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

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (2948)	2/17/2004 12:02:11 AM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3079

more on this.... Dean advisers have been quietly meeting with Kerry advisers to discuss how the two campaigns might mesh. Several top Dean aides said that they are debating how to keep the movement he built - including an e-mail list of more than 600,000 supporters and a network that raised a record of $43 million in small donations - alive as a progressive force in the Democratic Party. Among the options they are considering is an organization to fund and campaign for Democratic congressional candidates. In Sunday night's candidate debate, Dean turned passive when handed several opportunities to attack Kerry, as if he had given up the fight. "In the long run, it's not in anybody's best interests to diminish whoever the Democratic nominee might be, including myself," he said Monday. mercurynews.com

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (2948)	2/18/2004 8:10:57 PM
From: Ron	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3079

The Edwards Surprise By WILLIAM SAFIRE WASHINGTON F.D.R.'s secretary of the Navy, Claude Swanson, gave us this political adage: "When the water reaches the upper level, follow the rats." This lugubrious saying is called to mind by the way the chairman of Howard Dean's campaign stabbed his candidate in the back on the eve of his do-or-die Wisconsin primary. Steven Grossman, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, knew that his last-minute defection would dominate the final-day news and crush Dean's hopes of a stronger-than-expected showing. What drives an old pro to such political disloyalty? Was Grossman trying to win his way back into John Kerry's good graces by dumping Dean at the propitious moment? To most political pros, that doesn't add up. As yesterday's stunning Wisconsin results show, it is in Kerry's interest for Dean to stay in the race even beyond Super Tuesday, March 2. First, contested primaries keep Kerry in the news, waving victoriously, gaining TV "debate" time to blaze away at President Bush. Dean is now a useful sparring partner, jabbing lightly, the perennial loser who helps define the consistent winner. The other service Dean now performs for Kerry is to split the not-Kerry Democratic vote. This is not yet an anti-Kerry vote, because the Massachusetts senator has stolen Dean's antiwar resentment and adopted John Edwards's cheerful soak-the-rich pitch. But many Democrats could turn anti-Kerry if Edwards continues to play the feisty Avis to Kerry's establishment Hertz. There's a new phase a-coming. Kerry has had his comeback honeymoon. He has offered only a high-carb diet of populist platitudes in stump speeches. For a serious man running for a serious job, Kerry has not made a policy speech since December, when he was nobody. The Washington Post editorialist just noted "his fuzziness on issues ranging from Iraq to gay marriage. . . . He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement yet now talks in protectionist terms. . . . He must explain how he would manage the real and dangerous challenges the U.S. now faces in Iraq — without the fuzzing." The Post's Fred Hiatt is not yet Meg Greenfield, but his influential wake-up call is sure to be echoed — especially in light of Wisconsin's results. Kerry's momentum is now checked. The surprise was John Edwards's powerful showing, especially among independents, followed lamely by Dean. If Dean had taken the Grossman gas pipe and announced he would quit, I believe his anti-establishment vote would have split two to one for the Southerner Edwards, snatching victory from Kerry — and in Wisconsin, by yimminy, where voters can hardly understand a word he's saying. If Edwards is smart (and a trial lawyer who got $25 million for himself out of the medical profession must have an agile mind) he will carry an empty chair around New York, Ohio, Georgia and California, demanding that Kerry debate him one on one about Nafta, where he is a genuine Smoot-Hawley protectionist and Kerry merely a primary-conversion protectionist. Kerry would probably refuse to debate unless Dean was included, to steal the debate spotlight like Ross Perot. But if Dean wanted to get even, the embittered Vermonter would accept and then back out at the last minute to let the two frontrunners have at it. Oh, boy. Did I just say "two frontrunners"? How can that be — when Edwards starts from so far behind? And when Kerry is belatedly lionized by Clintonites who thought a Dean debacle would pave the way for Hillary in 2008? And when Kerry's Kennedy acolytes turn ashen-faced only at the rumor that an Al Gore endorsement is imminent? Here's how: Although Dean is not a kingmaker, he can be the frontrunner-maker. By staying in through Super Tuesday, this anti-Warwick could ensure Kerry's nomination. By throwing his waning strength (and Web fund-raising) to Edwards, he could help transform a routine Boston coronation into a neck-and-neck race down the homestretch. There's a consummation devoutly to be wished. It would mean the weekly Kerry victory parade would be over and the media pendulum could swing again — and that the pressure would be on Edwards to cut the class warfare lest he expose the deep economic split in the Democratic Party.