Primaries:
In the Northeast, we are right now in the middle of a pretty huge blizzard which is thankfully hitting us on a weekend instead of the middle of the week. This inclement weather is allowing folks like me to bundle up in the house and wait for enough snow to fall so that I can go out and snow blow without it being a wasted effort. The storm also allowed for the opportunity to sit in front of the TV watching C-Span - and the first hearing of the Democratic National Committee’s Commission on Presidential Nominations.
Unfortunately, only the first segment of the discussion was aired. Around lunch, C-Span cut to repeats of budget hearings. But what I did see was extremely interesting, with a lot of history being shared about previous commissions and campaigns. There was a very fascinating historical presentation by a woman from the JFK School, Dr. Kamarck, or something, where she solidified the importance of having the first primaries and caucuses in small states. She also made a plug for Iowa and New Hampshire keeping their places. After a few questions, she was whacked by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan who has a recent history of trying to strip New Hampshire of its First in the Nation Primary. He even interrupted her when she was trying to answer one of his questions - which can happen sometimes at these things. It also made me think back to the initial introductions where I noticed that the state of Michigan seemed to have three folks on the panel representing their interests where other states only seemed to have one or two members. Why does Michigan get three? Why do the others only get two? New Hampshire seemed responsibly represented by former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and Terry Schumaker, an executive director with the NEA here in the state. But other states didn’t seem to have a voice at all.
There were also some interesting comments made by [I believe] Ronald Walters, a University of Maryland professor, about how the first states weren’t diverse enough and how fringier candidates like the Rev. Al Sharpton should be taken seriously by the party and the voters. While he makes a valid point about the lack of darker skin tones in both states, he ignores the fact that both Iowa and New Hampshire are diverse in other ways - like in economics. Skin color isn’t the only measure of “diversity.” Personally, I hate it when politicos get obsessed with skin color as if it should be a measuring stick for access to power or, that somehow, folks who are not people of color can’t relate to the trials and tribulations of our nation’s minority populations.
The interests of the DNC are not necessarily the interests of the voters when setting their calendar. This is clear from the previous results of commissions and DNC chairmen who have set the primaries up to be front-loaded - with the false impression that getting an early winner would allow that winner to compete more aggressively and, eventually, win. The DNC is interested in winning back the White House - not necessarily setting up a calendar of primaries which empowers voters and people into making the best decisions for the party. Levin’s relevance is to remove New Hampshire from the picture; just as Shaheen’s is to preserve our role. The goal of the commission, however, shouldn’t be to strip Iowa and New Hampshire of our status. It should be to set a calendar that creates a primary and caucus schedule that allows as many states as possible to have the retail political experience.
But it isn’t just the calendar that matters. It is also the media and the candidates who decide how long a campaign should be waged and whether other states have a role in participating.
In 2004, I thought most of the candidates quit too early. By the end of February, most were gone. Two of the candidates - Sen. Bob Graham and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun - quit before a vote was even cast. Another candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who could have waged a more relevant campaign had he not “changed his mind” on abortion and ran as a pro-life Democrat, stayed true to his message to the very end, giving his voters a reason to go to the polls, even though he was never going to win the presidency [As an aside, Kucinich did score some pretty good numbers in late contests - 26 percent in Alaska, 17 percent in Minnesota, 12 percent in Colorado, 12 percent in North Carolina, 10 percent in Kansas - it just wasn’t enough to make much difference - or even win many delegates].
Other candidates could have stayed in longer or forged alliances to beat the clearly unelectable John Kerry. There was a point in mid- to late-February where the Howard Dean and John Edwards forces needed to have a serious sit down - not the one they did have which led to nothing. Dean had amassed a number of super delegates and Edwards was surging as the Kerry alternative. The two of them together could have led to a stronger ticket than the Kerry fronted ticket. Imagine, no Swift Boats, no Massachusetts liberal [especially if Dean was VP], very little flip-flopping. Edwards would’ve easily beaten President Bush in the debates and Dean would have easily beaten Dick Cheney. It would have been a stronger ticket, Ralph Nader still would have only been a minor footnote, and the Democrats would have been stronger going into the final election.
Then, there is the media, which has done a pretty poor job of covering the candidates in the past. Gone are the days of relatively thorough, and decent coverage of the candidates; in are the days where a candidate’s howling at a campaign event is repeated over and over again to the point of personal destruction. It's not like he was tagging an intern or anything. There is also the issue of the Washington, DC cocktail crowd who always seem to manage to wreck everything with their pomposity and arrogance.
Another point: While there has been a lot of testimony by Democrats to the committee, the one thing missing - so far - is any response from non-insiders who might have interesting ideas about how to fix the system. Almost everyone on the panel is either an elected official [or former elected official] or some sort of party hack - for lack of a better term. I guess the regular watchers of the process will have to leave our comments to columns and remarks made on radio talk shows.

Let Ralph decide

How quickly we forget or revise our history for the sake of convenience and political expedience.
The latest revision of history is about the 2000 election and whether or not Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader cost Vice President Al Gore the presidency. For the last three years, the press and Democratic political figures have been attacking Nader, the Green Party, and millions of voters for the election of President George W. Bush. On talk shows, in columns, in newspaper editorials, and letters to the editor, the mantra has been the same - Nader cost Gore the election.
Sure, some smart Democrats admit that their candidate had major flaws: Gore huffing and puffing through the first debate and blowing his lead, that his running mate was too conservative and alienated young voters, that maybe they should have requested recounting the entire state of Florida instead of a few select counties, that maybe they shouldn’t have approved the "butterfly ballot" system which confused so many of the elderly voters, that maybe they should have made better petitions before the Supreme Court who later stopped the counts and awarded the state to Bush, etc. Whole books have been written on the subject, barely touching on Nader’s role in the race. Instead, many of these books have touched upon the Republicans and what they did and how the Democrats failed to counter effectively. However, the truth of the matter is quickly forgotten and the mantra remains.
Well, Nader is hinting at another run and people are freaking out again. Take The Nation magazine.
The weekly of the upper-crusted progressive elite wrote an editorial letter to Ralph Nader begging him not to run ["An Open Letter to Ralph Nader"]. Here is an important quote from the request:

"But when devotion to principle collides with electoral politics, hard truths must be faced. Ralph, this is the wrong year for you to run: 2004 is not 2000. George W. Bush has led us into an illegal pre-emptive war, and his defeat is critical. Moreover, the odds of this becoming a race between Bush and Bush Lite are almost nil. For a variety of reasons--opposition to the war, Bush's assault on the Constitution, his crony capitalism, frustration with the overcautious and indentured approach of inside-the-Beltway Democrats--there is a level of passionate volunteerism at the grassroots of the Democratic Party not seen since 1968."

