It’s difficult to picture this being a good move for Howard Dean. Joe Trippi, by most accounts, deserves a great deal of the credit for infusing the Dean campaign with an organizing approach that the Democrats have largely forgotten over the past couple decades, and by all accounts was central to Dean’s tremendous rise over the past year. Replacing him with a Gore operative, further, risks the appearance or worse the reality of trying to reassure voters by embracing the establishment that’s disenfranchised so many of them from the process. When Gore endorsed Dean I argued that it demonstrated more about Gore and his recognition of the failures of his “lockbox” campaign than about Dean; it would be a shame if Dean plans to regain his lead by becoming Al Gore circa 2000. Or, for that matter, John Kerry circa 2003.
Author Archives: Josh Eidelson
Pelosi gets it right:
Pelosi called it “inappropriate” and an “abuse of power” for Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin, R-Louisiana, to consider the offer from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association (PhRMA), one of the city’s most powerful lobbies, to head up the organization. The job would pay him more than $1 million a year, according to sources.
“Seniors who are wondering why the pharmaceutical companies made out so well in this bill at their expense, need only to look at this example of abuse of power and conflict of interest,” Pelosi said at a news conference.
Tauzin won’t announce his decision on whether to accept the offer for several weeks, his spokesman, Ken Johnson, has said. Privately, some GOP aides say the job offer presents a public relations problem for the party.
I’d hope it would – and the countless other stories like this, mostly unnoticed, as well.
Former Chief Weapons Inspector David Kay is now calling for an independent inquiry into how he and others in the “intelligence community” came to faulty conclusions about Iraq’s weapons:
“We were almost all wrong, and I certainly include myself here,” Dr. Kay said.
Dr. Kay said that “limited data” fed a widely held view among intelligence agencies and governments that Mr. Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. That view was seized upon by the White House in justifying its decision to invade Iraq last year.
“We’ve got enough history to understand that closed orders and secret societies, whether they be religious or governmental, are the groups that have the hardest time reforming themselves in the face of failure without outside input,” he said. He told the Senators that an “outside inquiry” would “give yourself and the American people the confidence that you have done it.”]
Kay is very careful, however, not to implicate the President in the formation of the
faulty conclusions he used to drive the country to war.
Daily Kos suggests the best story of last night.
This is good news for Kerry, of course, who goes into February 2 two for two. Also for Clark, who seized that third metaphorical ticket out of New Hampshire that pundits at least seem to think is important, and more importantly avoided that fifth-place standing that looked like a real possibility given reports about his machine on the ground. Good news also, I’d argue, for Dean, the only candidate to run in both Iowa and New Hampshire and rank higher this time, and faces two candidates sharing the top three with him in New Hampshire – Kerry and Clark – who are struggling for the same electable-veteran niche.
Final results: 1st place for Kerry with 39%, 2nd for Dean with two-thirds of that, 3rd for Clark with one-third Kerry’s votes, 4th for Edwards a thousand votes behind, 5th for Lieberman, 6th for Kucinich with 1-2%, and under 1% for Sharpton.
With approaching half of New Hampshire precincts reporting, Kerry leads Dean 38.5 to 25.5%, with Edwards in third at 12.6% and Clark behind him – by three hundred votes. Lieberman’s at 9% and Kucinich has 1.5. Barring the extraordinary, Edwards-Clark looks like the last interesting match-up of the night. I’m rooting for Edwards, mostly because he annoys David Brooks.
In the category of exit polling that’s not likely to get as much attention tonight:
“Standing up for what he believes” was the quality that mattered most to about 3 in 10 voters, with the ability to defeat President Bush most important to about 2 in 10.
When the question was put slightly differently — asking voters whether defeating President Bush or agreeing with a candidate on the major issues was more important — more than half the voters said that agreeing with the candidate was more important. Just over a third said the ability to defeat Mr. Bush was more important, while the rest had no answer.
In the same category, Gephardt is polling between Kucinich and Sharpton.
With 10% of New Hampshire precincts reporting, the LA Times has Kerry, Dean, Edwards, Clark, and Lieberman at 38, 23.6, 13, 12.6, and 10.4% respectively in the Democratic Primary.
Matt Drudge is claiming to have “media and campaign sources” placing Kerry at 36% in New Hampshire, Dean at 30%, Edwards and Clark at 12%, and Lieberman behind them and considering “suspending” his campaign. All believable enough, although those who place faith in Drudge tend to get burned…
Howard Kurtz:
Are the media biased against Howard Dean? Those who think so are getting some new ammunition today.
The New Hampshire exit poll that the major networks are using today asks mostly straightforward questions: Are you male or female; white, black or Hispanic; liberal, moderate or conservative? Who did you vote for? When did you decide? Did you pick your candidate because you think he can defeat George Bush or because he agrees with you on the major issues?
But on one of the two questionnaires being used, there’s this zinger: “Regardless of how you voted today, do you think Howard Dean has the temperament to serve effectively as president?”
That, of course, raises the possibility that he might not, and the results could be cited endlessly in the primary coverage.
James Carville:
One of the key numbers we want to look for tonight is 35 [percent]. The further [John] Kerry falls below 35 [percent], I think the worse news it is for him. The more he rises above 35 [percent], the better the news is for him. t’s important for Edwards not to lose contact; he can run third, but he can’t loose contact with Dean. He has to stay close enough…Dean’s got to come close. If he takes another drubbing here, it’s not going to be good for him at all because at some point somebody else [besides Kerry] has got to start winning some primaries.
We tend to focus on what’s happened behind the front-runner, and that’s fine, but come next Tuesday we are going to start counting delegates, and somebody other than Kerry’s got to win some primaries, and the road to winning primaries next Tuesday is to do well in New Hampshire tonight. So this is a big event. If John Kerry doesn’t win big, it gives new life into Howard Dean’s campaign, which didn’t have a whole lot of life on Wednesday.
I think of the big five, two will be gone tomorrow. Whether they drop out — whether you drop out or not doesn’t matter — but if two people finish far behind here, it’s going to be pretty hard for them to raise money; it’s going to be hard for their supporters to stay with them. And there’s a great sense among everyday rank-and-file Democrats, “Hey, if somebody does really well here, let’s get, all get behind them and make this person nominee.”
Josh Eidelson 