ABC's "The Note" Lead-you may have to sign up to get into the URL.
The question top unaligned Democratic officials most often ask about the Democratic presidential campaigns is, which ones don't like each other?
Both topics are on full display today in our world, what with an intense firefight between the Kerry and Dean campaigns, which gets major coverage in all the right places, and even (sometimes The Note is SO naive) apparently has something to do with positioning for this weekend's debate in South Carolina, which some Southern reporters are calling the Collision in Columbia.
Analysis first, exposition second:
The Washington Post 's always-fair Dan Balz says this: ""The exchange follows weeks of tension between the two campaigns and comes as all the Democratic candidates prepare for a debate Saturday in South Carolina. The Kerry campaign comments appeared designed, in part, to help set the debate's agenda." LINK
"Kerry's campaign has nervously watched Dean, touting his antiwar views, build support in New Hampshire, whose first-in-the-nation primary the Massachusetts senator cannot afford to lose. Kerry advisers have bristled privately whenever Dean has attacked Kerry for criticizing Bush's war policies after voting in favor of the congressional resolution authorizing the war."
In a crowded field, the sharpies working for the top candidates all make the same two calculations: which candidates can win the nomination, and which subset of those candidates represent a rival in some key aspect of the Invisible Primary (donors, a key state, a demographic group, issues)?
While most of the candidates have gone out of their way NOT to engage any of their Democratic rivals, the Dean and Kerry campaigns have for weeks been engaged in escalating sniping, and yesterday things went wide.
abcnews.go.com |