What are they on, drugs?
As I write this, Mass. Sen. John Kerry is the Democratic frontrunner for the 2004 nomination. Kerry has co-opted some of his opponent’s rhetoric and pushed himself forward as a champion of working folks and a fighter against the special interests. But nothing could be further from the truth (Check out my quick overview of Kerry's career in this column: ["The Kerry choke?"] ).
The similarities between Bush and Kerry are actually downright scary.
Kerry voted for the "illegal pre-emptive war" The Nation and many others are so upset about. He fell for what looks like a lie that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the definite falsehood that Saddam Hussein - contained between the 33rd and 36th parallel - was an imminent threat to the United States. Kerry assisted in President Bush's - and President Bill Clinton's - "assault on the Constitution" by voting for the PATRIOT Act and voting for the anti-terrorism bill in 1996. Kerry also voted for Bush's unfunded federal education mandate "No Child Left Behind." "Crony capitalism"? You mean like NAFTA, GATT/WTO, PMFN for China, hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare every year, IMF/World Bank’s enslavement of the Third World, all supported by Kerry?
I wonder if The Nation is talking about beating Bush or questioning Kerry’s impending nomination. The Democrats are on the verge of nominating a flip-flopping hypocrite. With Democrats like this, who needs Republicans? At least with Nader - and other independent candidates - voters have the choice.
On Friday, Jan. 30, the day after The Nation posted its letter, Arnie Arnesen, a Concord, NH-based talk show host, interviewed Katrina Van den Heuvel, an editor at The Nation, where she repeated her mantra that 2004 is not a year to be concentrating on progressive movements or reform, but instead to beat Bush. To some extent, she is right. We all know how bad Bush has been for the nation, for the workers, and for the world. But then what? Do we return to the Clinton years - a fake economic boom based on dot-cons and Wall Street swindles and millions of decent wage, low skill jobs lost to cheap labor overseas? I think not. While we can't afford four more years of Bush's "friendly fascism," we can't afford four more years of Clinton's America either.
And where is this "level of passionate volunteerism at the grassroots of the Democratic Party"? This is a huge stretch. Yes, there was a lot of passion and excitement in Howard Dean’s campaign at the beginning. There was enthusiasm about the Internet fund-raising, the holistic environment of the campaign organization, and the dynamic message of the candidate. But in the late stages, his campaign was endorsed by the insiders, became mired in negativity, and his super-organization collapsed from the weight of its own cluelessness at how to run a winning campaign. Thousands of young Deaniacs may eventually be brought into the party fold at the end of the nominating process. But this remains to be seen. Two defeats, $40 million dollars, and the "air of inevitability" of Dean's nomination and the chance of having a vibrant Democratic nominee, are all but gone. Many Deaniacs are furious at how the Democratic Party establishment hijacked their movement. Do you really think they will support the nominee or stay home? That's a crapshoot.
Technically, the collapse of the Dean campaign isn't all his or the inexperienced campaign's fault.
The voters of Iowa and New Hampshire were manipulated by the national press corps and the corporate media into abandoning the candidate closest to their views for the candidate the insiders think can win. Frankly, it is amazing how often we see this happen in politics. It seems like every time the Democrats get close to nominating a candidate who doesn't just talk about reform, but threatens action, the insiders swoop down and crush the movement with a big smile on their faces.
The high turnout in both Iowa and New Hampshire - where tens of thousands of unexpected voters flooded to the polls - shows a fear of the future that we have not seen since 1992. In that election cycle, Clinton was elected with a mandate. The people were motivated by hope [who later turned out to be the Dope from Hope] and then saw their interests sold down the river as Clinton saddled himself onto the laps of the Republicans. We all know what happened next - a midterm congressional sweep by Republicans in 1994, no health care plan, hapless Democrats who refused to fight or squealed about useless issues, and so on.
Whether The Nation realizes this or not, the candidate who inspired the "passionate volunteerism" they so commend, has been replaced in the primaries by the "inside-the-Beltway" Democrat. As noted above, Kerry is very similar to Bush. Eight years of similarities between Clinton and the Republicans is what gave us the Nader effort in the first place in 2000 and then, at least in false theory, Bush. Do we really want to go through this again?
However, would a 2004 race by Nader be a repeat of the 2000 race? Before assessing the 2004 race, an accurate look at the 2000 campaign is needed.
Many people - from Ronnie Dugger in The Nation on Nov. 14, 2002 ["Ralph, don't run"] to Paul Begala on CNN's "Crossfire" on Jan. 5, 2004 [Transcript] - have blamed Nader's strong showing in New Hampshire for Gore's loss. If Gore had won the state's four Electoral College votes, he would have won the presidency, with or without Florida. But if you knew what happened here in New Hampshire, you would understand that Gore was never going to win New Hampshire and the data reflects this fact.
Nader garnered more than 22,000 votes in New Hampshire but a lot of these votes came from registered Republicans. Exit polls on Election Day showed that Nader took more votes from Republicans than Democrats in New Hampshire, by a two-to-one margin. CNN's polling data showed that if both Nader and Pat Buchanan had not run, the results in NH would have been Bush 48 percent, Gore 47 percent, with 4 percent not voting. A post election analysis by UNH Survey Research Center showed Nader's support was evenly split down the middle between Bush and Gore. Nader also received the support of seven municipal officials, all Republicans, including the mayor of Rochester. The campaign also had a lot of conservative supporters, including the Claremont coordinator for Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes. For every crunchy granola-type lefty that might have gone for Gore, there were just as many guys with gun racks in their pickup trucks and Nader signs on their roofs. Even more people would have stayed home. Those votes were never going to go to Gore.
The major attraction to Nader in the state was similar to the attraction voters had to Sen. John McCain in the Republican primaries, something that has been completely ignored by people who have no idea about what went on in New Hampshire in the field. Voter after voter after voter said they were furious with the similarities between Bush and Gore and the special interests that controlled both major political parties. Nader was running on a reform agenda and has a history of getting support from Republicans in the past, including over 3,200 write-in votes on the Republican ballot - more than he received on the Democratic ballot - in 1992. In fact, in 2000, Nader proved that he can take away votes from the Republican nominee, assumed to be Bush. With Bush spending out-of-control, deficits rising, body bags coming home from Iraq, Republicans, who would never vote for a Democrat, might again return to a Nader vote as an act of protest.
None of this analysis takes into account the vicious and negative campaign waged by local and national Democrats which backfired on them in a huge way. Since New Hampshire was a state in play, the Democratic National Committee bombarded us with negativity - color brochures suggesting that Bush and local Republicans would force women into back alley abortions, etc., something that three years later has never happened. There was another very powerful mailer showing the locked fence at a closed factory, warning voters that they didn't want to go back to the bad old days when factories were being closed. Well guess what? Most of the factories are already closed and the voters of New Hampshire knew that the Democrats had as much of a role in the loss of factory jobs as Republicans. As well, the Republican campaign waged on the ground accentuated the positive - similar to what Clinton did in 1992 - and they were able to win the state for Bush and hold its two congressional seats.
Dugger and Begala can presume all they want about the results in New Hampshire but I can tell you from being here that Nader didn't cost Gore the state. Gore was never going to win New Hampshire, Nader or no Nader. So please, stop using it as an example.
Now let’s move to Florida, where Nader received over 97,000 votes. Yes, I will admit that maybe Nader not being on the ballot would have helped Gore win. Unlike New Hampshire, the Florida results were much closer.
However, CNN's exit poll showed that if Bush and Gore had been the only candidates, Bush would have taken 49 percent, Gore 47 percent, with 2 percent not voting. The data also showed that Nader took just as many votes from Democrats as he did from Republicans: 1 percent. While there is a good chance that votes for Nader could have gone for Gore, there is no guarantee. And the statistical data that is available proves otherwise.
And what about the other political parties and candidates who were on the ballot in Florida? Natural Law Party candidate John Hagelin received 2,281 votes. Worker's World Party candidate Monica Moorehead received 1,804 votes. Socialist David McReynolds received 622 votes - enough votes to guarantee a Gore victory had these people voted for Gore or not been on the ballot. However, no one ever blames them for Gore's loss. Where is the outcry by The Nation and others that the workers, the meditators, and the socialists shouldn't run campaigns themselves? The silence is deafening.
Lastly, if liberal Democrats want someone else to blame for Bush winning, they can look no further than their own party. Again, CNN's exit polling showed that registered Democrats in both New Hampshire (6 percent) and Florida (13 percent) abandoned their own candidate and cast votes for Bush. So again, Democrats conveniently blame Nader for Gore's loss without looking at the role their own party played in the defeat.
Additionally, what have the Democrats done to discourage Nader from running? Yelling and begging at him isn't going to work. In fact, this type of behavior only encourages people.
Since the 2000 election, Nader has met with Democrats about the future. Rep. Dick Gephardt, who was one of the only Democrats to meet with Nader after the 2000 election, called Nader’s run "a terrific campaign," noting the success of Nader's super-rallies.
"Nobody is paying to hear (mainstream Democrats) talk about policy," Gephardt is reported to have told Nader. Part of the appeal, Nader told Gephardt, was that "the Greens actually have a more legitimate platform for the old Democratic Party than the Democratic Party does." ["Savvy Democrats are talking to Nader," April 17, 2001, Capital Times of Madison]. Gephardt, to his credit, seemed to get it.
Recently, Nader reportedly met with DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe in an effort to invigorate the Democrats with a reform agenda and find some common ground. McAuliffe supposedly scoffed at Nader's platform ideas. You can almost hear him in your head: 'No, we can’t do that, we'll lose our big corporate money … but Ralph - gasp - don't cost us the election just because we don't stand for anything.'
However, what did McAuliffe do as a counter-proposal? Did he offer Nader anything for keeping him out of the race? How about the Attorney General's position, for example, where Nader could go after the corrupt and show that a Democratic administration will actually fight for people? How about promoting Instant Runoff Voting [IRV], which would allow the Democrats to receive the number 2s and 3s of Greens and other progressive independents - not be denouncing them - but by working together to solidify and share power. McAuliffe could have said, 'Ralph, if you don't run, I will bust my ass to get IRV implemented in Democratically-controlled state legislatures across the nation and we will move political reform forward, I promise.' Not only would this have guaranteed Greens, progressive independents, and yeah, Democrats, some clout in future elections, it would have been a crowning achievement to Nader's already substantial list of four decades of accomplishment and made McAuliffe look like political reform visionary and hero of the people.
Now granted, there is a limit to what McAuliffe could offer. But did he even try? It doesn't sound like it because Nader is eyeing another run. This is the type of thinking that should have been going on during the last three years at the DNC, The Nation, universities, etc., in an effort to actually improve the life of the body politic in a positive way. Instead, they denigrate and beg and perpetuate the myth that Nader cost the Democrats the presidency in 2000.
In Bedford on Jan. 11 at the "Choosing an Independent President" conference, hundreds of people gave Nader two standing ovations and cheered him constantly during his speech. Nader was coy about a potential run. But after asking, "How do you spoil a system that is spoiled to the core in the first place?" he chastised those who would lecture him about his civil and political rights.

