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To: frankw1900 who wrote (21987)	12/29/2003 3:54:27 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793630

The T-Shirt That Launched 1,000 Quips By Dana Milbank Sunday, December 28, 2003; Page A05 As if things weren't going badly enough for John F. Kerry, the senator from Massachusetts has been bitten by a Psycho Chihuahua. The attack occurred 10 days ago in Hopkinton, N.H., when Kerry went to speak to a class at Hopkinton High. This appearance resulted in a most unhelpful photo for the onetime front-runner for the Democratic nomination, snapped by Concord Monitor photo editor Dan Habib. The image is of Kerry making an earnest point to student Mark LaGuardia, who, unbeknownst to the candidate, is wearing a T-shirt that proclaims on the back: "Your mouth keeps moving but all I hear is 'BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.' " The student told the Monitor that he did not mean to make a political statement with the shirt, which features the likeness of "Psycho Chihuahua," a talking Mexican dog whose appearance in Taco Bell commercials is the subject of recent litigation. "I completely forgot that he" -- Kerry, not the Chihuahua -- "was coming," LaGuardia, 17, told the Monitor. "I asked, 'Do I have time to ride home to change?' But I didn't." One finds this explanation suspect; LaGuardia admitted that he is a Republican. Either way, giddy rival campaigns see a metaphor. The image could be the most damaging since Kerry was captured nibbling at a cheese steak in Philadelphia after requesting Swiss cheese. Raked Over the Christmas Coals If Santa's reading his e-mail, both Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean got coal in their stockings Thursday. In the style, if not the spirit, of the Christmas season, the Gephardt campaign penned a letter to the North Pole from President Bush. Dear Santa: "Could you please make sure Howard Dean is the Democratic nominee?" it asked. "I know this is asking a lot, but it would mean so much to me and Dick Cheney and John Ashcroft and, of course, Karl Rove." Dean's elves retaliated in kind, writing a Dickensian exchange that occurs between Gephardt after winning the 1988 Iowa caucus, and the Gephardt of today. In this fictional visit from the ghost of campaigns future, the younger Gephardt is incredulous that his future self has not done better. "So honestly, in 16 years we're still a congressman?" 1988 Gephardt asks. "You lost the House? We had it for 40 years!" "I'm a perennial loser? This has to be some sort of nightmare. Come on, slap me, I'll wake up in the West Wing." The younger Gephardt continues: "You really stood up to the Republicans, though, right?" Replies the future Gephardt: "Does going to war count?" Happy Hanukah From Dean It appears the Dean campaign has become a bit anxious about the candidate's lack of appeal to Jewish voters. He drew criticism early in the campaign for saying the United States should "not take sides" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This month, an anonymous e-mail has been circulating widely claiming that Dean has "promised that if he is elected president, the United States will no longer support Israel the way it has in the past under both Democratic and Republican presidents." Last week, Matt Dorf, whose title is "Jewish affairs and outreach" for the Dean campaign, sent an e-mail to Jewish leaders wishing them a happy Hanukah and attaching a letter from Dean's (Jewish) co-chairman Steve Grossman. "Because so much inaccurate information has been transmitted over the Internet during the past few days about Howard Dean's positions and statements on the U.S.-Israel relationship, I want to share with you the real story," began the letter, dated Dec. 18. "Howard Dean believes that the United States must remain committed to the special, longstanding relationship we have with Israel, including providing the resources necessary to guarantee Israel's long-term defense and security." Chain of To's The campaign news release of the week belongs to Gephardt spokesman Erik Smith, whose effort was titled: "Gephardt Campaign Response to Dean Campaign Response to Clark Campaign Response to [Dean campaign manager] Joe Trippi." Dean spokesman Jay Carson said the campaign is fully prepared "to give our response to their response to our response to their response to our response." If anybody is still paying attention, that is. The Object Lessons of History It's a good thing for John Edwards that Wesley Clark doesn't still command the NATO arsenal. In remarks broadcast to C-SPAN viewers a week ago, Clark said he would "beat the [expletive] out of" anybody who criticized his patriotism or military record. Clark seems to have his scope trained on fellow candidate Edwards, the senator from North Carolina, who said a few months ago that Democrats "need to be really careful that our anger is not directed at each other." Scott Anderson, Clark's South Carolina director, wrote to Edwards earlier this month to complain that Edwards supporter Robert Ford, an S.C. state senator, mailed "a negative attack on General Clark." Clark supporters are also seething over remarks by Edwards spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri saying "military leaders he has worked with, and who know him best, seem to have a lot of concern about his ability to lead." Memo to Ford and Palmieri: Remember Slobodan Milosevic. washingtonpost.com

