January 03, 2004
Dean Rides Again
As you could have heard on CNN today, Dean beats any Democrat in a head to head match, and trails Bush by only five points. As the Dean blog notes, at this time in 1992, Clinton trailed Bush Sr. by around 20 points.
Tom Tomorrow dutifully lists the reasons Dean can't win. Most notable reason: "Thirty years ago in a completely different cultural and political contest, another guy lost!"
In These Times on the 'full-tilt boogie' race in Iowa between Dean and Gephardt. Apropos of the war vote that likely cost Gephardt the full backing of the unions, there's also an article about lessons that should have been learned from Vietnam and Central America.
Liberal Oasis wonders along with Dick Morris if the Left has finally taken over the Democratic party, thanks to the candidacy of the not-very-leftist Howard Dean.
William Burton has further thoughts on Dean's centrism.
A Guardian columnist on why the Democrats can't abandon the South. Is it just me, or do you ever once wish you could see an article where Republicans are portrayed as angsting over 'abandoning the North.' Also, Blumenthal talks about our very own teflon Democrat.
A Sierra Times writer wonders if Bush is vulnerable to Dean on gun issue.
The Dean campaign hires five staffers in AZ.
Dean responds to an editorial that accused him of misrepresenting his brother's death.
Bill Press nixes McGovern comparisons, while James Carville suggests that he's more interested in the Clintons than the party. Carville said of Gore's endorsement of Dean, "It was the perfect picture of a doctor and a corpse standing there." Thanks, James, for publicly maligning the major candidate who's best taken your own political advice to heart and the man who won the most votes in the last presidential election.
On the Dean blog, we got a New Year reminder of how far the campaign has come since January 1st, 2003, in part:
- $157,000 cash on hand
- Seven paid staff
- 432 identified supporters nationwide ...
January 1st, 2004:
- Approximately 400 paid staff nationwide
- Paid and/or full-time volunteer staff in VT, IA, NH, SC, DE, AZ, NM, OK, MI, WA, NY, ME, WI, ND, NV, MN, PA, TX, CT, VA, GA, MD, MA and CA.
- 552,930 identified supporters. [ed. - Up by 2,000 as of January 3rd]
- More than 280,000 people have contributed $40 million to the campaign in 2003--and for two consecutive quarters you've broken the record for the largest quarter ever by a Democratic presidential candidate. ...