… Civil libertarians on the liberal side, the same kind of civil libertarians that subscribe to The Nation magazine and The Progressive magazine, and who are very proud that they will go to the mat to allow Jesse Helms to run for election and to allow Rush Limbaugh to speak freely, even though they bitterly disagree with them, blithely turn around and say to any independent or third party candidates that they think might takes some votes from them, 'Do not run.' Now its one thing for them to say, 'If you run, I will oppose you, I will argue against you, I will challenge you, I will render a critical judgment' - that's all a robust political exchange. But to keep saying and using those words, 'Do not run,' they are saying to those candidates, 'Do not speak, remain silent, do not use your First Amendment freedom, to enter the electoral arena.' You can say it outside the electoral arena - but not inside the electoral arena. But I don’t see a stop sign for the First Amendment on the boundary between the electoral arena and the civic arena. They should be ashamed of themselves for the way they are behaving, in a censorious manner to try and stifle the very speech that are free to challenge if they had the decency to stop being so censorious. And we ought to make that point again and again. They are using their First Amendment to try to stifle our First Amendment. Because, campaigning for political office is about as fundamental an exercise of free speech that you can imagine. Anyone uses the word 'spoiler,' anyone who uses the words 'do not run,' teach them Civil Liberties 101. Give ‘em a lesson. The last thing we need in this country are tens of thousands of active civil libertarians and progressive people having a double-standard in the way they speak to a Jesse Helms, in contrast to the way they speak to an independent candidate whose views are much more aligned with them otherwise.

Many of Nader's supporters may vote for the Democratic candidate in 2004. The Nation's analysis that Nader's votes could possibly drop from 2.8 million to under 1 million is a safe one. A losing Nader 2004 presidential run - with a Democratic one that also loses - could be a devastating end to his legacy.
While there may be no groundswell of support from the liberal elites or those who opine in the media, there is support at the grassroots, as was seen and heard at the Bedford speech. Admittedly, there isn't as much support as there was in 2000. Nader already knows this. He knows that there is a lot of criticism from the left who are scorning all over the Web, setting up cheesy "RalphDontRun" sites and other nonsense. And without the assistance of numerous Green organizations, it will be much harder for him to gain ballot access for his independent campaign. And that will be the key: If there isn't support to do the hard work, Nader won't get anywhere and the campaign will be over before it starts.
But I would never in a million years tell Ralph he shouldn’t run. It is his decision. However, if he decides to run for president again, Nader will have to make the case to the public that he deserves our votes. If the Democrats or the Republicans want our votes, they will have to earn them too. There should be no assumptions.
In the end, the ball is in the Democrats' court. If they refuse to nominate candidates who offer a real difference to the voters, their chances for victory will be slim - with or without Nader.

POLITICAL ROUNDUP
The October Surprises?
You know it's coming. You know it is: ["U.S. military 'sure' of catching bin Laden this year"].
But the Democrats seem united in defeating Bush: ["In Full Voice Against Bush"]. Here is a great line here by Blumenthal:

Al Gore chose [Lieberman] as his running mate partly because of this moralistic posturing. His smug cultural conservatism repelled alienated younger voters and sent them in Ralph Nader's direction. Lieberman served almost as a genial sidekick to Dick Cheney in their debate. During the Florida contest he publicly conceded, without ever consulting anyone, the Republicans' fraudulent overseas ballots (the so-called "Thanksgiving stuffing"), which cost Gore the presidency. On election night in New Hampshire, Lieberman called Kerry "out of the mainstream", and for old time's sake attacked "the entertainment industry".

And who could miss this hilarious piece by rightwing hottie Bernadette Malone: ["The Party’s Just Beginning"].

What a difference from the Howard Dean campaign, where you could see the true belief on every volunteer's face. Here at Kerry's party, smirking rich preppie kids — straight out of the Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue, but clothed — milled around the doorway to the ballroom, visions of their own White House offices dancing in their heads. Burberry scarves, Boston Red Sox baseball caps, trendy eyeglasses probably from Oliver Peoples — I felt like I was at a Boston University tailgate party. Oh, and the smell of beer — every Boston Irish Democrat had driven 45 minutes north to the victory party, and had a drink in hand. (With a name like mine, I can say that.)
"Wait till they find out he's not Irish," a tall gentleman standing next to me said. "They'll all be out of here." He was referring to the fact Kerry pretended to be Irish for more than 20 years in Massachusetts politics, when in truth his family name was "Kohn" and they were Austrian Jews. What a nut-ball thing to do. How embarrassing for the candidate who will likely be the Democratic presidential nominee. Hmmmmm.......

And here's David Corn's view, a last note about New Hampshire: ["Ten Talking Points on New Hampshire"].

Lieberman lands another newspaper endorsement
Joe Lieberman lands the endorsement of the largest Arizona newspaper, the Arizona Republic, which calls on residents to "be bold."

Lieberman embraces the economic and social ideas and ideals that are central to the Democratic Party's middle-class base. It's a base that doesn't erect protectionist barriers to free trade. It understands that a tariff on steel imports places a hidden tax on every refrigerator, on every automobile that an American buys. Lieberman, alone among the Democratic candidates, steadfastly supports the decision to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. He defends the selected use of U.S. military power to defend national security and to accomplish moral international goals - in Kuwait in 1991, in Bosnia and Kosovo. Most Americans share that opinion.

Kerry gets two too
The union-busting Detroit Free Press and the Santa Fe New Mexican endorsed Kerry yesterday:

The Democrats need a candidate who can turn the cathode-ray gun on the Republicans… Kerry, a Navy lieutenant, had little time for the long knives wielded among the higher ranks; he was being shot at by snipers along the Mekong River. A Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts attest to his bravery. No Republican of sound mind will call Kerry’s character into question…he offers America’s Democratic majority the best chance of winning the popular – and electoral – vote.

Kerry also has a 2 p.m. "major endorsement" announcement today. Will it be Dick Gephardt?

Arabs back Kucinich
Two-thirds of the Arab-American Political Action Committee voted to endorse Dennis Kucinich: ["Arab-American Political Group Endorses Kucinich"]. Arabs are a large voting bloc in Michigan, a Feb. 3 state.

Many in the community, who supported Bush in 2000, in part based on electability, feel betrayed "and don't want to vote for someone who calls our group terrorists," Siblani said. But once the Democratic candidate is elected, he said the community will throw its support behind him.

The editor of Truthout.org becomes his new press secretary: http://members.audiogenerator.com/postcards/?2321401.
Kucinich and the Rev. Al Sharpton were pretty good in the debate last night, with MSNBC's Tom Brokaw actually taking them seriously. Kucinich, who has millions in the bank, seems to be taken the turtle vs. the hare route. If all the other candidates drop out early, he could stay in and reap 20 to 25 percent of future primaries, like Jerry Brown did in 1992. It probably won't win him the nomination, but he could have an impact at the convention.

Dean stays cocky
Victories? We don't need no stinkin' victories: ["Dean Says He Doesn't Need Feb. 3 Victories"] and ["Dean Aims for Delegates and Tries to Calm Donors"]. Technically, he is right. Dean can post second- and third-place finishes in primaries, collect delegates, and still be in the race for the nomination. But if Kerry sweeps and Dean places second or third, there will be problems. And none of them really took on Kerry in the debate last night. Somebody needs to start cutting Kerry in order to weaken him ... and it can't be the Republicans. They only make Kerry look electable.

