The Democratic Primary 2004 Thread

Can someone link candidate's websites. I've got Dean, Kerry and Gephardt, but what about the rest.

Also who is giving good coverage of the campaign, anything approaching Hunter thomson's '72 masterpiece?

Here's the Kucinich homepage.

right on to you, Teeny

So, ummm...are any of these Democrats still going to be Democrats after the primaries, or are they going to stumble over themselves trying to make their image over as "more conservative than you'd'a thunk!" in an effort to placate right-leaning voters?

x-post with John

Actually, it seems like most of 'em (except for Kucinich) have some pretty decent right-leaning-voter appeal. Clark cuz of the military background, Dean cuz of his actually quite right-leaning views on some issues, Lieberman on censorship (among many other things), etc.

I have respect for Kerry and agree with much of what he says he stands for now, even as I find myself growing more and more frustrated when reflecting on how the Democratic leadership, in the past few years, so often gave Bush his way, voted for the war, voted for the tax cuts, voted for No Child Left Behind, etc. I'm supporting Dean as I credit him with finally changing the terms of the debate & getting the Democratic Party to challenge the President.

As far as the electability issue.. .. this ought to be a non-issue, but since it's referred to so often - who thinks Kerry, with his posh coiffure and his motorcycle - is all that appealing to voters? I looked at his website and thought, wow, SO uncool. I would campaign for him and vote for him if he had the Democratic nomination, but for real, he looks and talks like a European diplomat and people won't like it.

I am stunned that Edwards isn't running for his Senate seat even though he's polling in single digits. Is he a potential vice-presidential nominee?

yeah, Kerry doesn't mix with "real people" at all. so much so that with his drop in polls I'd come close to writing him off. but the dude looks great behind a lectern, and his aggressiveness has none of Dean's superiority (which people won't like either) and may cancel out his Cristophe-ness. his European diplomatness also brings gravitas, which Bush has none of. when he's on, he's got President written all over him.

I'm afraid it's hard to overstate the importance of relating to "real people." And I think the terms on which one tries to do this are quite delicate.. and trying to suddenly become a normal guy by talking about your working-class parents or playing up a contrived image is a strategy that people see through *immediately*. What's insulting to me is the more I see Democratic candidates trying to show "we're just like you," the message I get is "we think you're dumb enough to only vote for the guy who's just like you." I can't get over those photos of Kerry, it's like, you're a posh guy on a Harley, don't condescend to me.

I read this the opposite way - this means that the kids might get out and vote for Dean, where they wouldn't bother with other candidates. That's a big plus for Dean (or any other Democrat who can make it happen), just like it was for Clinton.

And I have to say, the Iraq war is a big, big issue for me - I recall exactly what I was worried about during the buildup and exactly what I was afraid would happen - and here we are. It's hard for me to put confidence in politicians who voted for it because it is a very, very serious thing to start a war, and now that it's turning into a quagmire they should stand up and take responsibility for having, basically, failed us - rather than trying to cover their asses. Because if, during the buildup, one was worried about 1) flimsy/nonexistent evidence, 2) alienating allies, 3) increased terrorism, 4) massive economic drain, 5) NO PLAN for the peace - and I know I was - didn't all of these things warrant an attempt to stop it or at the very least, to vote "no"?

And yeah, I know Dean is posh. I don't care much who is and who isn't, but the *style* of campaigning that puts a lot of emphasis on personal biography really irritates me. There was a New York Times article on it over the weekend that got at this - good stuff.

beyond the fact that I don't think "posh" means anything in America, I think it should be noted that there's a difference between being the son of an investment banker and being the grandson of a Senator and the son of an independent oilman who struck it very rich before building a major-league political resume on his way to becoming President.

From Richard Ben Cramer's "What it Takes," a Wolfeian view of the '88 Potus race - GHW Bush (41) lost his first race for Congress, a campaign run at least in part by early-20-something-if-not-teenaged George W (43). When his dad lost, W. sobbed.

Not so's you'd notice, but that's OK. It's SOP. All you can hope for is that they act more or less like Democrats during the primaries, which is Dean's whole strategy: run to the left in the primaries, tack to the center in the election. Republicans do the same thing, kissing up to the Christian Coalition and so forth in the primaries and then saying bland things like "compassionate conservatism" in the general.

I'm still kinda put off by Dean when I see him on TV -- he doesn't project "superiority," exactly, but there is something prickly about him. But I actually think he's the most electable of the group at the moment. Governors do better than senators, as a rule -- sure, he's from a small state, but executive experience in a small state is still easier to sell as executive experience than heading up congressional subcommittees or whatever. And he's got the best claim to being from "outside the beltway" -- hell, he's spent less time in D.C. than Al Sharpton has. Yeah, he's a Yankee, but he's a Vermont Yankee, which is more sellable in the South than being a NY or Massachusetts Yankee -- the state has that whole Robert Frost self-reliance mythology.

Edwards is a nothing and a nobody, a middling junior senator with not much in terms of either ideas or experience. He shouldn't even be in the race. And if he doesn't make some kind of move soon, he won't be. I just don't see him differentiating himself. The only thing that's kept him in so far is being Southern and getting lots of trial lawyer contributions -- not promising. (He could be a veep, I guess, if Clark's not available.)

Of course, who the nominee is matters less than what's going on domestically and internationally a year from now. Who the hell knows. Another big attack somewhere, and all bets are off.

There's going to be another debate, from Baltimore, tomorrow night. It is co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus and (someone must be having fun) FOX News (who I assume will broadcast it).

oh, and on Dean's "superiority" - he has a decisiveness about his answers to questions that contains very little humility (which some might say is a mark of his professional training). while it's hard to peg him as an "elitist", I think the quality will be off-putting to some or many of the same people who would be bothered by that accusation.

I don't Edwards is a non-entity. He's been somewhat active and creative as a legislator. And he has a good, Clintonian team behind him bulking up his substance and his communication skills. But while he's impressed me in the recent past with same, his performance in the most recent debate was surprisingly unconvincing for someone who is such a successful trial lawyer and hearkened back to earlier in the season when he clearly wasn't ready yet.

wow, are there a lot of Kucinich supporters reading the Voice. Surprise surprise. You know what would be cool, is if W Bush decided to actually have his like, 5th press conference ever, and Kucinich showed up and started asking tons of questions and ending them all with "HELLO?"

saw wesley clark on bill maher (yes, bill maher is an asshole, sadly sometimes he has interesting guests) and he gave a pretty impassioned/rousing defense of liberalism and liberal values and called the Iraq war a "bait and switch." I thought he was pretty impressive.

I checked the Faux news website after the debate & there was a lovely piece with plenty of quotes from Sharpton and Kucinich, unflattering finger-pointing photos of several candidates, and the lede stating (close paraphrase ->) 'Democratic candidates competed with each other to show that President Bush is the root of all evil.' You know, it makes me so angry that I wish I was a minor celebrity so I could get an interview on Faux & call bullsh!t on them, not that anyone would listen, but I'd enjoy myself at least.

Here's Daria's article, with the charming headline Democratic Candidates Offer Grim View of America

Politics 102: "How to Pass the Buck"

he could blame gephardt, kerry, et al though. he has successfully shifted the terms of debate so that they have to be apologetic/defensive about having voted for the war.

well, dean or the continuing casualties.

I suppose no matter who is talking, if Bush isn't to be held responsible for starting the war, who is? Or yes, I can agree with you - Bush is incapable of thinking on his own and is led around by his team of advisors. Either way, he shouldn't be President any longer.

This race doesn't even become a race until primary filings are due, which is in less than 50 days.

And until then, you cannot count out General Clark or Hillary Clinton. Or Albert Gore, Jr.

But let's take a look at the list:

Edwards: Unelectable but a nice sacficial VP candidate. Has not shown the ability to raise enough money and doesn't have enough personal wealth to string it out.

Kerry: has the money and personality of George Bush Sr. It would take a fiscal disaster to get him elected. But a nice sacrificial lamb a la Bob Dole.

Dean: proven earner, a nice record of fiscal (very relatively speaking) stinginess, much loved among Democrats for garnering press as the only game in town over the summer. But his anti-war crusade makes him a liability; mitigating factor would be a disastrous winter of war, which is the only crack in the Bush fortress right now.

Keep in mind that Dukakis had a ten point lead in several polls the summer before the election of 1988. And he got his ass handed to him by one of the worst campaigners ever.

http://jya.com/ap.htm. God bless crazy libertarians.

I didn't see the debate, but I'm sad to hear about Edwards (I had been a Johnny Law supporter).

Clark will not decide whether or not to run for some time yet. He may be a soldier, but first and foremost he's a media whore, and he knows he can drag this out a while longer before committing one way or the other (i.e. the Powell (Media) Doctrine).

If Hillary runs she gets the Dem. nomination, and in the general election she gets slaughtered. Not even vote-wise, but Chirac will be drinking wine laced with her blood for years to come. Seriously. It would be the ugliest race we've ever seen. Five generations of Americans would be put off of politics forever, so Robert Byrd's corpse would still retain its seat, cuz no one would vote against him (and West Virginia will still lead the Union in pork). Hillary running = worst idea ever for the Dems. Though a Rice-Hillary face-off in 2008 would be fantastic.

Gabbneb and Teeny -> I love you.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57770-2003Sep10.html

(possibly)

I don't like Hillary at all. But if she runs it's because she thinks she can win. And while a few years ago I would have written her off as total folly, now I see her as completely credible. Her stand on the war has been, for the most part, very palatable. She's shown herself to be a much better campaigner than anyone would have ever imagined. She can raise more money than anyone else. She has the best campaigner in the past 20 years in her husband. If she decides to run, the Bushies had better get scared.

Just to point out the obvious, I think. That's what has impressed me the most about the campaigns of people like Kerry and Edwards so far (candidates whom I would have feared wishy-washyness) - you listen to their stump speeches, and they're pull-no-punches indictments of Bushonomics (tax cuts, deficit, etc.) in straightforward language. It's like Paul Krugman stuff.

Granted, they're talking to the hardest-core Democratic faithful at this point, who eat it up. But, just by telling the truth about the deficit, the danger to social security and Medicare, the "shifting of the tax burden onto the middle and working class," etc. - and telling it well - they'll be as on the money as it's possible to be. Really, Kerry irritates me a lot, but hearing him blast Bush on the stump - it's exciting.

