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Politics : HOWARD DEAN -THE NEXT PRESIDENT? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (2293)	1/21/2004 10:11:27 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3079

Bush is not the first president or politician to engage in pork barrel politics, and he certainly won't be the last. If you think Dean is somehow immune, I think you are kidding yourself.

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (2293)	1/22/2004 10:18:01 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3079

Press Cooking Dean's Goose By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, January 22, 2004; 7:13 AM MANCHESTER, N.H. -- As if Howard Dean didn't have enough problems after sputtering to a third-place finish in Iowa, the press is starting to question his chances of survival. "Howard Dean is done," Fred Barnes declared on Fox News. "He's finished . . . he's gone." "Dean is cratering . . . That speech the other night, he just seemed to go nuts," Hotline's Craig Crawford said on CNBC. "A lethal self-injection," said MSNBC's Mike Barnicle. A New York Post cover featuring Dean's ill-fated, bellowing, cringe-inducing post-Iowa rant, says it could produce "Howard's End." CNN plays up a Boston Herald tracking poll showing John Kerry jumping out to a 10-point lead here and former senator John Durkin dropping his endorsement. Never mind that the collective press corps, with few exceptions, was way too quick to write off Kerry in Iowa, and barely paid attention to John Edwards until his final-week surge. The prognosticators are back in the prediction business. One thing, though, is clear. As I interviewed people about the Democratic candidates, nearly every one, without prompting, brought up Dean's screechy rallying cry Monday night and said it turned them off. It might have been the most damaging candidate moment captured on tape since Mike Dukakis rode around in that tank, or since a choked-up Ed Muskie railed against the Manchester Union Leader in a snowstorm here 32 years ago. There are few moments when a candidate is in the national TV spotlight this early in the season, and Dean's outburst came at the worst possible time. CNN's Anderson Cooper mockingly played the end of Dean's rant five times in a row -- five times! -- and David Letterman had Dean's head blow up. Howard Stern has made it into a song with the sound of women moaning. It is possible, of course, that Dean, who raised $40 million last year, will come roaring back, making this media death watch look ridiculously premature. It is also possible that the air is rapidly leaking from his balloon. No one knows. Tonight's WMUR debate could be big for him. to be continued

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (2293)	1/22/2004 10:19:26 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3079

Salon suggests that the Dean bubble has burst: "If Howard Dean were an Internet company, would he be the smash success of eBay, or the now-defunct Pets.com? The momentum Dean established over the summer and fall bore a striking resemblance to the straight-up curve of the dot-com boom. But, post-Iowa, that curve is pointing in a different direction, and now the question is, as was the case with so many of those dot-coms, was there every really a good product beneath the hype? Or is Dean really just buzz, nothing more than a pet food-selling sock puppet who, buoyed by his campaign's Internet savvy, momentarily came to seem like a really good idea? "Now that Dean has lost a little bit of his luster, it may be the fate of his campaign to suffer endless comparisons to the dot-com crash. Live by the Internet, die by the Internet."

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (2293)	1/22/2004 10:21:18 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3079

Roger Simon doesn't sugarcoat it: "I think I know why the other night Howard Dean screamed like a squirrel who had just lost his nuts: He had just been told that New Hampshire voters were even more discerning than Iowa voters. "It is not merely that Howard Dean came in third in Iowa with only 18 percent of the vote. "No, the magnitude of his defeat is far more stunning than that: Dean campaigned in all of Iowa's 99 counties. He was organized in all them, had precinct captains, staffers, volunteers, and the whole kit and caboodle of modern, high-tech campaigning in all of them. "Dean ended up winning two. "He won two counties and tied in two others. Out of 99! That is a staggering defeat." Wait, it gets worse: "How likable was Howard Dean in the last weeks of his Iowa campaign? How likable was he when he shouted down a questioner at one of his speeches? How likable was he when he ran negative ads attacking his fellow Democrats? "And if you were attracted to Howard Dean because he was a new, fresh, non-Washington face, how likable was he when he went grubbing after the old, stale, and very-Washington endorsements of Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin and Al Gore? "And even if you don't like the news media, how likable was Dean on election day snapping at journalists because they had the audacity to show up at one of his public events? Or slapping away the microphone of a radio reporter because the reporter had the temerity to try and do his job? "I don't think the Dean staff lied to me. I just think they were drinking their own Kool Aid. I think they were so deep into the mechanics of the campaign, they were ignoring the big picture: And the big picture was that voters who once liked Howard Dean no longer liked him." This is all the more striking because Simon is an easygoing guy. And if true, this will make it harder for Dean to come back.

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (2293)	1/22/2004 10:23:57 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3079

Dean-o-phobe Jonathan Chait got an e-mail from an ex-Deaniac: "Last night, I officially 'unsubscribed' from blogforamerica.com and instead, sent John Edwards $50. Dean's speech, was well, freaky. Less mentioned, but just as weird, was his incredibly testy interviews on both MSNBC and Larry King during the night's TV coverage. He just looked like he had a pole up his -- ." The Note provides a public service by tapping into Dean's cyberfans: "From ABC News Dean blog obsessor Marc Ambinder: The Dean bloggers are not happy. They: -- uniformly seemed to dislike the ads that Dean was running. ('Spend money: hire a professional ad firm') -- hated the speech Monday night -- they want more Judy and more biography -- believe the campaign needs to focus less on the "campaign" and the process and more on health care, education, etc. -- saw too much pessimism coming from the campaign's pronouncements Dean people in Iowa report a "bombardment" of contacts from youthful volunteers, which annoyed them. And the big Dean organization turned out to be disorganized -- a bunch of signs and stand-outs, and not enough persuasion. They do not like the angry Dean. They do not like the tired-looking Dean. 'Get him 6-8 hours of sleep!' -- BUT -- they believe in Dean, they believe in his message, and they want to move on and win. "Here's a sampling of comments: "I think your concession speech last night hurt us much more than our loss in Iowa. The message was good but the delivery was awful. The shucking of the coat and rolling up the shirtsleeves, screaming at us and America was dreadful, What you need to shuck is that image we saw last night. Not very Presidential.'" "'No more crazy jaunts to visit folks like Carter who are no longer active politicians and aren't actually endorsing us.'" "'The press has harped for months about 'anger' and 'cynicism' surrounding this campaign, and the last few weeks did nothing but confirm Iowans views about that. Negative press didn't help, but it's time to start countering that press with the positive parts of Dean's vision that are out there. In particular, I believe Dean's concession speech last night was a colossal failure to try to recover from Iowa's loss.'"