Greens debate
In some states, the Greens have primary candidates too: ["Green Party candidates find common ground"].

Polls
The Kansas City Star posted new polls from Missouri the day before yesterday: John Kerry 25 percent, John Edwards 9 percent, Howard Dean 6 percent, Wesley Clark at 3 percent, Joe Lieberman at 2 percent, with both Dennis Kucinich and the Rev. Al Sharpton at 1 percent. Dick Gephardt is still on the ballot in Missouri and is polling at 3 percent. The rest are undecided.
Survey USA also has a new poll from Missouri: Kerry with 41 percent, Edwards and Dean with 17 percent, and with Clark dropping to 8 percent.
Zogby has a bunch of new polls from Feb. 3 states: Kerry with a solid 45 percent, Edwards at 11, Dean has 9 percent, Lieberman with 4, Clark with 3, Sharpton at 2, and Kucinich at 1 percent. Clark, from neighboring Arkansas, has said he can win in the Midwest. Most of Gephardt's people have gone to Kerry.
But in Oklahoma, Clark does have a lead with 27 percent, Kerry at 19, Edwards close with 17 percent, Dean at 9, Lieberman at 5, Sharpton and Kucinich at 1 percent.
In Arizona, Kerry takes the lead: 38 percent, Clark at 17, Dean at 12, Lieberman and Edwards at 6 percent, Kucinich 2, and Sharpton at 1 percent.
Lastly, from South Carolina, Edwards and Kerry are at the top, 25 to 24 percent, Dean at 9 percent, Clark at 8 percent, and Lieberman and Sharpton at 5 percent.

Other stuff
Weird stuff going on in Oklahoma City bombing case: ["Langan to testify at Nichols trial, name others in OKC bombing"].

Among those Langan said he would implicate are White Aryan Resistance leader Dennis Mahon; a former paramilitary trainer at Elohim City, Andreas Strassmeir; former Aryan Nations leader Mark Thomas; and former ARA members Michael Brescia and Kevin McCarthy.

Maybe they know about John Doe #2. Is he Jose Padilla?

POLITICAL ROUNDUP
Dated Dean, Married Kerry, Woke up with Bush [?!]
This is the counter-bumper sticker slogan promoted by some Howard Dean supporters and you have to wonder if it doesn't make a bit of sense.

Problems with the Dean effort
If anyone didn't believe there were field problems in the Dean camp, check out this story: ["Republican leads local Dean campaign"]. At the same time, the snowball effect starts: ["Kerry Campaign: Dean Is Finished"]. While Dean pulls his ads and takes a gamble: ["Dean Skips Airing Ads in 7 Primary States"].

Franken-Kerry
John Kerry denied this morning that he has received Botox injections which make him look younger: ["WRKO"]. However, Drudge has the shots - and it looks like Botox: ["Before and after"]. And yeah, doctors agree: ["Smooth! Docs Say Senator Kerry Looks Botoxed"].

Oh ... my ... God ...
These guys can't be kicked out of office fast enough: ["US Plans Spring Offensive in Pakistan"].

2008?
This has to be a first: ["Short list Republican nomination 2008"]. That's assuming there will be an election in 2008.

Other stuff
In Oklahoma, the Hugo Daily News has endorsed Joe Lieberman.

Here in the heart of Little Dixie, Democrats believe they fall more in the classification of being "Conservative Democrats" than in most Democratic environs. Most aren't impressed with glitz and glitter and will opt for someone with a "down to earth" demeanor and conservative voting record. For that reason, our candidate of choice in the Democratic primary is Joe Lieberman.

NH PRIMARY AFTERMATH
What happened in the field?
For readers out there, I thought I would share with you a quick overview of how the field organizations of these campaigns performed in just one neighborhood of one New Hampshire city. Starting over the summer, my household received promotional materials from most of the campaigns and did so up until the Monday night before the primary. Here is some of the analysis:

Door knocking: Despite being just up the road from a relatively affluent - and very walkable - neighborhood, our house was only visited by two campaigns: The Gephardt campaign visited once, with an old guy, and a college student from the south on a Sunday afternoon and the Edwards campaign visited once, delivering a copy of his "Real Solutions" book, on a Monday night before a local book signing promoting his "Four Trials" book.

Events: Over the summer, Dean had one neighborhood event - a meet-and-greet at a local farm - which was attended by about 75 people. However, no one in the neighborhood was notified about the event: No leaflets, no postcards, and no phone calls - a major promotional mistake. I happened to stumble upon it on a Sunday afternoon when I drove by it on my way to a softball game. Gephardt's son Matt had a coffee at a house about a mile from here, discussing health care, and area residents were notified via postcard. Nothing else happened in the neighborhood or if it did, we were not notified.

Mailers: The Kerry campaign sent numerous mailers. The mailers were glossy and issue-oriented, pressing his health care, environmental, and economic platform positions. Most of the mailers were sent during the summer and fall - when he was down in the polls. However, one negative mailer - which attacked Dean and Clark - was mailed a couple of weeks ago, with a newspaper endorsement mailer sent out during the final week. The Clark campaign sent two mailers - one was a personalized postcard from a woman in Arizona, a new phenomenon in campaign mailing strategies, where people from other states write postcards and letters to undecided voters. The other was a four-color platform piece. The Dean campaign sent one glossy mailer in October, a profile piece resembling a Newsweek cover. They did no other mail to our area for the rest of the campaign. Lastly, all the campaigns were using voting lists that were at least three years old, probably bought from a consulting service, and not obtained from local town and city clerk offices and purged by hand. In New Hampshire, the voting lists are a bit different than in other states. In Massachusetts, for example, a candidate can get a free complete CDR of the latest list of voters once a candidate is declared. Whereas here, state-wide lists are not provided to candidates electronically. A candidate either has to buy a list from a company - which may not be a recent list - or go to each individual town and get an electronic list for a payment, usually $25. A state-wide list is available to campaigns but only in paper form, copies of all the state's voter checklists, and the last I heard it was about $1,200. But then, the data from the paper list has to be entered into a computer to be used for mailers or checklists, a daunting task for even a well-organized campaign.

Literature drops: A few campaigns did drop off literature in the neighborhood. Both the Edwards and Gephardt campaigns dropped off literature twice. The Kerry campaign dropped off a CD-Rom with campaign information on it. The Lieberman campaign dropped off a single profile leaflet.

Signs: As the saying goes, signs don't vote, people vote. But signs do show a presence for a campaign. And the signs were plentiful in the neighborhood, especially starting after the holidays. Dean had the most signs up early, peppered around the neighborhood during the summer and fall. Kerry signs started to creep up slowly in late fall. Clark signs also appeared with a handful Edwards signs and one for Kucinich. One Lieberman sign was seen. Some residents swapped their signs, one moving from Kerry to Dean in the last month. Others had dual signs, representing two different views in a household.