Next year, it is going to be very, very hard to use the economy against Bush because there are two easily spun sides. You can argue all you want about the deficit--but it can be pushed into a non-issue easily: growing as it is, the deficit is still a relatively minute part of the GDP (not to mention that the deficit is a very debatable part of the US economy anyway; it's never been a vote getter and it won't be next year). And there's barely an economist, and this includes a dude like Krugman, in the world who would argue against deficit spending in a recession. Not to mention the fact that robust growth is now being credibly forecast--5% minimum to even 6% for the coming year. While the job outlook is still fuzzy and has not been good during Bush's term, the economy as a whole has still grown substantially. Hate the tax cuts all you want, but the huge bulk of them are going to engage in the coming twelve months, and it's going to fuel the economy even more.

The point is--and we can disagree with where the talking points are at but clearly there are a lot of very positive signs in the economy--is that this isn't 1991 where the country is literally coming out of a recession (and, experiencing actual growth back then but lied about on the campaign trail) and a candidate can claim that it's been the "worst economy since Hoover" with any credibility at all. If there is growth at 5% or above, it's just going to be far too easy for Bush to say things are not only much better, that they certainly will improve even more. Unless there is economic disaster, that's likely to be the scenario in 10 months.

I realize for the liberal sympathizers around here that the mistakes/evil nature of Bush seem so...obviously clear, except to the rubes and flyover types who are just too rich or stupid to realize what a liar/facist/theocrat/chimp/retard he is. But the historic fact is that it takes a lot to unseat an incumbent and right now there's not enough evidence of serious fuck-ups to oust him. Remember, this country didn't care that the President was porking his intern in 1996--they elected him even after a bunch of very shady military dealings, a host of ethical lapses, and a willingness to like the guy who openly lied to them. We're a quickly forgiving country, I guess.

The sign to look for is Hillary running. If she jumps in, then the brightest minds of the Democratic party are convinced that Bush is seriously vulnerable. But until that happens, everyone thinks it's a long shot and is merely gearing up for 2008

This prob'ly has just a tiny bit to do with the administration's overwhelming secrecy in regards to EVERYTHING...fr'instance, have we already forgotten about the GAO suing the White House for not disclosing documentation of the energy-policy-determining meetings? (did the GAO drop that suit?)

She's foolish by hedging her bets, she's by far an away the most recognisable democrat and surely must have a chance if she goes for it?

Remember oppositions don't win elections government loose them and they only loose them if the alternative looks better.

I'd agree with you Ed that she'd be foolish to run before 2008, at least for her own political future. You brought up a very good point: another terrorist attack and whomever is running against Bush is fucked.

not just on this thread either.

(not to endorse him, or anyone really)

http://216.239.57.100/search?q=cache:-kbIWR93TF8C:www.clevelandmagazine.com/editorial/thismonth_features.asp%3Fdocid%3D267+kucinich+%22john+metcalf%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

For the same reason we're not talking about Moseley-Braun.

Because we're all racist.

for the record, I mentioned Sharpton on this thread before Sterling. But one reason not to support him, despite the fact that he's at least the most entertaining communicator of the 9, is that he has zero experience in government, hello? And one reason not to support CMB, a one-term senator with no prior experience of note, is that she coddled Sani f'ing Abacha (who we may be missing if terrorists start coming out of the muslim North of Nigeria). It should be noted, though, that she speaks more cogently about health care than many if not all of the others.

i know that she is a black women and a femminist so she will not be elected, ever.

but she knows what she is talking about, she has a definitive ethical system, she is practical in her soultions, she has vision, she does not look like someone who would tax and spend, she is a dove with a realpolitik edge.

i love carol mosley braun and it pisses me off that she aint going nowhere.

insofar as DLC center politix can have mad-dog horowitz/coultier exponents you take the cake.

anyway i take it that you're vouching for obasanjo's human rights record? bad move.

http://www.hrw.org/africa/nigeria.php

and if 90% of my life has been wasted on pettiness what's your batting average sterl?

that was to sterling

Mosely Braun has not raised money very well. And spinning her record on ethics would be a dubious job for anyone, including Dick Morris. Her inability to con people into her coffers is why she is not a serious candidate.

Clark is interesting but he's an unproven earner. He hasn't kissed any DLC ass yet, and that's discomforting to many as well. He's a good idea ONLY because he's a general in the armed forces and has publicly decried the Iraq invasion; he's the same chess piece as Colin Powell except his military career isn't nearly as distinguished. The obvious hope is that if he runs he cancels out all the baggage that Democrats picked up on the war issue. Not a bad hope to have, and not even that illogical. The DLC would see this not as political cover in the presidential race, but as political cover for Congressional races (which are imminently more important than defeating Bush.)

Clark is a long shot.

I don't know, y'all. Just when I see a lot of people are starting to give a damn about politics again, here's a reminder of what disgusts me so much - the notion that the Democratic Party really needs to nominate some bland centrist who doesn't actually stand for much of anything. . I'm not an idealist, but a strategy that assumes the party faithful will hold their noses & vote for anyone-but-Bush just sucks. (Of course, Brooks is painting Dean in this piece as a total left-winger, perhaps this was written before Gephardt started comparing him to Newt Gingrich.)

The fundraising numbers for the Democratic field thus far speak for themselves, I think.

I do have a tiny little bit of.. not idealism.. but concern about good faith.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/16/elec04.prez.clark/index.html

I suppose this is a good thing. I don't really know too much about him but his stances are generally in line with Dean's and if nothing else, he will even out the level of discourse and get rid of that "Dean is McGovern" stigma (which is already beginning to dissipate). I will still vote for Dean, but at least now there is another (perceived) strong contender with whom I'd be pretty happy and who can probably beat Bush (I don't see how Kerry possibly could, he has no charisma and no personality and that winds up counting for a lot in general elections).

Some Dean supporters do seem to think the DLC has quite a lot of power & wondering how to bring them on board etc. I do hope most of them continue to turn their energy toward visibility events + community service rather than to worrying about strategic maneuvering within the Democratic Party.

The Clark announcement is interesting. He's a chess piece equivalent to Colin Powell in the grand scheme of things, and he's an even more unproven one at that. I personally think he will be able to raise quite a bit of money if he doesn't step on his dick while developing his platform. A lot of Democrats want to fire Bush at all costs, and most thinking Dems know that Dean getting elected will require a miracle. Clark kind of negates the "Hell No We Won't Go" stigma, but take away his biggest trump card--his military credibility--and what do you have left? The guy has never held elected office in his life, not even in high school. His claim to fame is being the most famous general to oppose the war. Allegedly, he's pro-choice; does this include the full monty of parental consent, partial birth, etc. Allegedly, he wants to rescind tax cuts--does this mean that in the face of economic growth projected to be above 5% he's going to hang his hat on a shitty economy? Maybe he can sell all these ideas and more, but maybe he can't. At some point he's going to have to start coming up with credible answers on everything BUT the military, and if history is any clue at all, the learning curve of doing something like this is long. So as much as Clark is interesting right now, he's still a hail mary pass.

Yeah, that's what I thought too! hmm.

The more I think about this the more I think HR Clinton's options are looking better. Bush's poll numbers are below 50% in some places right now, and Clark's Arkansas connections are a very good combination for her. She's watching this very closely--the money juggernaut alone from a HR Clinton-Clark ticket is very, very formidable.

But if she doesn't run, that's also a very ominous sign for the rest of the dwarves.

At the very least, this addition to the Dems Primary should kill Bush's plans for that famous carrier/flightsuit photo op campaign commercial. If his handling of post-war Iraq hasn't already.

Also, check out the DNC's blog, seriously, it's a trip.

HRC can have it both ways by being a Veep candidate. Who wouldn't take her?

like she did for 8 years? and who says it's really second string? she can be a liability, yes, but she can also bring out many more women to compensate for the very male candidate Dems may well need at the top.

when, if a Democrat wins in 2004, it will be too late. The veep option lets her have it both ways - if Bush wins, she'll be able to run again without having lost at the top of the ticket; if he loses, she'll be VP and will be able to run in 2008 or 2012 as the unquestioned institutional candidate.

did I miss something, or can someone run for the same office again after they've served their term limit? Are the limits only for consecutive terms?

I thought that there was some debate about the latter question?

Hillary does indeed inspire much hate--though I'd say it was just as much her enthusiasm for holding secret meetings about taking over one-eigth of the nation's economy, "discovering" the Rose billing records in the personal quarters of the White House, firing the Travel Office staff that had been there for decades, offending women who "stayed home and baked cookies", claiming she didn't know that her husband was a pussy hound and was porking the help, etc. I mean, all these things are funny to me but they do make a lot of sensible people pretty suspicious.

I think she's overcome MUCH of her original broom-riding reputation. I think she scares the fuck out of Karl Rove, in fact. I think she's a socialist, and I'd never vote for her, but look what she did to get elected to the Senate: she carried much of northern New York State. She played the 9/11 thing REALLY well up until a few months ago, and she's just such an improved pol that it's no secret anywhere in DC that she is going to run at some point.

The woman is a formidable campaigner now.

Those high negatives mean simply that she is a polarizing political figure, traditionally the kind of candidate that has difficulty pulling middle ground voters.

Like it or not, she held secret meetings to formulate her plan for national health care. Because she was not an elected official, many of those meetings were immune to sunshine laws. Kind of like the dilemma Haliburton Cheney is currently looking at. And my, but a lot of people forget that Larry Klayman's Judicial Watch sued the Clinton White House just like he sued the Bush White House in order to expurgate the meeting records. Back then he was a card carrying member of the Right Wing Conspiracy team. Interesting how that one worked out.

I digress. Hillary can talk about a national healthcare plan all she want, but it's not a winning issue. She knows that now, and with the coming prescription drug giveaway, she knows that socialized medicine (well, even more socialized than it already is) is probably a decade or so away. So why bother; all it does is stir up those evil pharmaceutical and insurance companies who have lots of lobby money to pass around. She doesn't need the issue, but her past performance is something the RNC will use to fear monger the hell out of anyone who might have forgotten. Her unconventional role in the Whitehouse as First Lady, her role in the Rose Law Firm, and her passivism on her husband's wandering eye aren't things that will be used against her either, except to reinforce the core block who hates her. The bottom line is that she's not going to be changing her negative numbers much. Her best selling book explains nothing.

What's changed about Hillary since she joined the Senate is that she no longer has a career tied so percipitously to someone else. Before, she could be ballsy and bitchy or cold or whatever and there was little political fallout to HER career. She's much more tempered now. She radiates confidence. She wants to be president someday, and if she doesn't think she can win in 2004 she will not run. And she'd never accept the VP role--she's already done that.

