Josh Marshall on the Dean Town Hall he just attended in New Hampshire:
…the Dean spin points to the fact that polls show that they have the highest number of supporters who say they’re sure they’re going to vote for their candidate. But that sounds like a bright spin on a hard fact.
One of the peculiarities of this final weekend of reporting is that Dean remains the big story, even as his support falls off and his chances of outright victory in New Hampshire seem to fade. Whether he’s on fire or just burning to a cinder, he still has most of the gravity — at least for news coverage. I think this may also be providing an advantage for Kerry…
The chatter among Dean’s traveling press is that he bottomed out on Thursday — in terms of the mood and size of his crowds, and his as well — and that he’s been regaining his footing since then…
Dean gave what seemed like a solid presentation…He also has a few good laugh lines at his own expense (“Thank you so much. You made me so happy I could scream.”) that went over well. At least within the four walls of this town hall meeting, there’s no sense that this isn’t a campaign that’s on its game and looking for a solid result in three days.
I think Kerry is benefiting not only from the continued media spotlight on Dean (whatever hopes for more equal treatment were behind his telling an interviewer “I’m relieved not to be the frontrunner anymore” seem not to have been born out), but also from a consensus that Iowa proved the dangers of negative campaigning. Most of the political science literature on negative campaigning focuses on two-person races, in which the boost of having your opponent’s credibility hurt and the harm of appearing negative go together. But in Iowa John Edwards got to take advantage of voters’ doubts about Howard Dean while still appearing positive. This week Kerry (and Edwards) have largely gotten to sail on good press coverage and avoid the kind of criticism from press and from other Democrats that Dean suffered when he was the presumptive nominee. Sam Smith wonders, for example, why we’ve heard comparatively little from the media about this story briefly mentioned on ABC:
Having finally broken through the crush of media, Kerry stormed onto the “Real Deal Express”, ripped off his Timberland Barn Coat, and tossed it into the gray and red striped seat by his side. “Don’t they get it?,” Kerry bellowed to no one in particular. “I can’t have this,” he continued, referring to the media horde now watching his every move. David Wade, traveling press secretary, entered the bus and immediately faced the Senator’s wrath. Thrashing his arms, Kerry asked several times, “Where are my boots?”
The right, of course, has continued fine-tuning general election themes: Kerry is too negative and angry at the President; Edwards is dangerously left-wing. Looks like however “electable” your Democrat is, the attacks are likely to be the same… Something primary voters would do well to keep in mind. As Yale professor David Greenberg argues:
Now Dean is paying the price for the self-satisfied cockiness of the Washington elites that he so often decries. What had been a relatively innocuous, if slightly goofy, speech has metamorphosed into a real threat to his prospects, as late-night comedians drill home the image of a deranged Dean. Perhaps the propensity toward hysteria and overheated rhetoric belongs to the media, not to Dean.
In the end, Dean’s resilience, or lack of it, will probably determine his fate. In 1972, Muskie ruefully concluded that given his temperament, he wasn’t the right man for a polarized America that year. In contrast, within days of his “last press conference,” Nixon was plotting his political future.
Josh Eidelson 