What does this all mean?: In a state where retail politics is everything, a lot of the campaigns failed to do the work they needed to do in order to introduce themselves to voters, especially early on, when they had a lot of time. Too much of the New Hampshire focus seemed to be about getting voters to come out and see the candidates, compared to previous campaigns where the candidates went to the voters. Candidates seemed to have an office in every town, whereas in previous years, a campaign might have one or two offices. For Dean, who had numerous offices, this may have spread his organization too thin, with the right hand [Manchester] not knowing what the left hand [Concord], was doing. Too much concentration seemed to be put on having town hall forums and not enough on door-knocking. When a candidate door-knocks a neighborhood, he creates a buzz. Neighbors start talking about the fact that a presidential candidate actually came by and knocked on a door. Bill Bradley was able to do this effectively in 2000, actually reaching out to people on the beach during the summer and visiting people's homes at other times. Sure, a couple of the campaigns started to do this on Monday, when there was nothing left to do. But, the human touch - instead of the rock concert touch - can make a big difference.
Gephardt dropped out after Iowa so what energy his campaign offered here proved irrelevant as the primary approached.
The Clark campaign started too late although finished in a surprising third place. He was completely lost during most of the debates and seemed clueless on most issues.
Lieberman should have done much better here because he is so conservative. While the base of New Hampshire primary voters tends to be more liberal - hence the effectiveness of having Ted Kennedy stump for Kerry - independents seem to be moderate to conservative. Lieberman was able to pull together some McCain independents, but his message did not connect and he came in a distant fifth.
Edwards surged - but he did not have the field organization to assist in controlling and maintaining the surge. Sure, missing third by a few hundred votes is pretty remarkable for a guy who was very low in the polls. Many from the Gephardt organization offered to work for Edwards at the end. But the campaign said they couldn't pay them so they went elsewhere - mainly to Kerry. This was short-sighted by the Edwards camp. There had been rumors that Edwards was already reaching his maximum spending limits in New Hampshire, but I have no idea what he spent this money on.
The Dean campaign failing to inform neighborhood residents about their event was a major problem. If this happened throughout the state, then he potentially missed meeting thousands of voters. The Dean campaign also failed to contact voters via mail in the late stages of the campaign, instead sinking millions in TV ads in the last days of the campaign and handing out 75,000 videos of Dean with his wife. The Dean campaign was different from many campaigns of the past because it was a more holistic environment, as described in a Concord Monitor article. Campaign volunteers were not told to do certain jobs for the candidate. Instead, they were asked what they would like to do for the campaign and then tasks were created based on the interests of the volunteer. The organization was also said to be more group-think and not top-down leadership. While this is an interesting way to keep volunteers plugged in and can accentuate the best abilities of different people, a campaign also has to make sure the hard work of winning gets done. If everyone wants to noodle on a blog, organize a Meet-up that turns into a fan club meeting and not a serious organizational meeting, or work on a Web site, but not do lit drops or make phone calls, a campaign will be doomed. At the end, the UAW, SEIU and others tried to kick the old-style campaign into gear, enough so that a whole second building was rented to coordinate the volunteers and phone banks. Unfortunately for the insurgent, it was too little, too late. Karen Hicks, a protege of former NH-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, should be commended for taking a no-name governor, from a very small state to a second-place finish.
Three weeks ago, Kerry looked dead. But with the help of Shaheen, a master organizer in New Hampshire, he was able to turn it around. The bumper sticker slogan "Dated Dean, Married Kerry" seemed laughable in December. But it will be remembered for years to come. Also, hundreds of Massachusetts residents and political operatives spent a lot of time here doing work. These guys are fierce campaign operatives. They know how to win campaigns. They know how to play a hand. And they know all the tricks - dirty and clean - of politics. But Kerry also had some help - a lot of help - from the national press corps - and the elites of the Democratic Party - who manipulated the national press corps into challenging the validity of Dean. The result was instilling fear into the voter that Dean couldn't beat President Bush. Sure, Dean probably shouldn't have screeched during his third place speech in Iowa. But Kerry has some major flaws that haven't been looked at. And these elitists could be leading the party down a dangerous path.
Take one example: Massachusetts Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh, who is a partner at the Dewey Square Group, is a FoxNews political analyst. The Dewey Square Group is Michael Whouley's firm. Whouley is Kerry's field organizer. So when Marsh is spinning about Kerry looking presidential on TV, she is benefitting her business partner, with no disclaimer about her financial ties by FoxNews. This isn't unusual over at FoxNews. Bill Kristol is an analyst, even though he was one of the architects of the Iraqi invasion plan through his thinktank, the Project for a New American Century. It isn't like FoxNews has 20 million viewers either. So, the manipulation is limited. But the newsmakers, the junkies, and the influential watch the news channels. And they regurgitate the spin - even if they may not know where it is coming from or who is behind it.
The footnote of the New Hampshire 2004 primary will not be about field organization, candidate missteps or public policy positions. What will be remembered about this race is the manipulation of New Hampshire voters through tracking polls after the Iowa Caucus results and the voters' obsession with beating President Bush in the final election.
Now, on to the south and west.

PoliticsNH.com gets it wrong
PoliticsNH.com was one of the go-to sites during the New Hampshire Primary.
In the early stages of the campaign, the site kept track of how candidates were faring with the state's power elite. A tally board of endorsements was posted, with candidate ups and downs. But by the fall, the site shifted from gossipy content to hard news content, with numerous reports from the field. And they, well, mainly one guy, James Pindell, did a pretty good job. However, on the newspaper endorsements page, they got it all wrong.
According to the site, Wesley Clark and John Kerry each received five endorsements, Joe Lieberman received three, Howard Dean and John Edwards each received one: ["Endorsements"]. But while looking at the actual endorsements offered by newspapers, Dean received nine endorsements, not one.
The publisher of Salmon Press, a chain of eight newspapers, endorsed Dean for each newspaper. In one of the newspapers, the Berliner Reporter, the editor endorsed Edwards. In another, the Carroll County Independent, the editor endorsed Kerry. But PoliticsNH.com didn't post the publisher's endorsement, only the editor's endorsements. When informed of the inaccurate information via email, PoliticsNH.com did not make a correction.
Bias? Manipulation? Against Dean? Who knows. But whatever the reason, the site gave a false impression about the endorsements and left a gray mark on an otherwise excellent political site.

Apologies to the normal
First, it was MSNBC's Chris Matthews. Now, a columnist in Texas: ["Difference between us and Dean? Not a whole yell of a lot"].

We who work in the news media owe Howard Dean an apology about the way we reported his primal scream during the past week. We are responsible for a grave injustice.

No kidding. The media throttled Dean like he was a plucked chicken and it was pretty pathetic. And now a do-nothing Massachusetts senator, a northeastern liberal, with blue-blood ties, is the frontrunner. Yikes. Is this a recipe for disaster? Maybe. Unless Kerry puts Dick Gephardt on the ticket and lets the guy run wild across the Midwest in the general election. Otherwise, it is probably over.
Speaking of pundits, here is the Boston Globe's Brian McGrory's take on it: ["Dear voters, You're fired"].

A brokered convention?
It's possible: ["Down to the wire?: Tight campaign may lead to brokered convention"].

As a political scientist, a brokered convention is almost too much to hope for,'' [Dante] Scala said. "It might be good for the party because it would keep the Democrats in the public eye for weeks and weeks - it's a new story. And it might keep (President) Bush off the front pages for a while.

I have been saying that I doubt there will be a brokered convention. But I bet it will come close to that. And a look to the future: ["Next round of primaries looking more crucial"].

Push push, shove shove
Al Franken, violent? No, he's just preserving free speech while suppressing others: ["Franken fights back vs. Dean dissenter"].

Other stuff
About $9 million dollars was spent on advertising alone for the New Hampshire primary. This seems a bit low but who knows. Not all the candidates can spend money like Steve Forbes.
When asked if he would take the VP slot on a Kerry ticket, Edwards snapped at a Channel 7 reporter, "No!" adding, that Kerry might be considered for a place on his ticket.
Unconstitutional!: Well, it's about time: ["Part of Patriot Act Ruled Unconstitutional"].

The Humanitarian Law Project, which brought the lawsuit, said the plaintiffs were threatened with 15 years in prison if they advised groups on seeking a peaceful resolution of the Kurds' campaign for self-determination in Turkey.

Jeez, a peaceful resolution? Who would want such a thing?

More polls
Survey USA has the latest tracking poll numbers:
In South Carolina, John Edwards has a solid lead with 32 percent; Wesley Clark has 17 with Howard Dean close behind at 16 percent. John Kerry has 13 percent and the Rev. Al Sharpton slips down to 10 percent. Joe Lieberman has 5 percent and Dennis Kucinich has 1 percent. Undecided make up 5 percent.
In Arizona, Kerry has 30 percent with Clark at 24 and Dean at 23 percent. Lieberman has 10, Edwards 7, and others have 3 percent. Undecided makes up 2 percent.
In Florida, Kerry has 38 percent, with Dean at 16, Edwards has 14, Clark at 10, Lieberman with 8, Sharpton at 6 percent. Other make up 3 percent and Undecided have 5 percent.

NH Predictions

Kerry 29
Dean 27
Edwards 17
Clark 11
Lieberman 9
Kucinich 5
Sharpton 1
Other 1

ON THE TRAIL
More stories from the campaign trail in New Hampshire. Check out the links to the left for previous campaign stories.

Signs, signs, everywhere signs
DPW workers in Concord were seen pulling up signs around town this morning. But just a few hours later, new Dean signs were up everywhere, heavily borrowing from Dennis Kucinich: "Hope not Fear: Vote Dean."
While walking to the Wesley Clark mini-rally this afternoon in Concord, I noticed a man standing at the corner of Main and Centre streets with a sign that read: "ANNOY THE MEDIA: VOTE DEAN." He got a lot of honks.
Speaking of Kucinich, he was the butt of jokes all afternoon on the Howie Carr show - which got worse after he cancelled his appearance for Tuesday. But Kucinich verbally spanked ED Hill on FoxNews this morning by sarcastically asking her if she was sick of talking about polls when the people wanted to talk about lost jobs and lack of health care.
"Well sure," ED replied.
"Why are you doing it then?" Kucinich asked.