Is this your site, gabbaneb?

Also, I don't consider WJC a boogeyman--he's a fucking huge asset to his wife. I never and would never vote for either of those two but I have no problem recognizing him for what he is. I say he's meddling around in everything because that's his personality. He loves the attention, he loves the spotlight, he loves the whole political animal completely. I think he might be somewhat distracting in this capacity as First Husband but in the campaign I think he would be a dynamite fund raiser for her.

a live report - I was just in the same room as Kerry. dude talks too slow.

I have no idea what a "partisan style" is; Dean is attracting a lot of independents already; George W Bush angers a lot more than liberal Democrats these days; making up a "Schwartzenegger Theory" about the perfect candidate is laughable given how that guy's non-campaign has gone.. Check today's letters section for more of the same, & not just from liberal Dems.

The Note has essential stuff on Clark today, including his most embarrassing moments so far and more Clintonian speculation. Have ILXors noted the name of Clark's press secretary yet? ;-)

Thus "[veteran Democratic strategist] Carrick compared some of the difficulties Clark has faced to the early days of Edward Kennedy's 1980 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, also a late-starting campaign where the Massachusetts senator tended to blurt out comments that reshaped the race."

Let's go, circular firing squad! You have the power!

Jewish money and support is still a rather big issue in the Northeast, is it not?

that, and Lieberman's crack that Dean's position on foreign trade would "bankrupt" the United States, have led to me to really consider not voting at all if he's the nominee. i know Lieberman probably won't be, but i've had it with him.

“I think no one likes to see violence of any kind. That’s why the United States is involved. I will say, however, there is a war going on in the Middle East, and members of Hamas are soldiers in that war,” Dean said. “Therefore, it seems to me, that they are going to be casualties if they are going to make war.”'

Hmm. Hamas is a political movement involved in many different operations, is it not? OK, here we go from the State Department:
"Formed in late 1987 as an outgrowth of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Various HAMAS elements have used both political and violent means, including terrorism, to pursue the goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel. Loosely structured, with some elements working clandestinely and others working openly through mosques and social service institutions to recruit members, raise money, organize activities, and distribute propaganda. HAMAS’s strength is concentrated in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Also has engaged in peaceful political activity, such as running candidates in West Bank Chamber of Commerce elections."

So if there is a loosely structured organization in which elements do engage in terrorism, does the term "soldiers" inappropriately confer legitimacy on a terrorist group? or does it reinforce the notion that all members of the organization, given that it engages in terrorism among other actitives, are legitimate targets? or..?

Another view could be that, as daria says, they are fighting a war thus they are soldiers. It has been the tendency in the post 9/11 years to remodel the term soldier to mean our brave boys, notice how the enemy has always been, fighters controlled by warlords, or terrorists, but never soldiers or even that other loaded word guerillas.

The whole notion that Israel is fighting a war greater other than the war against terror is something that many don't wish to gain currency, because wars are between nations, even wars of independence, and nations can have allies and all the trappings of national struggle.

Is it possible that the pro-Likud section of the American Jewish community is perceived to be "louder" than the other section because it is identified (by itself or by others) more often as Jewish than the other section?

TS: Hadassah Lieberman v. Judith Steinberg Dean

I am currently watching the Sunday morning talk shows and the ability of some people in the press (Safire, Novak, Andrew Sullivan, growing more petulant by the second here) to continue acting as if the President & VP have been entirely honest with the American people about the Iraq war is astonishing.

note that the first piece has a poll showing Clark as the frontrunner in the field. if you look at the prior numbers in the poll (admittedly I don't know when the prior poll was done), the only other "serious" candidate whose support has fallen is Gephardt. so it's possible that Clark is drawing attention only from undecideds, who still form the largest group.

I was persuaded though by another recent poll matching the frontrunners against Bush. HRC, Clark and Kerry all got about 42 to about 48 for Bush, which suggests generic party-line matchup numbers, but Dean got only 38, which suggests some people don't like him (maybe it's name recognition but I think more people have heard about Dean now than about Kerry). But does that matter if he pulls more people at the polls? (with the caveats of whether he's really an intensity guy, added to by recent questions about his ability to appeal to black voters)

er, that was a joke! Seriously, the only good reason to go for Clark is if you think the only way Dems can combat this stupid idea that they're weak on defense is to nominate a general.. That Newsweek piece is telling, Clark does seem to be furious a lot, and perhaps is in this for vindication/revenge more than anything? But Dean's the angry one, isn't that right? All his supporters are just angry and hate Republicans!

Dear Newsweek, I don't know what to think any more. Talk more about Clark viewing the political arena like a battlefield and giving orders, that sounds cool, it's just like Arnold running in the Total Recall and saying Hasta la vista to the California budget problems.

Anyway, Clark's botched first few days of the campaign surprised me, considering how long he's had to dance around the issue and get prepared. Very unprofessional.

Curious detail abt the alleged 'leak' in the Wash Post that Dean asked Clark to run as his VP: "The day of the leak, Clark for the first time met his new senior PR adviser, Mark Fabiani."

Kaus talks up HRC as veep, noting Blount's Ellis article, and then goes further to publicize speculation (that I agree is too clever by half) that Clark is a tool for Hillary to enter after the filing deadline - he would pledge his convention delegates to her.

;)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/

I find him to be a pretty thoughtful liberal. And in today's post he links to an article he wrote for Slate in 2001 how Hillary will never run in 2004. He says today that he doesn't think she'll ever run (which I think he's totally wrong on.) But he makes some interesting comparisons to Ted Kennedy.

I'm still skeptical of clark - his military record's spottier than people think, he's starting late, he's never campaigned for anything, his q factor is not nearly as high as powell 95, and, while he may be good as a talking head, the bits I've seen of him speaking in front of a large group he came off a bit...odd. right now he just looks good on paper and on paper I'm not sure if he even looks as good as john edwards did (wesley clark : auburn :: john edwards : nc state?). I'm still very 'wait and see'. as much as people talk about clark's candidacy hurting dean and draining support from him, I think in a way it helps dean - the media always paints these as two man races and now the two men are dean and clark. kerry, lieberman, edwards, et al are strictly 'also rans' right now. also, instead of having the rest of the dempack focus on him (dean), in hopes of establishing themselves as the alternative to dean, they have to worry about clark.

Clark reminds me a lot of John Glenn's failed campaign in '84.

I went to the pre-debate Dean rally. He's got the shtick down really well now. We walked him over to the debate site and took over the place and shouted it out for a few seconds with a much smaller group of Clark people until everyone went into "Down with Bush".

(my impressions were audio-only, which doesn't seem to serve me so well)

I'm still trying to figure out the appeal of Wes Clark qua Wes Clark, i.e. *why* would you support him other than because you think yr fellow American voters are not gonna care about substance & just go well.. uh.. we want change and a real military uniform looks better than a flight suit?

Hmm.. One question - why the confusion of national security and foreign policy? Separating the two (yes, they are not totally separate, but making some key distinctions) might be a good place for the Dems to get started.

What elections could be called national security elections? There can only have been, let's see, ten elections in forty years, several of which were incumbents who people were pretty happy to keep & no wars were going on anyway, and if not all of the remaining were national security elections, are we talking about, say, two? This is the point at which I have to say, so what?

On the redundancy tip, seriously, saying over and over that you're new to the game as an excuse? Dude, don't get IN the game until you're ready then! I mean, I wouldn't use that as an excuse to duck a question if I was TA for a first-year poli sci course, much less when running for President! That annoys the hell out of me more than anything else, like it's OK to be totally unprofessional about this because people are just gonna vote for the General, so why prepare? I feel like it shows contempt for the electorate, intentional or no. If he wasn't ready to answer the questions he certainly could have skipped this particular debate.

I think Dean deserves a lot of credit for changing the terms of the debate in general and for pushing others to really attack Bush. Not to mention waking up the grassroots! Meanwhile it seems Clark's new handlers are already cutting his Internet base out of the process.. which is a bad move for them and a shame, really, because it seems like they're going to do politics as usual like most of the other guys.

here you go Drudge
http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:PLWHlnbk0QgC:www.state.ia.us/government/dps/dne/photos/cocaine.jpg

Which Democrat that is, I am not sure.

Tracer H is not OTM. I would vote for Hillary C any day, and more besides.

I said it long ago and I said it last week and I will say it again: Clark is a long shot. When the fight for the nom starts to get hot, that guy is going to have to really hit one out of the park. And that's before Herr Rove even gets going on him.

a-ha! A01, Washington Post:
Leak of CIA Name Being Investigated

At right above the fold you have the other big story:
House Probers Conclude Iraq War Data Was Weak

Not a good day at the White House, I guess. Tant pis pour eux.

Clark is a star. He really is. The guy's just good. He's a communicator in the way GW and Reagan are. Simple and on message and the right personality. A little unprepared but not so's most people will notice. But there are assumptions built in here. They are that the Democrats need someone who has communication skills and middle-American personality appeal and comfort value and substantive security credentials to appeal to people who might waver or not otherwise vote Democratic. I'm not sure that's true, but it may well be. Another assumption is that the Democrats can win on sheer generic party preference (more people self-identify as Democrats than Republicans, though there are an equal number of Independents; or, several Democrats are statistically even with Bush and the numbers may get better) and we need the most attractive and least objectionable candidate.

But the assumptions could be wrong. What if it's turnout that's more important? Intensity v. Inclusiveness again, sort of. While Clark is a star based upon the assumptions above, I don't see him exciting people at the grassroots the way Dean and probably no one else will. And the risks of Dean certainly came out in the debate. His almost-vicious mouthing of "that's false" when Gephardt was taking him on? Not good. Of course, there are assumptions there as well. They are that the swing-voters want someone that makes them feel secure and is inoffensive. But maybe they want someone angry, or at least aggressive (though Clark is that too). Which strategy is really the risky one? And if Dean is really riskier, is it a risk worth taking?

Of course the best approach might be to put Dean and Clark together. But is that possible now? They seem to have grown a bit frosty. And would the message be coherent?

The other thing that the debate shows is that there are now too many candidates to give sufficient attention to any one of them. So it's time for some people to go. Here are my two nominees...

Bob Graham - bye bye. Little comment necessary. Too old/out-of-it seeming to be Veep even. I don't care about the Florida factor or his reputed substantive smarts.

