Category: long story short

Who am I to say whether George W. Bush went AWOL in the ’70s or what drugs he may or may not have been taking in those days? There’s no way I can know and there’s no reason why General Clark or any other Democratic politicans should have to distance themselves from a thorough investigation…

Until this last week, I’ve been a classic, pragmatic on-the-fencer. There were weeks when I was inching toward Clark. Days when Edwards had me won over. But I was never a big Dean booster. I had a lot of respect for him, but there was something about his style that I couldn’t see working as…

Weird thought: maybe Trippi really is a Jedi. After the crazy-train moshpit reality show the night an insurgent candidate came third in a field he himself had probably grown by at least a third. (In the words of President Bush, “he grew the pie higher” … next maybe he’ll show he really does understand how…

Look, I’m an anybody-but-Bush Democrat this time around, so I’ll get with the program if Kerry can sustain his lead, but something William Saletan wrote in his review of the State of the Union memes and countermemes from the two parties struck home: 8. The unofficial Democratic response. ABC and NBC interviewed Kerry, effectively anointing…

To my fellow Howard Dean supporters, a little perspective: One of the great people I’ve met as a campaign volunteer wrote me this morning, “Hi Christian, got your info about the … [tactical details omitted] … outreach. I think that is a good approach. However I’m concerned about the events over the past two days,…

There’s a lot of heartache out there right now, I’m sure. A lot of Dean folks wondering what this all means for their guy. Some Clark folks feeling like things may be tilting the other way. Lieberman and Gephardt folks grinding their teeth. But then there’s this: In the last 24 years, when have we…

Charles Eicher reports on his caucus experience in his blog, Disinfotainment. Specifically, he recounts an amusing little horsetrading bit of gamesmanship in which the Kerry supporters managed to screw themselves out of a delegate: After an initial vote, any candidate polling less than 15% is declared unviable, and those persons must realign to a candidate…

With nearly a third of precincts reporting, the Des Moines Register shows Kerry with 37%, Edwards with 33%, Dean with 18%, and Gephardt with 11% (all rounded to the nearest percentage). The Democratic Party’s Iowa Caucus scoreboard shows similar numbers based on a third as many precincts. So much for all the chatter about organization…

As the day wears on, I find I have another pony in this race. To my surprise, I’m rooting for Edwards to have a strong showing. I’ve been leaning Clark lately. Strategically an Edwards surge is bad for Clark — it splits some of the southern vote (or at least the “he can get support…

Via Altercation, I notice that Jonathan Cohn at “even the liberal” New Republic has taken a serious look at Dean’s tax proposal, one that goes beyond handicapping the tactics: Maybe advocating total repeal of the tax cuts really is political suicide. But, whatever Dean decides to do, there’s another question that commentators rarely ask: In…

According to WHO TV in Des Moines, the Edwards and Kucinich campaigns have agreed to combine their caucus support if either candidate isn’t “viable” (meaning has less than 15% support). It’s not clear if this is a caucus-by-caucus plan or something they plan to coordinate statewide. It’s also not clear what happens if both are…

So I’ve been thinking through the various scenarios, trying to puzzle out what I’d like to see happen in Iowa. And I’ve concluded that, whatever else goes down, the main thing I’m hoping for is a third or fourth-place finish for Dick Gephardt. It’s not that he’s a bad guy. He’s not. It’s just that…

On Wednesday (somehow I missed this at the time — didn’t seem to really get much press…), Michael Moore wrote an endorsement letter for Wes Clark, now posted on Clark04.com. This is new stuff — not just a rehash of the Draft Clark era letter he wrote a while back. It’s a pretty short, fairly…

As Christian sez below, Edwards is doing pretty well in Iowa. So’s Kerry. Gephardt’s holding fairly strong. Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, Clark continues to close on Dean. Kerry’s picked up a few points. Lieberman’s making some late progress. Really, pollwise, just about every major candidate ‘cept Dean has some reason for renewed hope this past…

Looks like it’s Edwards’ turn to get the big mo’. His all-positive, all-the-time approach certainly read well in the last debate. Trapper John over at Kos points out that Iowa will still come down to GOTV (get out the vote efforts), and there’s still the possibility that the Dean camp will bring in new, thus…

This primary race sure is getting interesting. Just the other day I was talking to Cecil and we were marveling at the Dean campaign’s ability to orchestrate endorsements, like the Harkin one, that manage to change the media’s short-term memory for the previous issue-du-jour. I suppose this news that Carol Moseley Braun is about to…

About 10 hours before I posted “To Ohio and beyond” (see below), the always excellent talkingpointsmemo.com featured a post making pretty much exactly the same point. And that’s odd, I think. I mean, my observation wasn’t particularly timely. It happens that yesterday’s post popped into my head when it did. But it could have easily…

There’s a new poll out for Ohio, which holds its primary on March 2nd. Like a lot of state-primary polls right now, it puts Dean well out in front (29%) with Clark in a fairly distant second (17%). If you’re like me, you look at that, and you have to think: wow, that’s one heck…

The latest ARG tracking poll for New Hampshire shows Clark gaining 2 points per day over the past 5 days, for a total climb from 12% up to 20% and a very solid second-place showing. Meanwhile in contrast, over the same period Edwards has shot up from 3% to, er, um, 3%.

Looking at Clark’s schedule on his campaign web site, it’s clear that the general is hunkering down. Hunkers he where? No surprise there. He’s hunkering in New Hampshire. There are at least two things we can extrapolate from all this: (1) it’s yet still even more so, another interesting aspect of Web Election 2004 —…

A new national poll puts Clark at 20% (up from 12%), Dean at 24% (down from 27%), with a 5% margin for error. National polls don’t mean all that much right now, and Dean still has by far the strongest overall state-by-state numbers. But as expected, this is another indication that the story now starts…