Blocked from the Dean rally
In Manchester, Howard Dean's rally was so packed at the Palace Theatre this afternoon that people were standing around outside in the freezing cold. Dean's security allowed press people into the theater entrance. But theater security refused to allow the press into the "over capacity" theater. Left standing outside: Channel 31 from Lebanon, WTTK radio, newspaper reporters, including yours truly, and other television networks which were not identifiable.
Over at the Holiday Inn across the street, Talk Radio News Service [TRNS] was hunkered down in the foyer, giving 20 different talk radio hosts the chance to talk to some of the pols campaigning through the Granite State. According to Adam Sharon, an organizer of the "Radio Row," this was the first time TRNS had done a primary. They have done political conventions and inaugurations in the past.
"It has been wonderful," he said, noting that there were no technical failures. "It's been pretty amazing - what we promised, we delivered."
Just finishing up their show were Deb Hamel-Kearney and John O. from "Morning News w/John & Deb," a Keene-based radio show. The duo said the political scene in New Hampshire keeps them busy.
"We have a lot going on," John O. said. "We have state elections, the primary ... one year the governor's doing the budget. The next year, he is campaigning."
Hamel-Kearney said she got into talk radio after running for office. At the time, John O. was doing a solo show. But after Hamel-Kearney lost her race by a few votes, John offered her a co-host slot.
On the primary, John O. said, "New Hampshire has a level of integrity. People here are really hands on. They ask the important questions and [can detect] the b.s. factor."
Like a lot of duos on talk radio, the two have divergent views: Deb comes from the right; John from the left. But that doesn't mean they fight a lot.
"I come to this show not as a radio person but from the Chamber of Commerce," Hamel-Kearney said. "We get along with each other because we understand that there is a middle ground. We're not cookie-cutter. We ask stuff. We ask what people think."
"Morning News w/John & Deb" can be heard on WKBK 1290 AM from 5:30 to 9 a.m.

Clark talks quick
Wesley Clark was over 40 minutes late to his sparsely attended rally in Eagle Square in Concord. He spoke for about two minutes, signed some autographs, and then ducked into a local deli for some coffee.
Clark's voice was hoarse - which is probably why his speech was so short.
Behind cheers of "Wes will win," Clark said, "Tomorrow is the big day. We've been working. We've been waiting. We've been meeting people all up and down this state. This is the first election I have been in because I'm not a politician. I am a leader and I need your support to bring a higher form of leadership to Washington."
Clark said because he was a southerner and not a part of the Washington establishment, he could win the White House.
"You need someone who is not an insider," he said. "The problem is in Washington and I'm not part of that problem. I'm part of the solution."
Clark said he would work to end the control special interests have over Washington and make the nation better for future generations.
"Yes, we can do it," he said. "Let's get 'em out there and do it. Go knock on doors."
Seen at the Clark rally: Washington Post columnist and super-liberal E.J. Dionne and The Nation writer and FoxNews analyst David Corn.
Both Corn and Dionne were quite friendly, chatting with people at the rally. Dionne said he was doing a story about the candidates' military service. However, he quickly disappeared after we were approached by a Clark fan who overhead Dionne and myself discussing Clark's possible involvement with the Waco debacle. The fan called it a conspiracy theory but then went on a tirade about how the Bush administration allowed the Sept. 11 attacks to occur. He pointed to a Web site by Alex Jones called "Prison Planet". Its byline?
"The earth is being turned into a prison planet."
I found Dionne's behavior to be a little strange. As a reporter, I am curious about everything I see and hear and I like getting into conversations with people who might have differing views or theories. Dionne, walking away with the look of fear on his face, instead of engaging in the conversation, was a bit peculiar. What's there to be afraid of? Aren't you a little curious about these things? Why be afraid of voters with outlandish viewpoints? Nah, too inside-the-beltway to look beyond the cocktail party safety conversation net. Too bad. The Clark kid seemed well-briefed on his theories.
Also at the Clark rally were Dick Osborne, the former owner of WKXL 1450, the city's oldest radio station, former Nader 2000 activist Carol Hargrove, and Arnie Alpert, a progressive activist with the American Friends Service Committee. Alpert was handing out leaflets to the media about a new New Hampshire Fair Trade Campaign statement supported by 30 different state organizations. The theme? The majority of Americans are critical of the government's trade policy.
"The failed NAFTA model must be replaced by new rules that respect workers, the environment, and human rights both here and abroad," Alpert stated on the press release.

POLITICAL ROUNDUP
Clark admits to targeting civilians in Balkans
Wow, this is huge: ["Democracy Now! Exclusive: Wesley Clark Admits Targeting Civilians In Yugoslavia"]. Now, will anyone have the balls to ask him whether he helped train the ATF to kill the Branch Davidians at Waco when he was in command of Ft. Hood? The silence is deafening.

Dirty tricks
Dean blames Kerry, Democrats worry about Republicans: ["Dean Hits Kerry's Judgment, Raises 'Dirty Tricks'"].
Dean spokesman Jay Carson said Monday that New Hampshire supporters of Dean had received phony campaign material by fax and e-mail that distorted Dean's positions. In Michigan, the campaign blamed Kerry allies for a flyer it said had lied and distorted Dean's stands on environment, energy, gun rights, the death penalty and higher education.
And then there is this from Karen Hicks of the Dean campaign on Sunday:
Today, Karen Hicks, Dean For America's New Hampshire State Director, made the following statement:
"In recent days, our campaign has been hearing reports from New Hampshire voters that they are receiving:
- phone calls early in the morning and late at night;
- "robo calls" from soulless machines, not calls from considerate people;
- calls claiming to originate from the Dean campaign but do not;
- and even harassing calls and bigoted messages.
Let me be very clear. The Dean campaign does not call New Hampshire homes before 8:30 am or after 8:30 pm. Our calls are made by respectful people, not droning machines. Our callers tell the truth.
We call on the other campaigns to make the same commitments. We are grateful for the extraordinary engagement of New Hampshire's people in this race. But our campaign believes that everyone deserves some peace, some respect, and a truthful message."

'Shoot Quayle'
I remember hearing about Kerry dropping this line. It was pretty funny: ["Kerry's 'joke' could haunt him"].

After NH
The Boston Globe has reporters in future primary states:
Yvonne Abraham reports from Missouri, where all eyes are now: ["Momentum may be key in Missouri"]. Rumors have been floating around the Web that Gephardt is on the verge of endorsing John Kerry. No announcement yet even if FoxNews reported it. Another pundit suggested that Kerry could be dangling the VP slot in front of Gephardt. Let's hope this rumor isn't true.
Rick Klein's in South Carolina, where Clyburn plays coy: ["Clyburn plays S.C. kingmaker in quest for black vote"].

Matthews says war was wrong
["Chris Matthews: 'The French were right'"]. It was a little strange seeing MSNBC's Chris Matthews backtracking on his attacks against Dean. Matthews, and members of his panel last week, pummelled Dean for his screech after the Iowa Caucuses. Howard Fineman was particularly vicious. Shockingly, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough defended Dean on the panel. But now, Matthews has had a change of heart. And on Imus this morning, he admitted he - and the media - were wrong to attack Dean for the screech.
I have always thought that Matthews was a big John Kerry fan. I watch his show a lot and repeatedly I have heard him say, 'Where is John Kerry ... why is Kerry faltering ... etc.' So, it really wasn't any surprise that Dean got attacked by him. But this turnaround is a bit weird.

Polls elsewhere
In Michigan, according to EPIC/MRA with Gephardt out, Kerry shows strength: John Kerry with 37 percent, Howard Dean with 14 percent, Wesley Clark and John Edwards at 10 percent, Joe Lieberman with 5 percent, the Rev. Al Sharpton with 3 percent, and Dennis Kucinich at 1 percent. Michigan is a big fair trade state. Kucinich should be higher.
American Research Group posts new numbers in Arizona, Oklahoma and South Carolina: In Arizona, Kerry has 24 percent, Clark has 21 percent, Edwards comes in at 15 percent, Dean sinks to 10 percent, and Lieberman is at 7 percent. In Oklahoma, Clark has 23 percent, Edwards has 18 percent, Kerry comes in at 17 percent, Lieberman at 10 percent, Dean at 8 percent, and Kucinich and Sharpton at 1 percent. In South Carolina, Edwards has 21 percent, Kerry at 17 percent, Sharpton at 15 percent, Clark at 14 percent, Dean at 9 percent, Lieberman at 5 percent, and Kucinich at 1 percent.