Dick Gephardt - the angry/aggressive thing was necessary but just isn't working for him. Now he's not only monotone and no-eyebrows and boring, he's trying to be something he's not and looks a little crazy. I don't care about the LIUNA endorsement; the AFL-CIO would be nuts to endorse, and the almost as important AFSCME endorsement isn't going to happen (they're more concerned about winnability).

Here are people who should maybe stick around but only because they represent a constituency or are maybe good Veep candidates...

Joe Lieberman - personally I wish he'd go because he just rubs me the wrong way with the bad jokes and the not looking like he has any passion or justification for running whatsoever and the no popularity with the base. His Harkin Hear It From the Heartland event was beyond terrible - he gave vague rambling low-energy answers to barely tepid applause. But he did do pretty well in the recent debate and he is somewhat aggressive and he does still have great name recognition and people out there, especially those who are older and/or in the center, like him and are comforted by his presence. And maybe he could even be a Veep again. So he can stick around for now.

John Edwards - I don't care about the South Carolina poll (he's leading there now, in the low 20s), the guy isn't going to be the nominee. He's just too young and green (and the real reason - feminine) looking and we saw how well populism did last time around. He's got potential obviously, but it should have happened already and with Clark in there it just ain't going to.

Carol Moseley-Braun - She's the only woman. And she's become a very good speaker. And she's lost the Grandma act. Maybe she could even be a veep. She gets to stay.

Al - no way should Al step off the stage, if solely for our amusement. The guy's just great. He's sure as hell funnier than Al Franken.

Dennis the K - ok obviously he's going nowhere. But he's not crazy-looking anymore. And he's a really substantive speaker. And most importantly he has populist appeal and will keep the Naderites quiet. Worth any damage he does.

But I'm not sure any of these guys would be better veeps than Bill Richardson or one of the Georgians - Max Cleland or Roy Barnes - or someone I haven't thought of (please God not Evan Nitol Bayh).

So that leaves the frontrunners - Dean and Clark and Kerry. I'm not sure there's any conceivable reason why Kerry should be picked over either of those two. But I think he still deserves co-frontrunner status. Maybe it was the poll that showed him beating Bush, but he seems to have gained a lot of confidence and energy in the last week. And I don't know if it was switching the red tie for pink or the lighting or actually holding his head up but he did look younger at the debate. And while that thing I said about him speaking too slowly was true, it seemed more appropriate during the debate - Dean actually spoke too fast, especially when he got mad. And I'm judging his speed by New Yawk standards. And there is one thing that makes Kerry stand out - beyond the Kennedyesque mien, he appeals better than anyone else in his rhetoric to that idealistic RFK thing (though I'm not sure that's in any way an advantage any more). If we're looking for a generic guy and Clark is too untested or we want a domestic policy guy at the top of the ticket, maybe it should be Kerry-Clark.

As far as the whole intensity/inclusiveness thing mentioned above, I'm given to disliking binary oppositions & maybe part of why is that, if you're placing Dean firmly in the first quasi-category and Clark in the second, well, deciding who'd win out is more complicated than Brooks would have it - I think Brooks too obviously sees everything from a particular upper middle class p.o.v. and it's tantamount to wearing blinders when discussing the electorate.

Here's a theory, if you think the current average voters (coming from a smaller pool than that of potential voters, by the way) are going to prefer a bland, smooth candidate who doesn't ruffle anyone's feathers too much, OK then, go with the star and call it inclusiveness - but it results in low voter turnout and further diminishes interest in politics. I don't think this is sustainable or should be the goal of either party.

Perhaps going with the star makes good sense if you think the average voter is conflict-averse and rather dislikes the messiness of politics and doesn't want to take a stand or risk offending anyone. Just go with the flow, basically. And yeah, some people are like that; I saw some when I was at a Dean visibility event, like the elderly couple who walked by & after passing yelled "George W!" at us, and had no interest in talking. Or a guy - also in passing - who looked at the Dean signs and said, "That's another reason not to vote for him." :) I found this especially amusing; somebody walks by with a sign, which reminds him that there's a campaign going on, and he's already pissed off.

Then, there's the side of me that says, it's ultimately self-destructive for the Democratic Party to try and not take any stances anyone can reasonably disagree with and get a smooth, telegenic candidate who speaks in platitudes, and figure that maybe, just maybe, more of the voters who don't really care all that much will pick your guy over the Republican.

Wes Clark is a ROBOT!
http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20031010/i/r3235123683.jpg
http://www.ulis.ac.jp/~j267/diary/kraftwerk.jpg

And it's often not for any really valid reason, but because inevitably, lots of really uncool stuff happens. Such as during that Rock the Vote forum, all the candidates had their staffers make up 30-second short videos to appeal to the MTV crowd's vote. Well, I decided never to look at any of 'em because they're probably all really uncool, and thus would be painful to watch. (No matter which candidate it was.)

cool. "Bush's gallup poll numbers, approval on top, disapproval on the bottom."

And, not to trivialize the issue, but...from gawker.com

http://www.gawker.com/archives/myhothoward-tm-thumb.jpg

OMG!

However, that Kerry poll does not mean that Kerry is in the lead. First of all, given the margin of error, it indicates a statistical 3-way-tie between Dean, Gephardt and Kerry. But even if it is reliable (and that is open to question given the small sample size and the belief of a sizable audience that the pollster is chronically unreliable; others consider him particulalry reliable) as to that 3-way tie, there are evidently exigencies associated with the polling period (it was taken over the course of three days) that I don't understand that dampen the implications of the result.

Dean is likely to win NH, though how close the second-place finisher (likely Clark) comes is the big question.

I need to take a break from following this race. It's getting to this stage of lame smear attacks, and I find it annoying and unfortunate. I think on one hand it'd be a blast to be a political operative, but on the other I am too much of a snob to handle the rah-rah cheese factor of American politics and too much of a softie to deal with the cynical side. I'd have to drink a bottle of antacid a day just to put up with the crappy music. Currently picturing myself going to a Clinton rally in 1992 and when they kick out the Fleetwood Mac the crowd goes wild, and I'm standing in the corner trying not to barf. ;)

in other news, world turns

the hell--?!

Kaus thinks it's the latter: http://slate.msn.com/id/2093760/

I'm not sure myself. Maybe the negative attacks are working. Maybe Dean has soft support from endorsements that doesn't survive electability concerns. Seems unlikely to me. If you want to be really conspiracist, maybe a subset of Dean supporters are claiming to be for Kerry to help pump up Dean's win as a comeback. Seems extremely improbable given that the polls come to them not the other way around. Even more improbable - what if some Dean supporters are actually going to vote for Kerry in the hope that he knocks Gep down a bit to help Dean win or to help Kerry come in a strong second (win?!) to prop Kerry up in NH in order to take away support there from Clark?!

It's very possible that I'll be wrong, but I'm willing to go out on a limb now and say Dean wins it, because his supporters are more likely than anyone else's to brave the cold. Well, maybe Gep's are equally likely, but I think there are slightly more for Dean. And I don't think either Kerry or Edwards' people are going to want to help put someone else over the top.

(oh, and I'm definitely at least a little creeped out by Clark's no-blinking thing. the only other guy I know who does that is somewhere near Tora Bora. I don't know if it would be creepier if it were intentional or unintentional, though I'm pretty sure it's the former. Whether he's a Republican in substance - I don't think he necessarily is; he's a left-sympathetic centrist who isn't much interested in domestic policy - isn't all that material to me in terms of who I'd be satisfied with as President. I mean, Dean will basically be the first Republican I've voted for for President. I'd take McCain, Hagel, maybe Grassley. Who wouldn't I take over the current occupant? But it is material to me in terms of electability.)

If the attacks by the other candidates work, aren't the Democrats just setting themselves up to lose another close one like 2000? The early Dean supporters stay home, the left has a percentage vote for a Green candidate, etc.

Or is Dubya 'evil' to enough people that it won't be a concern?

I just can't help but think that the attack Dean strategy is going to screw the Democrats in the end, if it succeeds. You might get the nomination, but you've lost yourself the election, and if Dean still wins the nomination, we might see a repeat of '88, with whatever mud gets thrown by Lieberman, etc. gets picked up by the GOP and run four billion times.

Yes! But I think that's maybe because his eyelids were surgically held open? I mean there was definitely something unnatural about his whole head.

dunno if i'm typical of "hardcore Dean supporters," but i'd gladly vote for clark and i'd vote gephardt (though w/ less enthusiasm than for dean or clark). as i said above, the only one that i'm really pissed at right now is kerry -- i'd actually vote for sharpton or lieberman in the primary b4 i'd vote for him.

So Gephardt and Dean both left Iowa earlier this week, taking breaks from campaigning to raise money and rest/unknown, respectively. Dean will go to Georgia the day before the caucuses to campaign with Jimmy Carter, which is nice but I can't imagine the campaign thinks that's going to be much help by itself (what the message for that day turns out to be might be interesting though). So what are Gep and Dean thinking? This definitely isn't aura-of-inevitability stuff. Maybe Iowa just doesn't matter as much as what else they're doing? My guess is this is much ado about nothing, a byproduct of the intense focus the campaign is getting from its watchers. Or maybe, you don't think, they're both relaxing because they both know what's going to happen - Gep throws his supporters to Dean on caucus night, healing the labor rift, and drops out because he knows there's nowhere to go next? Nah.

I know what Dean is thinking.. (Well, I don't actually know, but I have a theory.) 12 or so Georgia Democrats including Zell Miller have recently come out to campaign for Bush. I am guessing there is an equal proportion of very unhappy Georgia Democrats and Dean is out there to support them (with Carter) and make a party unity gesture in response.

Gephardt was just flat broke is all.

Dean slipping a bit in Iowa I'd attribute to a barrage of nasty press, and Kerry and Edwards have pretty much been able to coast behind that and seem relatively fresh by comparison. It's all good, the media pile on was bound to start some time.

I would be stunned to death if that happened, Gephardt has been the worst at attacking Dean through the whole campaign, if he drops out he'll endorse Kerry if Kerry is still in the race; I doubt we'll ever see him and Dean on the same stage acting like friends.

(wait, I like Edwards loads more than Kerry, the latter is just in the same place as me ideologically)

http://www.evote.com/evotepix/satire/parody/kerry_john_as_karloff.jpg

http://slate.msn.com/id/2094034/

And this article is good backstory as well (both links from Kaus)

http://slate.msn.com/id/2094034/sidebar/2094042/

Generally, all messages from the major candidates have a vision far preferable to Bush's, so rancour must be put aside once the candidate is chosen. Any drift towards a Leftist third-party is lamentable in a time where so much is at stake. 4 more years of Bush at the helm could well prove disastrous for the world, and not just the USA and its domestic policies.

