Guest Cerebus Report post Posted January 29, 2004 Dean: Doesn't Need to Win Any State Tues. By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer EAST LANSING, Mich. - Democrat Howard Dean (news - web sites) said Thursday he's focusing his presidential campaign on winning delegates, defying conventional wisdom that he needs a state victory next week to keep his troubled bid alive. One day after a staff shake-up, Dean said he will continue running even if he doesn't win any of the seven states that hold primaries and caucuses Tuesday. His campaign has decided not to buy any television ads in those states, conserving his scarce resources for the Feb. 7 caucuses in Michigan and Washington state and the primary 10 days later in Wisconsin. "We're going to have to win eventually," Dean said. "But the question was do we have to win on February 3. Of course we want to, but we don't have to. We need to amass as many delegates as we can." Dean has been losing money and momentum since his defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire, leaving him with limited options. He is gambling that he can pick up delegates with second- and third-place finishes while high-spending rivals John Edwards (news - web sites) and Wesley Clark (news - web sites) spend themselves out of the race. Democratic delegates are awarded proportionately based on the popular vote cast within individual congressional districts as well as a state as a whole. Dean hopes to gain delegates with at least 15 percent of the popular vote in most or all the congressional districts in the states voting Tuesday. That strategy, according to Dean aides, would allow the former Vermont governor to remain close to front-runner John Kerry (news - web sites) in the delegate chase until the political landscape improves for Dean. The risk is that Kerry will capture so much momentum that he becomes unstoppable, or Edwards or another candidate emerges as the main rival to Kerry. Until then, Dean will focus on drawing distinctions with his rivals and argue that no one else can beat President Bush (news - web sites). His foes are certain to question Dean's claim as the Washington outsider considering his decision to replace campaign manager Joe Trippi with Roy Neel, a former Washington lobbyist tied to Al Gore (news - web sites). "We desperately need a president who's right for the country and will stand up and do the tough things and not the popular things," he said at a rally at Michigan State University. "And I don't see anybody like that in Washington, D.C." Michigan plays prominently in Dean's strategy, with its 128 pledged delegates — far more than any state voting Tuesday. "Michigan is the biggest delegate pool that we have," Dean told reporters aboard his campaign plane. "I said consistently yesterday that we're after delegates. We have a good organization in Michigan and we want to work hard in Michigan and try to win." Dean had an early advantage in the state, which has allowed caucus-goers to cast their ballots on the Internet, an option tailor-made for Dean's Web-based organization. But after Dean's loss in Iowa, Kerry opened a double-digit lead in the Michigan polls and Gov. Jennifer Granholm plans to endorse Kerry. The Massachusetts senator also has several other leading Michigan Democrats in his corner. The presidential nominee will be selected this summer with 2,162 delegates at the Democratic National Convention. Although it is mathematically possible for Dean to win the nomination without an early victory, it's a risky strategy and he could face pressure from party leaders to back the front-runner. Some of Dean's backers are dubious of his plan. In a conference call with members of Congress who have endorsed him, Dean was told bluntly that finishing second wasn't good enough — that he had to show he could win a primary. Dean campaign chairman Steve Grossman also said Wednesday that the candidate must win a presidential primary in the next two weeks to keep even his most loyal donor base — those giving modest amounts over the Web — contributing enough to make him financially competitive. The leader among the Democrats with more than $40 million raised in 2003, Dean has less than $5 million on hand and bills to be paid. On Wednesday, he asked his staff to defer their paychecks for two weeks. If Dean really thinks he can win Michigan and Washington on the heels of nine defeats....well I don't know what else to call except delusional. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Styles 0 Report post Posted January 29, 2004 If Dean really thinks he can win Michigan and Washington on the heels of nine defeats....well I don't know what else to call except delusional. Not only is he going to win Michigan and Washington, cerebus, but he's going to win South Carolina! And Missouri! And New York! And California! And Deleware! And Maryland! And North Dakota! And Arizona! And New Mexico! And then, he's going to Washington DC to take back the white house!!! YEARGHH!!!!!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 So, your solution is to instead throw a shitload of money into the states and risk losing AGAIN with high expectations? Instead, he's focusing on states with high delegate counts and still having the possibility to pull off an upset in one of the Feb. 3 states and "beat expectations", giving him the "momentum" meme with the press. I agree with you on a surprising amount of things, but this shows why you're not a campaign manager. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Cerebus Report post Posted January 30, 2004 Mathematically, your argument makes sense Tyler. But if Dean doesn't pull off at least one win on Teusday, his chances in the big states is very low no matter how much money he throws into the ring. How much did he spend in Iowa and New Hampshire and ended up losing anyway? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 There's actually a few stories of some really dirty tricks coming out about the Iowa race... and we all know why he lost NH. It's a chancy play, but so is spending money in the Feb. 3 states. None of them are particularly strong chances for him, even if he were to strongly spend in them and play to the voters in those states. He's still planning on visiting SC and MO, IIRC, and he gets more than enough national media coverage to slightly make up for the lack of paid advertisement in those states. Press statements like this are, in my understandably neophyte political understanding, just trying to lower the expectations in these states. This campaign could NOT survive another loss after heavy campaigning in those states, and there is NO question about that. However, if they now come in a strong second in one of the big states (SC, MO, NM) or possibly take one or two(NM and AZ are the two he could possibly win), that's a HUGE win for him. That might even be as big as the winner of SC and MO, provided it's not the same person. Right now, Dean's betting on Edwards or Clark beating Kerry in SC and keeping him vulnerable. If that happens, Dean's still got a good shot (especially while he's campaigning hard in the bigger states). If not, not. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 Regarding the "dirty tricks" alleged in Iowa... this is from an upcoming GQ article. Sorry, no link; it was a leaked excerpt picked up by a lot of liberal publications. Fast forward to the days before IA: Trippi's "cell phone rings. It's his pollster, Paul Maslin, who not only has bleak news out of Iowa -- but bleak news out of New Hampshire. Trippi hangs up and stares out the window. His phone rings again. "WHAT? Aw, fuck. I hate this business. This fucking sucks. Okay, thanks." He hangs up. "They're robocalling our ones," he moans. "He has just gotten a report from the field that Dean "ones" are getting bombarded with computer-generated phone calls telling them to make sure to caucus for Dean-then giving them the wrong address." Who would do such a thing? "Kerry," Trippi snaps. "They're the only asshole snake campaign that would do it. Every frickin' day now, I'm reminded of why I got out of this in the first place." BTW: in politico-speak, "ones" are people who are "definitely" voting for your candidate, "twos" are leaners, and "threes" are undecideds. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Cerebus Report post Posted January 30, 2004 That could be, but I believe there are probably more mundane reasons...such as Team Dean simply wasn't prepared for the caucus, assuming they already got the nomination in the bag. TNR's Campaign Journal has a # of interesting theories that, admittedly, aren't as exciting as Kerry purposely jammed the phones: DRIVE-BY SHOOTINGS: Both the Dean and Gephardt campaigns are calling their late ad-war in Iowa a murder-suicide. One little-noted reason for the killings is the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), also known as McCain-Feingold, ironically one of Gephardt's great legislative achievements. Tucked away in BCRA was a stringent provision forcing candidates to "stand by" their ads. As TV viewers have noticed, campaign ads this season include an unusual postscript. At the end of each one the candidate usually looks into the camera or announces in a voiceover, "I'm so-and-so, and I approve this message." BCRA includes detailed language requiring these awkward postscipts. All political ads, according to BCRA, must include "a statement that identifies the candidate and states that the candidate has approved the communication." The statement has to be conveyed by "an unobscured, full-screen view of the candidate making the statement" or "the candidate in voice-over, accompanied by a clearly identifiable photographic or similar image of the candidate." The message has to "appear in writing at the end of the communication in a clearly readable manner with a reasonable degree of color contrast between the background and the printed statement, for a period of at least 4 seconds." Pre-BCRA a candidate could destroy his opponent with a tough ad and bury his own association with it in tiny type that quickly flashed across the screen. No more. Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean are the first casualties of this new rule. Instead of drive-by shootings, politicians now have to fire at each other in broad daylight. Sometimes voters don't like that. As Kerry returned to Des Moines, I stuck around to watch a caucus at Urbandale High. My caucus happened to be close to representative of the state as a whole. After the attendees broke into their presidential preference groups, the numbers looked like this: 40 people for Kerry, 44 for Edwards, 26 for Dean, and 9 for Gephardt. When the caucus chair announced that the forlorn Gephardt supporters standing against a wall were no longer viable, the Kerry and Edwards precinct captains descended upon them like wild dogs on road-kill carcasses. A Kerry candidacy, said Corey Goerdt, the 18-year-old Edwards captain who signed up with Edwards four days before, "is not going to work in the South." And in case he needed to make the case against Dean, he was also prepared. A thick caucus field manual issued by the Edwards campaign contained detailed persuasion scripts. On the outside was the Edwards campaign logo and the words "privileged and confidential." Goerdt let me flip through it. The way to contrast Edwards with Dean, it said, is to compare Dean's biography with Edwards' son-of-a-mill-worker upbringing. "Howard Dean is a Park Avenue elitist," it advised Edwards supporters to say. But Goerdt didn't need to use the line. By the time the Dean captain figured out he was supposed to be strengthening his numbers by picking off the undecideds and the Gephardt people, the Edwards and Kerry teams had already divvied them up between themselves. Final score: Kerry 53, Edwards 51, Dean 26. Lisa Mullin, over in the Dean group was surprised. "I thought we would have more," she said. "We had a ton of undecideds in our door-knocking." The author also suggested in earlier entries - anecdotally, mind you - that the Dean supporters who descended on Iowa in the last days of the campaign may have alienated some Iowa voters (piercings, brash, young, whatever), and may not have been particularly savvy as to the pound-the-pavement necessities of early primary campaigning. As to the former charge, well, I don't know if the superficial portrait of Iowans as haters of pierced young'uns is fair, but the author isn't the only observer to find a sort of solipsistic arrogance among some Dean supporters that could tend to make it harder for them to actively reach out to people with different concerns and fears. As to the latter, the author cites one example of an out-of-state Deaniac who, on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, said that he didn't know what he was going to do that day, but that it was certainly too cold for door-to-door campaigning. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Vyce 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 I don't think I've enjoyed politics near as much as I have these past couple weeks watching Dean's hopes and dreams slip through his fingers like so much sand. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 I did hear a lot about the inexperience in the caucusing as well, and if you watched CSPAN's coverage of the caucuses (in which they actually had a camera in there), it was deadly clear that Dean's army of people that were new to the political scene was no match for the experienced precinct captains of the other campaigns. Shit, I could've done a better job than them. By the way, I did find the GQ article, and it's entertaining even off of the alleged Kerry roboting of the Dean "ones." http://us.gq.com/plus/content/?040127plco_trippi Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Firestarter 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 I'm still hoping against hope that, somehow, Dean will get on the ticket in some capacity. It'd be a gift for the GOP. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Cerebus Report post Posted January 30, 2004 Tyler, You're right that was a fascinating article. I found this the most telling: They tell him they've driven all the way up here with a statue that they'd like to plant somewhere in Iowa but are unsure which precinct is most deserving. "A statue?" asks Joe. "Yeah, man," says one. "It's cool. It's a statue of the corporate guy pissing on the average man." Sure enough, the hideous statue is out in the parking lot. Trippi stares blankly. "Whuh?" "It's, like, what it's all about, man." "Okay," says Trippi. "Thank you. But please. I wouldn't do it today. Please. Just go out and get votes for the governor." In retrospect, this might have been the big mistake. Sending these guys out to knock on doors of Iowans. But this was the monster Joe Trippi had created. Live by the blog, die by the blog. I think the author has a point, basically Dean began to believe his own rhetoric. To his credit, he was really wading in unknown territory. Obviously, the Internet is great for raising money and gathering volunteers...but after seeing Dean's big slip it's hard to say that it's an indicator of who's going to get the most votes. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 The money primary as a means for determining a presidential candidate is all but defunct, as we now know. Case in point: Dean has raised at least twice as much as every other candidate since Iowa, clocking in at $2.2 million and counting. I, as a "true believer" and a person who has been analyzing this for quite some time, think he can still win it if he catches the break I mentioned before. However, he does need to catch a few breaks, that's for sure. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MrRant 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 True believer? When are you going to "meet the mothership"? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 Sometime in November. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Cerebus Report post Posted January 30, 2004 True believer? When are you going to "meet the mothership"? I think the Mothership is coming down only at the Dean inauguration... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MrRant 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 So.. is that before... or after they drink the Kool-Aid and reach "Deanlightenment" ? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kkktookmybabyaway 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 Howie's recent let's-win-the-big-states strategy reminds me a bit of Ivan Itkin's plan to unseat Tom Ridge as PA governor in the '98 election. Itkin's strategy was to campaign in something like nine counties. Now granted Ivan was going to campaign in the bigger counties, but PA has more than 60 of them. Oh, he also lost big time... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bobobrazil1984 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 Well considering where Dean is now, it's not as crazy as it sounds. Surprisingly, Dean is actually still in the lead in the Democratic race, he has more delegates than Kerry, which is what decides the nomination. I also agree with focusing on Michigan, it has more delgates than any of the Super Tuesday states. I however do not agree with what amounts to virtually ignoring the 7 Tuesday states. I think he should pick maybe 2 that are most vulnerable and pour money campaigning in those. Intersetingly, if Dean can win one high delegate state, solid 2nds in everythign else, and someone else can steal one high delegate state from Kerry, Dean might even still be in the lead once Michigan's primary ends. Are there many more 'superdelegates' left?? He should be targeting them Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kkktookmybabyaway 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 And Tyler, what happened to Howie's war chest -- you guys have one-too-many keggers or something?... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 He's *not* virtually ignoring them. He's campaigning in them, but he's not buying any ads. And KKK, I think that's more spin than anything. He's got money, just check the blog. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest JMA Report post Posted January 30, 2004 I'd say Lieberman, Kucinich, and Sharpton are the most delusional out of the candidates. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Styles 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 Wow, that's quite the interesting article. Anyone else envision Joe Trippi as Vince Russo? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 Trippi is, and always has been, a madman. That's part of his draw. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest MikeSC Report post Posted January 30, 2004 And Tyler, what happened to Howie's war chest -- you guys have one-too-many keggers or something?... Hey, kkk, Kool-Aid ain't free. -=Mike Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 He had a war chest of over 45 million going into Iowa and New Hampshire. He's only spent 8.5 million of that. Don't accept everything the media says. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kkktookmybabyaway 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 So give us the inside 411 scoop regarding him holding back campaign workers' paychecks, or something like that... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kkktookmybabyaway 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 And Tyler, what happened to Howie's war chest -- you guys have one-too-many keggers or something?... Hey, kkk, Kool-Aid ain't free. -=Mike Kool-Aid may not be free, but it's damn cheap. It's buying the sugar that hits your wallet. And don't get me started on that Equal-like shit that costs an arm and a leg that my better half now wants to get even though she never drinks any concoction that she makes with it... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0 Report post Posted January 30, 2004 I have no inside 411 scoops, but the story has gone from "a handful of workers" to "some workers" to "workers" to "all of this paid employees", so one should probably take that with a grain of salt. He was probably thinking forward to a possible money problem if there was a huge defection post-NH. Check the blog, they're having no problems raising money. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest MikeSC Report post Posted January 30, 2004 And Tyler, what happened to Howie's war chest -- you guys have one-too-many keggers or something?... Hey, kkk, Kool-Aid ain't free. -=Mike Kool-Aid may not be free, but it's damn cheap. It's buying the sugar that hits your wallet. And don't get me started on that Equal-like shit that costs an arm and a leg that my better half now wants to get even though she never drinks any concoction that she makes with it... Ah, get saccharine. Screw those lab rats. -=Mike Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Cerebus Report post Posted January 30, 2004 Conflicted with the AP report I posted which says Dean is down to 5 million. I woudl assume the AP got that figure from somewhere and not out of thin air. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