Other stuff
How about this?: ["Top Ten Responses To -- 'I Love Kucinich But He Can't Win'"]
Ralph Nader "pretty close" to making up his mind: ["Ralph Nader considering Presidential run"].
Is this a great prank or what?: ["White African-American boy not 'black' enough for award"].
Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown better get a hold of this quick: ["Report says Oakland pimps getting younger"].

A talk with author Charles Brereton
Charles Brereton has just released his fifth book about New Hampshire politics, the funny and informative, "Primary Politics," Peter E. Randall Publisher, http://www.perpublisher.com.
Brereton traces his experience with the primary from before 1972 to the 2000 campaign. He also makes the case that the historic New Hampshire primary should be preserved but that national parties should tweak the rest of the process to encourage participation. I talked with Brereton recently about his new book and politics in New Hampshire.

P: This is your fifth book, and a lot of them have been about New Hampshire politics and the primary. But you said you had a specific reason for writing this book.

CB: New Hampshire may be a small state but it does have a rich texture to it. And I really didn’t think there was anything available for reporters to use, to really understand that texture and particularly the history of the state in the post-World War II period. So that’s why I wrote "Primary Politics," so this would be available.

P: You had mentioned that you didn’t have a computer, and you write with a typewriter. Do you do your research by hand, with newspapers, going through the archives and microfilm and stuff like that?

CB: Yeah, it’s all done by hand until I’m done with the draft and then I have someone put it on her computer. Then, it was transferred over to Peter Randall, who obviously, since he has done over 400 books on New Hampshire politics and culture – he has computers too – but not me. I’m totally befuddled by anything mechanical. I never advanced to electric typewriters. So, I’m very old-fashioned that way. I have yet to find my way to the Information Superhighway – not even to the on-ramp.

P: In your book, you talk about ethnicity in Manchester and the shift of different cultures. Has it affected the outcome of certain primaries? Has that had an influence at all?

CB: Well, particularly in 1972 by Ed Muskie’s weak showing [in Manchester but] winning with 50 percent of the vote. It has more to do with the internal dynamics of New Hampshire politics in terms of our state primary more than presidential primary. That was the one time it was the main factor.
The thing that got me thinking about that so much was when I read David Hoeh’s book, "1968-McGovern-New Hampshire." David is an experienced operative and he writes in his book that every election there seems to be a "Manchester surprise." And there was no more surprising thing than the infamous Canuck letter back in 1972 [A nasty letter published in the Manchester Union-Leader before the primary claiming that then-candidate Ed Muskie was bigoted towards Franco-Americans, a large segment of Manchester’s population at the time].
One reason I think this state is so strongly Republican is that there have been people like [former-Gov.] Styles Bridges and Bill Loeb [the late-owner of the Manchester Union-Leader], who have been able to drive that wedge between the Franco-American community and their natural alliance to the Democratic Party.
And it continues to this day because if you look at what happened in the last Senate race turned out, [former-Gov.] Jeanne Shaheen did very poorly in Manchester and the surrounding communities and its one of the reasons the Republicans controlled the Senate, is that one vote from New Hampshire that normally, I think, would have gone Democratic. And then the presidential race last time around was so close, another reason, because that Manchester went for George Bush rather than Albert Gore.

P: MassINC recently did a report about the flight of residents from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, about 78,000 people in the last 12 years. The assumption is that the people in the southern tier tend to be more liberal, at least on social issues. But if you look at election results – using the Shaheen and Sununu example – that isn’t always the case.

CB: When I moved into the state 35 years ago and started working for Pete McCloskey in that first primary I was involved in 1972, that was not only the election with large population growth to factor in, but the first time 18-year-olds could vote. There were some people who lived in southern New Hampshire when I would spout this theory that, the liberals are coming to New Hampshire, just shook their heads and said, No, they come here, pretty much, as economic refugees. They do not like the high tax rates in places Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey … It has been a very different influx of newcomers here, differing to what has happened in Vermont where a lot of radicals i.e. Bernie Sanders, have moved up from New York, and made Vermont – once considered a conservative state – far more progressive than New Hampshire which has not become a progressive state at all, despite the population growth.

P: There has always been a move underway to take the First in the Nation primary away from New Hampshire because the state isn’t as diverse as other states. But the population shift has made the state more diverse than it used to be, even before 12 years ago … you see larger minority populations than before, larger immigrant populations than before, the national obsession with it not being diverse enough … the state has changed.

CB: Well, [N.H. Democratic activist] Marty Gross sort of pointed out how shallow that argument is. Representative of what? We are a very diverse country. Even with all the change in the state, it’s still not as multicultural as Massachusetts or New York or places like that. What all that population growth tells you though is that there is something going on here. We may have a frost-belt climate, but the way we think is very sun-belt. And that is where you have enormous population growth as well - in Nevada, California - these states that constantly add new representatives while a lot of Northeastern states are losing representatives, but not New Hampshire.

P: Even if you moved it to another state – even it was small and intimate – like Rhode Island or Delaware – you still wouldn’t necessarily get the same hands-on campaigning. John Q. Public has a chance to meet the candidates over time.

CB: I think it would be impossible, given our state law, and the love affair working reporters have with New Hampshire, to switch New Hampshire and replace it with Rhode Island, or what have you. I think the road they are on to is much more dangerous – where everything gets front-loaded – if it is not a national primary campaign in name, it is in fact and that is what we are very close to. That is the problem.

P: I was looking at the election returns in the back of the book and was amazed to see almost 50 percent voter turnout in every primary in New Hampshire. In Massachusetts, even when Paul Tsongas ran in 1992, if I recall correctly the turnout was pretty low.

CB: It’s abysmal, yeah. It is hard to compare one state to another because not all states allow independents to vote [in their primaries]. So, you will have a lower turnout anyway. I really wish they had a standard format for voting in the states that way. It would encourage turnout. But you’d get the Republican establishment … they don’t not want independents coming in, mucking up the works like John McCain did. They’re going to protect their turf. There was a movement to remove independents from voting in the primary in the last session here. That is a 50 state puzzle. But it would be nice to let independents vote.

P: You have a plan for having 25 primaries and 25 caucuses determine a political party’s nominee. However, if you had to choose between a regional primary or another plan other than yours, which do you think would be the best?

CB: I’m not a fan of regional primaries. I’m not a fan of national primaries. I will probably get in trouble for saying this but there really should be a single small- or medium-sized state, in each of the regions of the country. We’re almost there in terms of Iowa and New Hampshire being the traditional starting points. Having South Carolina follow New Hampshire by a week – I’m not opposed to that. I think southern politicians, being able to be heard on their home turf, is a good thing. And now, for the first time, we have New Mexico with a caucus and Arizona with a primary, a week after.
The problem is that Terry McAuliffe let six other states come in there and you have a very difficult task for the less-financed candidates to get out there and have a chance to state their message. All he had to do, with all these states like Michigan that were complaining, is to say, if you want to move a caucus in there, go right ahead. That turns out to be what Michigan did but then he let these other states all slip in there and it’s a disaster waiting to happen. If New Hampshire lost its First in the Nation status – and I will probably get in trouble for saying this – I would prefer having a Maine or a Vermont replace us, rather than a regional system or a national system. Any single small New England state. If you were trying to replace [New Hampshire] with a Wyoming or South Dakota, states with small populations where you still do person to person campaigning, well, winters out there are very different from winters here. The travel would be just very difficult for the candidates and the press, etc. I had to drive across Wyoming – I know what a place like that is like – you just can’t do it. For those reasons, I would say forget about it.
If you move from New Hampshire to Maine, you are going to run into the same problems – there aren’t enough African-Americans, there aren’t enough Latinos, so why wipe out 80 years of political history just to replace it with something so similar?