Dean I see as possibly the most admirable, trustworthy of the candidates, but demographically he would seem to stand little chance with the country at large. He may be stronger and more combative than Al Gore or so many others, but I can see the attacks from the Republicans coming a mile off. The *crucial thing* is that his tone is angry and gloomy (ok, very justified in the current climate) and this is virtually *never* what mainstream American voters go for... Believe me, GWB will offer swing voters a comfy, thumbs-up, 'feelgood' ticket which they will take over Dean hands down. It's the American mindset, I feel.

Kerry seems to be finally growing as a more formidable candidate. His experience and balanced views ought to play well generally, and he has enough Liberal-appeal to hopefully engender grass-roots support. He would be stronger than Dean on foreign policy and show up *very favourably* against Bush in terms of the military, considering he actually served in the military and came out of it well.
But... he would have to avoid the fate of M. Dukakis, a fellow MA politician, beaten by G.H. Bush Sr. in 1988. A few lessons from Clinton in political tone and approach would not go amiss. Kerry already looks like the man more mainstream Dems will go for than Dean. If he can improve and maintain a relaxed, open approach, he could be a 'contender'.

Which leads us to John Edwards... I've always been interested by the possibility of this incipient 'new Clinton' type, and his approach (very positive, balanced and common sense) seems to be gradually winning support. Don't be surprised if he doesn't take most of the South. Only Clark and either Dean or Kerry may be contenders there, along with him. He seriously seems like the candidate with the most negligible weaknesses; inexperience... was GWB particularly experienced indeed?

Wes Clark; unproven, over-vaunted military credentials... on paper, one of the stronger candidates to beat Bush in the middle. One has to be wary of him until he comes more to the fore and becomes a more tangible figure.

Gephardt; well-meaning and well-connected to a useful Democratic support base, he seems a good bet for VP candidate at least. But is sadly lacking in flair or new ideas; a political veteran who will excite few. Would be a 'safe pair of hands' to manage the scale of defeat against Bush, much like Bob Dole (a congressional leader also) vs. Clinton in 1996. Surely he will not win this nomination, and nor should he.

Lieberman; just get out of the race now! One of the least likeable Democrats I have ascertained... not too much separates his views from mainstream right Republicans. There's no way he has any chance in these largely Democrat-supporter-selected primaries. Clark and Edwards entirely seem to co-opt his 'reasonable', middle-of-the-road pitch appeal. He ought to drop out now.

So basically I feel Kerry, Edwards and Dean are the main frontrunners, with Clark a possibility. An Edwards/Dean ticket or a Kerry/Edwards one would like reasonably solid, and each would cover several bases.

This Iowa caucus will be really close, I guess... with Kerry just winning out? Dean 2nd and Gephardt 3rd? Edwards in a very respectable close 4th. Those are my bets.

i'd vote for kerry as prez, don't get me wrong. i'm just not very enthusiastic about him, i don't think at this time that he can win. i also don't really like him and i think that he's got the Bob Dole Complex (i.e., i've been around forever and dammit i should run for President, whether or not i'm the best/most formidable candidate). but we'll see how things go.

One seriously hopes that if Dean falls away, his earnest supporters will join the campaign say, of a Kerry or Edwards and keep up the enthusiasm. There is much in Kerry that is actually more liberal than Dean, though his style is more careful and cautious. Edwards is a populist (whereas Kerry and Dean are more middle class and tarred with an elitist brush) liberal in the Al Gore sense, and that's no bad thing, especially as he seems more certain about where he's going and less scripted than Gore did in the run up to 2000. Do remember, Gore polled a very sizeable vote... if all the Nader supporters had backed him, that would have been enough for a fairly decisive victory, certainly in terms of % share of the vote.

maybe minus Pennsylvannia, which is trending away at the moment I gather)
Someone like Edwards might just have a chance of taking back Ohio, as well as one or two southern states, which would seriously tip the balance against Bush.

PA is prob. pretty safely Democratic at this point for several reasons: (a) Bush's botch on steel exports (PA is a BIG steel state, even today); (b) since 2002, the governor of PA (Ed Rendell) is not only a Democrat but also a Democrat with a fair amount of heft and organizational savvy; (c) the re-election of a Democratic mayor in Philadelphia may or may not help (though i think it will help -- Philadelphia is by far the largest metro area in the state and Mayor Street is no slouch wr2 get-out-the-vote), but it certainly doesn't hurt (esp. since the Philadelphia metro area as a whole is pretty strongly Democratic at this point). but since yer in the UK, you may not have known all this (no more than i would know the dynamics in, say, Northumberland).

personally, i think that Ohio and Arizona are gonna be the real battlegrounds. that's just me, and i have no hard data on how those states are gonna go at this point.

I'm not a big Kerry fan, either, though if he ends up being the nominee, it will be time to get as excited about him as I possibly can and work as much for him as I can (which is quite conceivable).

But this means nothing. Iowa is tiny. It was bigger this year, but everything is going to be bigger this year. Move On.

(Keith M, I wish you and your loose affiliation with the truth a close relationship with loose stools. Kisses!)

i'm sorry, but my instincts tell me that kerry is as much a sure-fire loser as lieberman or sharpton. then again, maybe i just need some sleep.

Dean seems to have peaked really early.

WE HAVE OUR NEW LEADER.

Kerry? I've no doubt he's qualified -- at least moreso than the person currently occupying the Presidential office -- but I just don't think he can win. Oh well, I have a feeling it's all a moot point anyway, given the mood of the country right now. It would seriously take a major decline in the economy (even though I think it's still a Jobless Recovery) or Bush being caught in some sort of huge scandal for *any* Dem candidate to win.

Harkin 64.3%
Uncommitted 11.0%
Tsongas 10.7%
Brown 8.3%
Clinton 3.3%
Kerry 2.0%
Carter 0.3%

Obv. Harkin was *from* Iowa, so no surprise he won big, but seeing where Clinton finished and one has to wonder if Iowa means anything to Dean's campaign in the long run.

dean can pull this out yet. you gotta believe, as the late Tug McGraw would say.

What's being used against him? He's never held elective office. No, but he has been in charge of half of a major continent before. He voted for Reagen? So did a lot of Democrats back in 1984.

Most Americans aren't even paying attention to all of this. I've got a friend from Australia staying with me right now, someone who knows nothing about Election 2004. She likes Clark because all of the other candidates are weird or scary. I don't think that most Americans would want to go deer hunting with Howard Dean. Dean is seen as a mean and yappy Yankee liberal. Believe me, I'd have no problem with that, but try convincing some Hallmark store manager in Akron that.

You can argue with me all you want about whether or not Clark's carpetbagging his way into the nomination. I don't care this year. This year, I want Bush out. One more moral victory like we had in 2000, and so many more people will die in the dessert, so many more rights will be taken away, and so many more courtrooms will be presided over by right-wing fundamentalist head jobs.

More to the point, the campaign is still young. It's going to be a fun couple of months, I tells ya.

The only Democrat with a chance to beat Bush (assuming the elections aren't rigged *cough*) is Dean. He manages to get non-voters and the progressive types who voted for Nader in 2000 to support him. They aren't going to do that with a guy who might as well be GOP, is running around defending the School of the Americas, etc. etc. etc.

With Dean, the Democrats might lose big, or they might win, but with anyone else, I see it being another close loss just like 2000. The left will stay home or find someone else to vote for if the Democratic choice isn't a fighting alternative to Bush.

The GOP is going to pick up six or more seats in Texas, so the Congressional elections might be important, but there's little chance of Democrats retaking either the House or the Senate.

Which makes the Congressional elections all the more important. Bush has enough campaign funds to basically "buy" the election even without rigging it, but some of the Congressional races could be up for grabs should the Democrats bother to fight for them.

Otherwise, prepare for the worst.

After what happened in 2000, whether you agree that Nader stole votes from Gore or not, I think that most left-leaning people will support the eventual Democrat out of fear that any other vote will propel George Bush to a second term. I don't think that any environment activists wil take the chance on that. I don't think that any pro-choice supporters will dare to take a chance on another left-leaning candidate. I don't think that anyone opposed to the war will cast a vote for Nader or McKinney or whomever.

A Dean supporter will vote for Clark because of the reasons listed above. A Clark supporter could still vote for Bush over Candidate Dean. This election will be tight, and those middle-of-the-road voters will make all the difference in the world.

I know that most Democrats would like Dean nominated. That's not what's important this time. This time, it's who those wishy-washy independent voters want elected, and most of them are more comfortable with President Bush than former Governor Dean. Dems the facts.

YEAAHHHH!!

I'm still uncommitted but mr teeny loves clark and I think he is whispering in my ear at night. :/

I think Matt Drudge is going w/Dean: http://drudgereport.com/

Drudge is Classic. What an irresponsible thing to put on yr giant website.

Clark still seems very shaky on anything outside of military commentary, an amateur with other issues that will be more and more exposed. His ability to manage people on a political level is completely unproven and he will need more puppetmasters than Bush. He's an idealic sort of choice, and the shallow appeal is obvious and real. But it's a much more different political atmosphere today than what Ike faced. But most importantly, now that Iowa is over with, other candidates are going to start focusing on Clark because he's on the rise. His explicit denial of a VP slot (and almost certain lack of future as a Democratic Party player unless he wins) makes him the kind of target that no one will hold back against. Taking shots at him when he's on the rise has almost no consequences.

This was a huge loss for Dean, because it likely signifies that his essential voting block--new voters--did not get out the vote very well. I still think that Dean is the man to beat among the Dems but he needs to confirm his stature in NH very badly.

Yes, that article is very worrying for the future of the USA... people should look back to the values upon which it was founded, and actually question the way things are going. The Democrats' task is an uphill one: to energise the independents and apathetic public about the threat to US democracy. The state of the media is a large barrier to be crossed.

The future of the USA has been in doubt for a long time. The values upon which it was founded, or at least certainly the core of them that gave rights to pesky things like the Bill of Rights, have been under attack for decades. The main problem is that the two major parties are not very different except in their extremes. Why should the voting public be inspired by candidates spending all their efforts to polarize such small differences? Both parties spend the vast majority of their time spending taxpayer dollars to buy complacency and in the end, pols are very happy with the results. The government is so intertwined with our lives that almost no one has any choice but to play along, which further enriches and empowers the ruling state. The apathy has risen from our own laziness of citizens, and the media merely reflects that.

