You have to admit that without Howard Dean, whether he wins or not, Bush had a better chance of re-election in 04. Dean and the Dean message means trouble for Bush.
My first exposure to Edwards in this primary was a month or so ago where he spent an entire half hour making the case for why he voted for the Iraq invasion. Kerry, same deal. It was like these guys were walking excuses for the Bush admin. Now personally, I don't agree with Al Gore that a war vote was deadly to any dem, mostly because I was not waving my hands up and down against war prior to the invasion. I really thought there had to be weapons and massive terrorist cells there. But as soon as I found out otherwise then I was mad!!! Edwards and Kerry could have just said, "look, we voted for war but we shouldn't have- we believed the Bush admin and now feel deceived"... and that would have covered it, vs. the running sermons from those guys that Hussein was a threat when anyone can see the biggest threat wrt Hussein is lice infestation. I believe Kerry, Edwards etc. are now playing it right, saying they shouldn't have voted the way they did and they wouldn't do it again.
Howard Dean's surging popularity coming from REAL VOTERS caused these catatonic dems to wake up!!! Dean with his internet message enabled all these individuals to see it and when the money came in, Kerry etc. knew they had a winning message. These guys owe a victory in 04 against Bush to Dean.
Kerry seems to rely on the traditional information channels to get how the voters "really feel". These would be polls, and messages from the senators and congresspeople "out in the field", plus other gov't statistics. Polls and BLS statistics are WRONG. Senators may or may not be in the same mindset as their constituency. If Dean does drop out of the race, I am expecting to see the frontrunner adopt an internet approach to gauging REAL voter sentiment. Then run on that. Forget these polls they are way off.
BTW Mark Shields on PBS who has been saying a Bush win is likely for awhile now says if the dems avoid the red states they can win in 04. Coincedentally, I think the red states (south) are also in better economic condition than the northeast/west/rust belt. |
