served as a lieutenant in Vietnam) on Wesley Clark (who rose to the rank of general, but was still a captain in Vietnam). Kerry continued: "[Vietnam] is young people dying for the wrong reasons, because leaders don't do the things that they should to protect them. Yes I do [see a parallel with Iraq]. This president breached faith with the lesson...we learned in Vietnam. You truly should go to war as a matter of last resort. This president rushed to war without a plan to win the peace." Sounds like someone losing their temper to me. Does it sound like that to you? It also make...

I could be wrong, or this could be setting up nicely. Expectations for the Dean campaign in New Hampshire have hit rock-bottom. A three-day average of tracking polls (Wednesday-Friday) shows Kerry with his biggest leads yet. Some even show our man in third, behind General Clark. Some liberal pundits, notably Eleanor Clift, have already written Dean off because of “The Scream,” even though she was personally in the room and didn’t think it bad at the time. But consider. Dean had a great day Thursday. New Hampshireites now have to consider a vote for Kerry as anointing him the nominee. Republicans are focusing their attention on him. He is trying to run out the clock. It could be the big crowds now at Dean events are like groupies at a band’s farewell tour. I haven’t surveyed where they’re from. Or it could be that New Hampshireites are re-evaluating a man who is, after all, their neighbor and who they did, after all, say they supported until a few weeks ago. Right no...

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The bad news is that Dean fell a bit... Kerry - 34% Clark - 19% Dean - 15% Lieberman - 6% The good news is that if commenters on Daily Kos threads like this one are right, this drop is the result of losing a high Tuesday number, and today's result is actually higher than yesterday's. You can decide how much faith to place in one-day totals, but these are grounds for optimism. All February 3 results, of course, will be affected by New Hampshire.

It sure would be neato if Judy Steinberg Dean pops up on the Sunday talk show circuit this weekend. All indications seem to show that her presence softens Dean's image and keeps him front and center. What a funny twist of late: Kerry dwarfed by the media because Dean is more interesting than Kerry's so-called message. Continuing to throw the Judy Dean bone out the back door for the big media dog will keep them from barking too. The feeling I got from the spin room at the debate in New Hampshire last night was that they all feel a little bad about the "hazing" of Howard Dean. Not all of them are yapping about their handling. If I owned a media company other than DeanTV , or was trying to build a compelling story to sell ads and build a viewership/readership, I'd certainly be interested in building Dean back up for South Carolina. After all, it seems like the ratings dip every time Kerry starts to ramble on in the Senate, I mean, on the campaign trail. What a b...

This is being noted on the O-Blog. It's worth a watch.

Howard Dean is getting a second look from New Hampshire voters who a week ago had written his campaign off following the Iowa Caucuses, according to a new AP report from Ron Fournier: "When we saw him up their shouting and yelling, it put a lot of us on the fence. There's not a lot of difference between these guys so it doesn't take a lot to move us from one to another," said Ed Hennessy, 58, a retired union worker in Nashua, N.H., who deserted Dean last week. "But I'm back in his camp. It was just a slip of the tongue, and nobody's perfect," Hennessy said. "I've got to give him credit for speaking from his heart." "I think we've turned the corner and we're going to come back up, and the question is can we close the gap between now and Tuesday," Dean said, though it's too early for polls to reflect opinions after the debate. Lindley-Soucy, cradling her baby at a Dean event, was not a supporter, certa...