As much as I'd rather not see the Democratic party return to power, the article in TAP is full of hubris and bitterness. In 1994, the Republicans overthrew what amounts to four decades of Democratic rule in Congress, and probably would have gotten Clinton booted out of office had Ross Perot not run for President (and to a smaller extent, think of the difference in 2000 if there were no third party candidates.) This country is ripe for change and it can be done.

I'm not exactly clear what you're asking, but I'll take a WAG.

My point is that in 1996 and in 2000, third party candidates in the presidential election (and, to at least some degree, in some Congressional races) affected the outcome significantly. On one hand, fringe party candidates represent people with either narrow political views or protestations to the two major parties, but on the other hand, those same people can be seen as part of the swing vote. Ergo, if the swingers can be diverted from, say, Buchanan and Nader and Harry Brown, the election suddenly looks a lot different. That article in TAP makes it seem like something more sinister has happened, when in fact the rules for gerrymandering are not that different now from what they were in 1994. The political power and culture has shifted, yes, but the opportunity for change is still abundant.

x-post: Ed, here you go.

Er, by more clearly significant I mean that we can say that if (forget the percentage) of Nader voters would have voted for Gore, and assuming that only a tiny fraction of them would have voted for Bush, we can say that Nader cost Gore the election. Whereas the second choice of Perot voters wasn't as clear.

however, related question, are primaries does as first past the post or on a proportional basis:

eg in New Hampshire

Dean gets 55% of the vote
Kerry gets 20%
Edwards gets 15% and
Clark gets 10%

do all of NH's delegates vote for Dean, as the winner, or do they split proportionately?

Blaming Nader for Gore's loss also ignores the other third party candidates in 2000 (had the Libertarian vote gone to Bush, for example, Bush would have won New Mexico. Florida wouldn't have been nearly as close, either.) Yes, Nader still had an overriding effect on the election but it's pointless to blame him without considering the entirety of the third party influence. I guess what I'm saying is that in 1992, 1996, and 2000 there is a significant (by outcome) amount of people who voted against the primary two candidates. Those people were the deciding factor as much as the majority who voted traditionally.

http://www.democrats.org/about/bios/mcauliffe.html
http://www.opensecrets.org/newsletter/ce73/interview.asp
http://www.austinreview.com/articles/2002_10/global.htm

tom e-wing's grandfather-in-law invented the word psephology you know (sorry, this is one of my fave facts ever).

how can this McAuliffe chap be in charge when i've never heard of him??? (this is a faecetious and/or rhetorical question)

If I can find the link in my old favorites, I read statistics once showing that Perot voters in '92 were split evenly between Ds and Rs for down-ballot races, and that exit polls showed them split evenly between Bush and Clinton.

As to the Democratic Leader, there is no clear leader. The DNC chair is head of part of the political machine, but the ranking Congressional leaders are the face of the party (Daschle when he was Senate Majority Leader).

FWIW, this guy gives a decent explanation of why Perot may not have caused Bush to lose to Clinton, though this kind of hindsight is rather shaky because it can't factor in an election where Perot wasn't running at all.

http://www.fairvote.org/plurality/perot.htm

"You never know if you're going to get Smeagol Dean or Gollum Dean."

A machine Democrat can't appeal to those people, and none of the candidates have the strong supporters that built around Dean. I've talked to two Dean supporters who won't, at this point, vote for Kerry if he wins the nomination. Edwards maybe, Clark no, Kerry no. I doubt they're alone.

The only way Bush-as-evil issue comes up with leftists in November is if the Democratic alternative is seen as a true alternative, rather than someone who jumped on the bandwagon with some anti-war/anti-Bush rhetoric to score points.

Clark simply doesn't have the near-fanatical support that Dean has. Dean's movement was as grassroots as we get in 2004, Clark's came from above, and not from the party base.

I'm not supportive of Dean (the only Democrat I'd think about voting for is Sharpton - but I live where my vote is irrelevant anyway) at all, but he's the only shot. It's either win or lose big with him (if the tendencies that appeal to left-Democrats, etc. alienate a big part of the center), but with all the other candidates, it shakes out to be 2000 (and 2002) again. A close race, running to the center, ignoring the fringe.

xpost - There were enough Nader voters to have clearly given Gore the 2000 election, if they'd seen him as worth voting. I think that makes them fairly important.

I just can't see Dean appealing to a wide enough spectrum of people to win a national election. The "disaffected" bloc is really not that big, and there are probably just as many, if not more, moderates who might vote for Bush if the democratic candidate were perceived as too left-wing (but would vote for a centrist democrat, especially a Southern one).

Clark doesn't have that. Clark was pushed by the DLC, he's their candidate - centrist, inoffensive, even a bit conservative. The DLC is the opposite of a grassroots movement in Democratic politics.

xpost - Yancey, who's talking "far left wing"? The average Nader voter wasn't some crazed Russian anarchist, it was a young, college-educated white male with an average or low income. Your last sentence is a joke. So having some kind of principles renders them "hardly adults"? That's... brilliant. What if neither candidate "reflects their views"? That's the reality. That's why people don't vote. It's not because they're childish, or naive, or stupid - it's because no candidate reflects their views.

And Milo, I'm not necessarily saying that the democrats should nominate a southern machine Democrat. In the long run, it may be better for the democrats to move left and stop being "lite republicans," but I don't think it would help them get their candidate elected in 2004.

People don't vote because they don't care or because their own worldview barely escapes their own family, not because a candidate doesn't reflect their views. How many people's complete and accurate views are reflected by a political candidate? I'd guess maybe 10%. People, in a sense, compromise when they vote. They aren't voting for mirror images of their own ideas.

Roe Vs. Wade was the worst thing to happen to the Democratic party in the last 50 years. No other issue decides a vote the way abortion does (wanna know why the Democrats have lost the South? look here! wanna know why there hasn't been a non-Southern Democratic President since JFK? look here again!), and if abortion suddenly became a state issue, the White House would be under the Democrats' control eight out of every 12 years, I'd wager. But that's for another thread.

http://clark04.com/drafthistory/

Dean can't even win an Iowa caucus. How is he going to defeat Bush in Ohio, Missouri, Arizona, etc?

Wes Clark can unite Dean voters with independent voters. He's a pro-choice, anti-war, tax-the-rich candidate who also happens to be a four-star general who won a war and doesn't make crazy YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGH sounds when he gets pissy.

Then maybe he could pick up endorsements from Steve Ballmer and the Witch-King of Angmar.

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1073281173110

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1073281173110

Dean is a wild card but most people think he is too wild and therefore, more risky. Herr Rove likes that. Clark is totally unproven and is still very green. He's risky to the establishment and is not well connected in DC to make up for his lack of campaign skillz. Kerry is the establishment vote, just like Dole was.

***
Yancey,
The GOP is the party of "big ideas," I suppose, but what it really is is the party of "giving its base what it wants." Bush killed off an insurgent campaign running right into Bob Jones University and push-polling racist questions against McCain. He swung back to the center for the general, but never, ever retreated from his base. That's why Pat Buchanan, a highly visible and popular right-wing populist figure with decent funding (more than Nader), polled less than 1% (.2%, I think?). The GOP recognizes that it needs those "extreme" votes, and the devotion of those people, for its candidates.

And you're right, almost no one matches up 100%. That's never been an issue. You have to have some kind of connection with the candidate to vote for them - Gore gave left-liberals/progressives/the disaffected nothing. He ran to the center and center-right and gave the Democratic base nothing, and lost the center that voted for Perot/are outsiders/whatever to Bush. What has the Republican-lite strategy gotten Democrats but loss after loss? (And the pansy-liberal strategy of Dukakis and Mondale was even worse.)

Abortion is one reason, gun control is another, failing to appeal to working-class white males at all is tied to those, but also just a problem with attitude in general. Maybe the ideal candidate would have been Gephardt in someone else's body and name.

You have to have some reason to vote. In the last gubernatorial election, I was faced with the choice of Rick Perry (Bush-lite, if that's possible) and Tony Sanchez. Sanchez's big campaign play was to talk about how much he wanted to work with the GOP and how supportive he was of Bush, etc. - so I voted for the Libertarian candidate. I don't know even know what his name was, honestly. I had zero reason to vote for the Democrat, aside from his affiliation with a party tangentially related to progressive causes. That's not enough.

Dean's followers don't match up with him 100%, either, but he gives them an alternative to the DLC-run Democrats and the GOP.

Re: Kerry candidacy v. Dean candidacy - maybe, but I don't see it. What's worse than a Washington insider from the South? An insider from "Taxachusetts." The GOP would have a field day with liberal-bashing and playing up the folksy angle with Bush. And his record (voting for the war) will come back to haunt him from the other side.

I don't think a Dean candidacy has much of a chance in the general, but that's more than the other two possibilities.

i'm also surprised at the low-grade asshole move that Kucinich pulled wr2 the deal b/w him and Edwards. phooey on him.

I know two of the guys behind the grassroots campaign to get Clark to run very well. Saying there's absolutely no grassroots component to Clark's campaign and that his campaign is in fact the opposite of a grassroots campaign requires blatant ignoring of basic, publically accessible facts.

im not sold on kerry. he looks like frankenstein. nobody is ever going to vote for someone who looks like frankenstein.

"I present the next President of the United States: JOHN KERRY!"
"NNNNNNNNNNNGH! RAAAAAAAAAAAAR! NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGH!" *throws little girl into well*

Almost nobody.

howard dean: no upper lip
gephardt: no eyebrows
kucinich: that kid i used to beat up every day at lunch
kerry: frankenstein
clark: wears sweaters

And Dan, what I said was that _the DLC_ was the opposite of grassroots. It has a history of pushing candidates purely with money from mega-donors and corporations. Every candidate is going to have some smattering of grassroots support - you have to have volunteers and lackeys - but Dean's campaign was built on that. Clark's wasn't. Dean was a threat to the Powers That Be, which is why he was run down with so much effort.

I hate to put it this way, but Iowa doesn't mean that much to me. One Jewish and two black candidates on the ballot - sum percentage of zero. What are the odds of Iowa going Democrat in the general anyway?

xpost Tad OTM, the upper Midwest in general leans much more towards Democrats than Republicans (granted this is more true of Minnesota than its neighbors.