To: frankw1900 who wrote (21987)	12/29/2003 6:54:35 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793630

In Search of the Swing Voter By CHUCK TODD New York Times Chuck Todd is editor in chief of The Hotline, a newsletter about politics. WASHINGTON — With Election Day less than a year away, the search is on for swing voters. First there were Reagan Democrats, then Soccer Moms; in 2002, a political consultant actually got a reporter to buy into a new demographic called Waitress Moms. Already in the 2004 campaign there have been sightings of Nascar Dads, Office-Park Dads and Security Moms (Soccer Moms who are worried about terrorism). It is a time-honored tradition in campaigns, this quest for the swing voter. But ask yourself: do you know anyone who really vacillates between the two political parties with each election? It's not common. The vast majority of people always vote the same party — when they vote. That three-word phrase — "when they vote" — is the key to understanding swing voters. The most accurate definition of a swing voter is a person who swings between voting and not voting. No matter how defined, however, swing voters remain the most coveted, and most influential, demographic in American politics. And this year's swing voter could very well be . . . Young People. A more catchy name will have to await the legions of political consultants and media pundits. Of course, the idea of appealing to the young voter is older than most young voters themselves. But the involvement of a new group, the New Voters Project, combined with a surge in civic involvement after 9/11, may make 2004 the year young voters finally get their swing. The importance of swing voters is beyond argument, as the 2002 Senate election in North Carolina shows. In that race Elizabeth Dole, the Republican nominee, won by 200,000 votes over Erskine Bowles, the Democratic candidate. Mr. Bowles lost despite winning 20,000 more votes than the Democratic nominee in the 1998 Senate election, John Edwards. Yet Mr. Edwards won that race and, as some voters (at least in Iowa and New Hampshire) are aware, is now running for president. Mr. Bowles lost even though he followed perhaps the most basic rule of politics — maximizing the turnout of your base. He lost because Mrs. Dole did an even better job of finding Republican swing voters. Her vote total was more than 300,000 higher than that of her party's nominee for the Senate four years earlier, Lauch Faircloth. These new Republican voters were not "Dole Democrats," crossing party lines for a particular candidate. They were sometimes-voting Republicans: people who didn't vote in 1998 but voted for President Bush in 2000. The Dole campaign made a concentrated effort to reach these voters in 2002. The demographic group that may fit this swing voter profile better than any Nascar fan or soccer parent is people under the age of 25. Many of these people didn't vote in 2000 because they weren't old enough or, worse, were disenchanted with the national political discourse. Four years later, the average 24-year-old has a far more serious set of concerns. Her seminal political memory is no longer Monica Lewinsky, it is 9/11. Like Pearl Harbor for an earlier generation, 9/11 is the kind of memory that re-emphasizes the need for civic duty — and it's likely that young folks are going to hear this call. Political strategists for both parties have long paid lip service to the importance of young voters, even as they roll their eyes at the prospects of actually mobilizing them. There will be people who just don't believe the investment in young voters is worth it. They will say it's just too hard to track down young voters, who change jobs and addresses more frequently. Better to stick with older, more established voters, millions of whom both parties have already identified. But before writing off this idea, they should think about that seminal political memory seared into the minds of the 18-to-24 set. Then they should juxtapose that with the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. The vast majority of the soldiers on the front lines of the war on terror and the war in Iraq are under 25 years old. The war is going to hit very close to home to this voting bloc. Their passion on this issue may actually be deeper than that of other voters. From antiwar college campuses to patriotic rural America, young people are engaged or involved in the war on terrorism. The only question, really, is how to find these new swing voters. Howard Dean's presidential campaign regularly trumpets its ability to get young people involved. The Republican National Committee also says it's seeing a surge in participation in the College Republicans. But what's the evidence? Young voters almost never show up in polls because researchers focus on likely voters — and in the mind of a political strategist, someone between the ages of 18 and 24 is hardly considered a likely voter. (In addition, many people under 30 have only a cellphone, keeping themselves off phone lists pollsters use.) The Dean campaign may be a leading indicator of young-voter power. If Dr. Dean's vote totals in the early primary and caucus states are 5 to 10 percentage points higher than predicted in polls, then it may be a sign that this year is different. The involvement of the New Voters Project, which is organizing voter-registration drives in six swing states (Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin) could also make a difference. Whether these efforts succeed remains to be seen. But if early returns show that young people are voting in larger numbers, then the game will be afoot. For strategists of both parties, the contest for the new swing voter will begin.