XXPOST GEPHARDT IS OUT

Like I said, I like him and glad he's been campaigning, but I didn't think he was the hero his followers made him out to be.

x-post: Milo, Naderites were in no way 'the traditional base'. The 'traditional base' is labor, women's groups, environmentalists and other groups like that. In short, all of the groups that the DLC has baldly stated are unnecessary to win an election.

but as i said, the naderites ain't the problem now -- the potentially deadly fight is the dean v. anybody-but-dean fight. this could really get nasty.

Personally I decided to bail from the Dean camp as I'd been more and more disappointed in the past few weeks or so, much as I love what they've done - it got too personalized and insular, and.. intuitively I knew he had all these great qualities and potential as a candidate, but what got presented to the voting public was nothing of the kind as became clear, and they were just so damned stubborn and graceless about it. I don't need the drama, one's candidate should not cause stress.

So it's a Kerry/Edwards ticket that I'd like. Kerry seems to have much more support than you'd think, under the (internet) radar, and he'll get a huge bounce out of Iowa. I never would have thought that a long battle for the nomination would help Democrats, but after watching all the interest in Iowa I kind of realized it's the best thing they could ask for, because you just don't want the media beast to get bored and focus only on your guy - as Dean found out.

I don't think that there's anything to defend about Clark's campaign, really. In American politics, all avenues are guided by money, it's just a different path chosen. I don't like Clark for a variety (a multitude), not least of which is the fact than any pondscum willing to defend the School of Americas isn't worth spitting on, much less voting for. All I'm saying in reference to his campaign v. Dean's is that Clark is the campaign of the party elites, the DLC and the Clintonites. Dean drew from the other end of the party pool, and they're loyal to him.

***

re: Kerry - Naderites were in no way 'the traditional base'. The 'traditional base' is labor, women's groups, environmentalists and other groups like that. In short, all of the groups that the DLC has baldly stated are unnecessary to win an election.

Environmentalists, check. Labor, really not bad (look at the demo. for Nader voters - young, white, male, low-middle income, educated - that's not far off from a traditional blue-collar Democrat). Women's groups could have used some help and minority voting certainy could have used some help - but we are dealing with a third-party with minimal funds and campaigning abilities.

The people who voted for Nader are not some wacked-out fringe (some are, but then the Communist Party USA votes with the Democrats), they're people who would normally work with and vote for the Democrats, if given any reason to.

I think you're quite wrong. What is your evidence for this? My evidence - Independents in current polls break for generic Democrats over Republicans by about 10 points. Polls show that Independents like Dean best of any of the candidates. Recent elections in which independents played a major role in putting up the winning candidate - Jesse Ventura, McCain NH 2000, Ahnold. Think Dean has something in common with those candidates? Majority gender of Independents - male.

My thoughts for some time have been that whoever is the Democratic nominee will get all of the generic Democratic votes plus the votes of anyone who hates Bush and is not a Democrat. I have believed Dean is the most electable candidate because he would get all those votes plus the votes of independent men who vote on macho-ness rather than issues (except guns, a macho issue). Now I'm questioning my theory on the basis of Iowa.

However, there isn't necessarily any good reason for me to question Iowa, because it is quite possible that IOWA CHANGED ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The primary turnout was 20% of the Democratic general election turnout in Iowa in 2000. Per the NYT exit poll, 68% of voters were over 45 years old. Iowa is an elderly state. The young voters who we can add to the Gore/Democratic vote for Dean are not enough to form a majority or even a plurality, but they are there. Moreover, this was a Democratic crowd, not an independent one. Only 19% were independents, but 65% were self-identified "Strong Democrats" and 56% described themselves as somewhat or very liberal. Seventy-five percent opposed the war and 25% had post-graduate degrees. These people are all going to vote for the nominee whoever it is. Their votes reflect perceived electability, not actual electability, and word on the ground in Iowa was that they were not especially informed.

However, there may be one reason to question Dean even given these caveats. Perhaps Dean, or at least the media's take on Dean's Independents and youth-seeking hockey dad rallies, is too much for little old Midwestern ladies. Perhaps the Democrats are going to lose because they're unwilling to try on Independent drag.

I think all of the remaining serious candidates have the potential to beat Bush. I think that safe, generic, broad and "experienced" (and elitist and shameless and extremely boring) John Kerry might be the best non-Dean (Kerry, it should be noted, didn't win, but, as Kaus says, was "rejected by 62% of Iowa voters") and that shifty, slick, more-defensive-than-Dean, foreign-policy-only Clark might be the worst candidate of them all, with a worse risk to reward ratio than slick, no record, empty suit but talks purty John Edwards.

from what i've been reading, it looks like dean's biggest misstep was the "perfect storm" invasion of iowa by out-of-state deaniacs. while what i've read is admittedly anecdoctal, it seems like that they might have a little over-enthusiastic and a little too smug for people's liking. all of which may have added to any of dean's perceived flaws. again, i recognize that this is anecdoctal and not to keep flogging a death horse, but reason number #1 as to why i turned so sour on nader 4 years ago was because of over-enthusiastic, overly smug and (IMHO) overly ignorant nader supporters. so i certainly believe that this may have been a factor in iowa -- and since last night i've gotten TONS of e-mails from NJ & national Deaniacs looking to get Deaniacs out to NH, i'm getting a little worried.

Rereading my post, I realize that the other Dem candidates can maybe add groups to the ticket just like Dean can. Kerry (and maybe Clark) can get "security Moms" (whatever those are). Except I thought security Moms were Democrats last time. Nevertheless, this helps us get back up to the Gore total. Edwards can get us, er, "Tom Cruise Moms"? I wonder what those are. Maybe they're not Moms, but single women! But were they going to vote for Bush? The Democrats have a man problem. That's why I like Dean better. But maybe the men we want really do like war hero biography or, uh, boyish charm. Maybe the media is going to make so much fun of Dean that they'll be scared to like him. Maybe Dean needs to start fighting the media to win them back?

... since election 2000, lotsa folks (including me) have gone on about how "the left" had to rethink some of their attitudes and tactics esp wr2 the democratic party and folks in the moderate-to-moderate-liberal camp. though they haven't done so perfectly, i think that they HAVE listened to those criticisms -- a lot of them are the folks inspired by dean (or, to a lesser extent, kucinich) despite any differences over policy b/w them and dean, and the nader/greens marriage is now officially history. since i've gone on and on for the need for progressives to work w/n the democratic party and to shun political charlatans, it would be inconsistent for me to now denounce any impulse toward pragmatism that i've seen.

my point -- if someone other than dean wins, that someone is going to have to face (mock boston-brahmin upturned nose) those deaniacs. how is this someone going to appeal to THEM? this is the central point all along -- how to get moderates and progressives together to get rid of bush. it seems to me that the progressives have done at least some compromising -- maybe it's time for the moderates to consider compromising themselves. if they think that dean's financial and manpower #s are fake based upon what just happened in iowa, they may be in for a very rude surprise. i am NOT advocating that dean's folks march off in a huff -- this election's too important for that, and even w/ my misgivings about kerry i will still vote for him over bush (as will many). but now is the time to see how really wise kerry and dean are, and i hope that i'm not disappointed.

I might go to NH for a few days campaigning for Kerry, because he seems to be the best candidate by far.. you know he might be a little snooty from time to time, but I'm sure nobody in the Kerry camp is feeling like they're sitting on a house of cards. And he'll match up against Bush on both sides of the domestic/foreign policy equation, I believe. Hey, if people are worried about security issues.. being fairly predictable and steady might be a real good thing.

As for the Dems having a toughness problem, sure they do (or did), but that doesn't necessarily mean the nominee has to seem like the biggest badass out there. And is it just me or is Bush looking more and more.. well.. nervous?

What's the 'big idea' in 'Raiders' btw? Vote Dean if you love limeys.

Bush looks nervous every time he has a big tv audience to which he has to sell something. In his Oval speech about the $87 billion he looked small and petrified. One of the first goals of this election should be to subject him to as much public scrutiny as possible to show how weak a man he really is and how little he is in charge.

One more point about which I'd like to remind everyone - Dean is currently the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in actual delegates counted because he is the leader among pledged "superdelegates" who are party insiders and elected officials, and his lead outweighs the difference between his Iowa delegates and Kerry's and Edwards'. (Of course, most of these folks have yet to declare a preference)

These guys got their positions in Clark's campaign after the grassroots petitioning; neither of them has worked in politics before this.

Erm...this is completely inaccurate. Those Nader supporters were a very small percentage of people in all of those groups, especially labor. I'm not saying Nader didn't attract people from those camps, but most of them stayed with Gore in 2000 - that's a fact. The real problem is getting those people motivated - they're shut out by the DLC-types who openly spit on them in their missives.

You're quite correct about the disaffected people who supported Nader. There was barely a class agenda in 2000, which pissed a lot of people off. People were pissed off about things like NAFTA and welfare reform, and frankly, the elite Democrats were themselves smug, arrogant, dishonest, insulting, and bullying in 2000 - rich kids who LIED and said that only rich, spoiled white guys supported Nader. The people who have reached out to those who voted Nader have been more populist types and not insider types.

The people who voted for Nader are not some wacked-out fringe (some are, but then the Communist Party USA votes with the Democrats), they're people who would normally work with and vote for the Democrats, if given any reason to.

If you think I said that the Nader people were some wacked-out fringe, I didn't. I simply think you are incorrectly identifying the base of the party, and overestimating the Nader factor here. Personally, I agree with the Green Party platform 100%, and I've discussed this with Europeans who simply call it a 'liberal' platform. Only in the US are these things "wacked-out".

It would seem surprising that Dean, supposedly a stoical, secular New Englander, rather than an excitable, religious southerner, would go so over the top. Self-destruct was pressed surely, for some unfathomable reason, just like Kinnock in '92...

But it's not. Yes, only a small percentage of each group supported Nader, but only a small percentage of any group voted for Nader, period. But they were all present and Nader was close to getting major union endorsements (and got some).

How are young, white, college-educated low-to-middle income males (the Nader voter demographic) with presumably progressive politics (they didn't vote for Buchanan) not a part of the Democrats' traditional base?

To Anthony, I'd say that the people I've talked to are looking long-term. If you give the Democratic-candidate your vote out of duty or to 'screw Bush' in 2004, and they still lose (as is very likely), you're just setting it up for the same thing in 2008. John Kerry voted for the PATRIOT act, still defends it, for the war, still defends it, etc. - how is he going to convince them that he makes enough of a difference to earn their vote? If the Democrats are gambling on enough anti-Bush sentiment to not have to appeal to those voters, they're in real trouble. I refuse to believe that 2000 and 2002 haven't taught the machine a lesson.

Nobody with this position can beat Bush. Bet the house on it.

Of course, the Official Rules For Class Warfare allow for taxing the rich into submission, but do you want to be on the receiving end of the Bushco campaign gauntlet when the issue of repealing all tax cuts means raising taxes on the middle and lower classes? It will never fly. The Deanie Babies need to wisen up on this sooner rather than later.

first of all, don, knock it off with this "class warfare" bullshit. i trust that yer smart enough to know that that's a two-edged sword.

secondly, you may or may not be right re: whether it's winnable. however, i was focusing on whether or not it's smart fiscal policy -- which in my mind it unquestionably is. the other dem candidates are going to have to pay for all of their proposals somehow -- let them show how that can be done AND the tax cuts for the middle- and lower-class taxpayers can be pursued simultaneously w/t bloating the deficit or fucking up the capital and int'l trade markets. if kerry, clark, and/or edwards can demonstrate how this can be done, then i will reconsider my views but till then i think that dean has it right.

How are young, white, college-educated low-to-middle income males (the Nader voter demographic) with presumably progressive politics (they didn't vote for Buchanan) not a part of the Democrats' traditional base?

Forget it, Milo - you're not understanding me at all. I didn't say they weren't "a part" of it - but the overwhelming majority of Dem activists voted for Gore. Plus a lot of people who vote for independents or who don't vote for the presidential candidate at all voted for Nader.

so far I'm most impressed by Clark's tax plan which calls for the elimination of income tax on all low income people; maybe more impressed by the balls than the economics.

at the very least can we please kill this marriage penalty bullshit which makes me do complicated math on my W2 and make them withhold more than they normally would in order to keep me from getting fucked? thanks you.

i also have a major bug in my ass with this conservative notion that equates progressive taxation with "class warfare."

But can you not imagine for even one second the amount of negative advertising that will show up if Dean or Clark wants to raise taxes on the poor or the soccer moms? Which economist, exactly, is going to take to the op-ed jungle and defend that? Certainly not Rubin or anyone else with any degree of legitimacy. I doubt even Krugman would campaign for something like that, even to spite Bush. What's more, it's probably only about $40B a year? That's fookin' peanuts in a budget of what, $3 trillion. It's play money.

Class warfare has little to do with the progressive taxation system itself, and everything to do with hyperbole such as "the rich not paying their fair share" as a rationale for ratcheting up marginal rates, cutting capital gains, eliminating the tax on dividends, etc.

Campaigning on raising taxes is a loser loser loser issue.

I think someone like Dean could do much better blasting Bush for the runaway spending. Increasing the government by enlarging programs and creating new ones is a far greater tax on the economy and the budget than the marginal tax rates. 75% of the deficit (and probably more than that) is because of spending. Bush has increased discretionary spending more than any other president since LBJ or some shit. It's ghastly. It's invasive. It constricts the economy and invites the government further into our lives. It empowers the special interests even further. It perpetuates the ruling class even further. It shrinks our rights. BUSH IS A MASSIVE FAILURE IN THIS AREA. But no, Dean and Clark are trying to get elected by raising taxes on the poor and the middle class. It's economic and political suicide and it is a guaranteed loser issue. WHY WOULD YOU PLAY RIGHT INTO BUSH'S HANDS LIKE THIS?

The Truimph of Hope Over Self-Interest
By DAVID BROOKS

NASHVILLE — Why don't people vote their own self-interest? Every few years the Republicans propose a tax cut, and every few years the Democrats pull out their income distribution charts to show that much of the benefits of the Republican plan go to the richest 1 percent of Americans or thereabouts. And yet every few years a Republican plan wends its way through the legislative process and, with some trims and amendments, passes.

The Democrats couldn't even persuade people to oppose the repeal of the estate tax, which is explicitly for the mega-upper class. Al Gore, who ran a populist campaign, couldn't even win the votes of white males who didn't go to college, whose incomes have stagnated over the past decades and who were the explicit targets of his campaign. Why don't more Americans want to distribute more wealth down to people like themselves?

Well, as the academics would say, it's overdetermined. There are several reasons.

People vote their aspirations.

The most telling polling result from the 2000 election was from a Time magazine survey that asked people if they are in the top 1 percent of earners. Nineteen percent of Americans say they are in the richest 1 percent and a further 20 percent expect to be someday. So right away you have 39 percent of Americans who thought that when Mr. Gore savaged a plan that favored the top 1 percent, he was taking a direct shot at them.

It's not hard to see why they think this way. Americans live in a culture of abundance. They have always had a sense that great opportunities lie just over the horizon, in the next valley, with the next job or the next big thing. None of us is really poor; we're just pre-rich.

Americans read magazines for people more affluent than they are (W, Cigar Aficionado, The New Yorker, Robb Report, Town and Country) because they think that someday they could be that guy with the tastefully appointed horse farm. Democratic politicians proposing to take from the rich are just bashing the dreams of our imminent selves.

Income resentment is not a strong emotion in much of America.

If you earn $125,000 a year and live in Manhattan, certainly, you are surrounded by things you cannot afford. You have to walk by those buildings on Central Park West with the 2,500-square-foot apartments that are empty three-quarters of the year because their evil owners are mostly living at their other houses in L.A.

But if you are a middle-class person in most of America, you are not brought into incessant contact with things you can't afford. There aren't Lexus dealerships on every corner. There are no snooty restaurants with water sommeliers to help you sort though the bottled eau selections. You can afford most of the things at Wal-Mart or Kohl's and the occasional meal at the Macaroni Grill. Moreover, it would be socially unacceptable for you to pull up to church in a Jaguar or to hire a caterer for your dinner party anyway. So you are not plagued by a nagging feeling of doing without.

Many Americans admire the rich.

They don't see society as a conflict zone between the rich and poor. It's taboo to say in a democratic culture, but do you think a nation that watches Katie Couric in the morning, Tom Hanks in the evening and Michael Jordan on weekends harbors deep animosity toward the affluent?

On the contrary. I'm writing this from Nashville, where one of the richest families, the Frists, is hugely admired for its entrepreneurial skill and community service. People don't want to tax the Frists — they want to elect them to the Senate. And they did.

Nor are Americans suffering from false consciousness. You go to a town where the factories have closed and people who once earned $14 an hour now work for $8 an hour. They've taken their hits. But odds are you will find their faith in hard work and self-reliance undiminished, and their suspicion of Washington unchanged.

Americans resent social inequality more than income inequality.

As the sociologist Jennifer Lopez has observed: "Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got, I'm just, I'm just Jenny from the block." As long as rich people "stay real," in Ms. Lopez's formulation, they are admired. Meanwhile, middle-class journalists and academics who seem to look down on megachurches, suburbia and hunters are resented. If Americans see the tax debate as being waged between the economic elite, led by President Bush, and the cultural elite, led by Barbra Streisand, they are going to side with Mr. Bush, who could come to any suburban barbershop and fit right in.

Most Americans do not have Marxian categories in their heads.

This is the most important reason Americans resist wealth redistribution, the reason that subsumes all others. Americans do not see society as a layer cake, with the rich on top, the middle class beneath them and the working class and underclass at the bottom. They see society as a high school cafeteria, with their community at one table and other communities at other tables. They are pretty sure that their community is the nicest, and filled with the best people, and they have a vague pity for all those poor souls who live in New York City or California and have a lot of money but no true neighbors and no free time.

All of this adds up to a terrain incredibly inhospitable to class-based politics. Every few years a group of millionaire Democratic presidential aspirants pretends to be the people's warriors against the overclass. They look inauthentic, combative rather than unifying. Worst of all, their basic message is not optimistic.

They haven't learned what Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt and even Bill Clinton knew: that you can run against rich people, but only those who have betrayed the ideal of fair competition. You have to be more hopeful and growth-oriented than your opponent, and you cannot imply that we are a nation tragically and permanently divided by income. In the gospel of America, there are no permanent conflicts.

Income disparity is not an issue that will bring the angry middle to the polls. Not in the US.

"you don't increase spending while decreasing revenue"

There is no need to complicate the spending issue by blaming it on a tax cut. It's too easy for Bush to muddy the waters if you bring up taxes. Further, the majority of a person's tax burden isn't even what the feds hand them, so why complicate things on an issue that was winning for Bush--he'll just say the cuts had bi-partisan support and they were key to spurring the economy. Dean's just preaching to the choir every time he tries to blame spending on tax cuts. HE SHOULD JUST BLAME THE SPENDING ON THE MORON IN CHARGE. The Democrats keep trying to make Bush look evil by going to their standard bag of tricks: he's creating environmental disasters, he hates the working man, he only cares about big business, he only cares about oil, etc. Fer crying out loud, this kind of campaigning has resulted in a total disaster for Democratic representation on the Hill for ten years now.

Instead, start knocking Bush for being a hypocrite--on his own ideals. Bush cannot in any way rationalize the raiding of the coffers that has gone on. Stop coming up with conspiracy theories about Halliburton and the oil companies and start blaming him for the lack of progress in Iraq. Point out that before he starts up another entitlement, he needs to show his cards on how Social Security is going to be funded a dozen years from now. Even without changing the tax code from what Clinton handed off, it's still a disaster in the making.

Then again, you can ignore the appeal of the middle and just yell loudly that Bush is an abysmal, evil failure and hope that a massive get-out-the-new-vote effort will be the deciding factor in the election. This seems to be the main momentum of Dean, and screaming like a banshee reinforced it to the nth degree.

But the 3% who voted for Nader would, given a candidate they could give a damn about, be Democratic voters. Those 3% are part of the traditional Democratic base and they would have given Gore three states and more than enough votes to not have to worry about recounts and a crooked USSC.

The problem with that article is that it focuses on likely voters - suburbanites, the affluent middle-class, etc.. So go for the 50% who don't vote. They don't vote because they don't think they make a difference, they don't think politicians represent them, and they think that the political process is by and for the wealthy. (And they're right.) Maybe it's not a good strategy for 2004. But at some point, someone left-of-center has to realize that the 'now' is not everything. Betting the bank on beating Bush in 2004 is a losing proposition (he'll just invade someplace else if it comes down to the wire).

That depends on a) who's doing the polling and b) what question is being asked. You know that just as well as I do.

Some nearby suburbs are actually pretty Republican.

Maybe these people don't believe that raising taxes on the rich means they'll see any of this money and so don't really care one way or the other. Government spending goes up every year whether taxes are raised or lowered. The poor are still poor.