Clark steps on more landmines ...
Wesley Clark admitted yesterday that he "probably" voted for Republican Richard Nixon in 1972 and also supported Ronald Reagan and John Kerry whacked him on it: ["Senator decries Clark's votes for GOP"]. Of course, as Ralph Nader stated so well in 2000, Nixon was a liberal compared to the Clinton/Gore administration, so Clark can get a pass on that. But backing Reagan? Yikes. That is not going to go over well with the liberals who vote in the Democratic primary.
Clark also unveiled a $100 billion economic plan ["Democrat Clark Lays Out $100 Billion Economic Plan"] which - smartly - would rescind the Bush tax cuts on people making more than $200k and send $40 billion back to the states. Another $40 billion would go to Homeland Security and $20 billion to business tax breaks. Of course, the Devil is in the details and just saying you are going to spend this kind of money doesn't mean anything. If the money is given to the states, and they throw it in their reserve funds, the spending won't do any good. If the money for Homeland Security is going to fund a Democratic version of John Ashcroft cataloging what Americans take out at the library, forget about it. And, if the business tax breaks are going to do nothing about jobs fleeing to countries with cheaper labor, then this plan won't accomplish much at all.

Dean leads in NH; tied in Iowa
American Research Group reported yesterday that Dean has a 10 point lead in NH with Kerry [21 percent] and Gephardt [8 percent] trailing. In Iowa, Survey USA reports Dean and Gephardt tied with 23 percent, Kerry at 17 percent and Edwards at 11 percent. Gephardt, who was thought to be a shoo-in in Iowa, has been trading off the lead position with Dean for about two months. Although, since the Iowa contest is a caucus, polling data doesn't mean very much. It will all be about who shows up in the middle of what will be a very cold January and is willing to hang around until the end. However, this is a surge for Edwards who has been at 6 percent for the last month.

'Beantown is Deantown'
Thousands turned out to hear Dean speak in historic Copley Square in Boston on Monday: ["Dean stumps in Kerry's stronghold"]. 2,500 during the lunch hour isn't a bad turnout at all. I like this line:

"A true Patriot Act is not born out of fear, but out of trust; it is not born out of division, but out of community; it is not born out of suspicion, but out of faith in each of us."

Can Shaheen save Kerry?
Former N.H. Gov. Jeanne Shaheen has agreed to be the national chairman of John Kerry's campaign: ["Shaheen to lead Kerry campaign"]. One pundit on TV noted that Shaheen saved Al Gore's primary campaign when Bill Bradley was nippin' at his heels. The article also reminds everyone that Shaheen was Gary Hart's organizer in 1984 when he beat former Vice President Walter Mondale. The endorsement isn't a surprise since her husband Bill has been trying to build up support for Kerry around the state for months.

Gallup says Bush could lose ...
While national polls between two candidates are meaningless - since the presidential campaign is about 51 different battle grounds - it is interesting to note that the latest Gallup numbers have both Clark and Kerry beating Bush [Clark 49%, Bush 46%; Kerry 48%, Bush 47%] with Lieberman, Dean and Gephardt very close [Bush 48%, Lieberman 47%; Bush 49%, Dean 46%; Bush 48%, Gephardt 46%]. Again, as I have said before, it is anyone's game but the key is winning the individual states.

Pirozzi - 'It's not true'
Iowa Kerry operative and Belmont native Angelique Pirozzi has denied reports in last Sunday's Boston Herald that she is upset about her role in the campaign. Responding to an email this afternoon, this is what she had to say:

Yeah, I got wacked all right. No, it's not true. I am the only person in the Kerry operation that has any recent Iowa Caucus experience and it just makes sense that I go...I am actually really excited about John Kerry in Iowa. He's doing really well there. I will be serving as the Caucus Director for John Kerry in charge of the caucus program which is a significant role in the nominating process. Never thought I'd go anywhere else......

While she wouldn't comment on who would say such nasty and untrue things about her to the newspaper, Pirozzi has an idea who it might have been. But, the cheap shot hasn't bummed her out at all. In fact, she was able to see a little humor in the whole thing:

As Oscar Wilde said, 'The only thing worse than being gossiped about is not being talked about at all.'

Pirozzi heading to Iowa for Kerry
Belmont gal Angelique Pirozzi is leaving town soon to organize Iowa for the Kerry for President Campaign, according to a recent email. Pirozzi is a protégé of uber-Dem Mike Whouley, the man who basically helped run Al Gore’s campaign into the ground. Here is what he told Mass. Dems attending the convention in 2000, as reported by David Nyhan of The Boston Globe:

"We're going to win this election,'' said Whouley, and he ran down the polling and electoral vote situation for the audience of insiders. He derided Bush's double-digit polling lead as ''footsteps in the sand,'' based on an illusory appeal to ''values, personality, integrity,'' that can be whittled down by expert attack. Gore's been only ''a two-dimensional'' figure because ''he stood behind a larger-than-life president,'' said Whouley, while Bush built his lead as ''the anti-Clinton, throw-the-bums-out, I'm a nice guy'' crusader. ''Bush is playing with the house money,'' which he defined as ''nominal Democrats, persuadable voters.'' Whouley ticked off favorable portents and recent successes in key Midwestern states, and predicted more gains ''once we move this thing to archery range.'' The Dems will scorch Bush for colluding with polluters in Texas and ''turning them into regulators,'' with sacrificing interests of uninsured children and elders to big money contributors, he said.

Oh how wrong he was. And well, okay, Gore drove Gore’s campaign into the ground. But if you know inside ball in Boston politics, you know about Whouley – he is a top dollar, bare bones kind of player. Some people like him and some people hate him. Nuff said.
But back to Pirozzi – who I interviewed while working as a reporter for the Belmont Citizen-Herald when she was hired to run Kerry’s 2002 Senate reelection campaign – a virtual cakewalk – since Long Jawn had minor competition in ignored Libertarian Michael Cloud. She was also Gore’s point person in Wisconsin during the general election and a field organizer in Iowa during the primary. Pirozzi has also been immortalized in David Kaplan’s recent book, "The Accidental President:"

Angelique Pirozzi was field director and had been in Iowa for months. Whouley had been there five weeks. One afternoon, Pirozzi was sick to her stomach with a fever and the flu. "I’m going to throw up," she told Whouley. "Okay,'"he answered, "go out to the alley, throw up, and then come back and get to work." She did and she did.

This is prime time for her: A chance to reestablish relationships made last time around and organize a state that is going to be exceedingly difficult for Kerry to win. We have had dinner and gossip sessions on occasion and despite her glossy-eyed view of the Democratic Party, she is a pretty good person and Kerry is lucky to have her.

Sharpton on 'Meet the Press'

If you missed "Meet the Press" today you missed a good one. The Rev. Al Sharpton held his own against host Tim Russert, chatting up his presidential aspirations. When Russert asked Sharpton if he was raising money, he said no, adding that he was traveling around the country to find out what the American people think. The best line:

I think that part of what’s wrong with politics today is that we are too poll driven rather than pulse driven.

President Dennis? Who knows?

In Sunday’s Cleveland Plain Dealer, Tom Diemer has written a piece about the possible presidential candidacy of Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio: [http://www.cleveland.com/politics/index.ssf?/base/ispol/
1042382020299730.xml].
The former Mayor of Cleveland has risen to prominence after passionate speeches from the House floor attacking President Bush’s war against terrorism, escalating plans to attack Iraq, and the USA PATRIOT Act. And with the prospects of another corporate democrat being nominated for president [see "Contenders scramble" Politizine blog post from Jan. 5], some activists are looking for a true-blue progressive candidate at all costs.
As well, with the specter of another Ralph Nader Green Party candidacy in 2004, the democrats are wisely trying to find a candidate who cannot be as easily pummeled in the media as Al Gore was by Nader. In fact, Nader is quoted in the article, saying:

"There needs to be a clearly progressive candidate in the primaries. I hope he does [run]"

... giving some progressives the clout they may need to galvanize around a candidate like Kucinich. But The Nation’s Katha Pollitt says not so fast.
In a piece entitled "["Regressive Progressive?"]" from May 2002, Pollitt suggested that Kucinich may not be the great progressive hope for Democrats:

In his two terms in Congress, [Kucinich] has quietly amassed an anti-choice voting record of Henry Hyde-like proportions. He supported Bush's reinstatement of the gag rule for recipients of US family planning funds abroad. He supported the Child Custody Protection Act, which prohibits anyone but a parent from taking a teenage girl across state lines for an abortion. He voted for the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which makes it a crime, distinct from assault on a pregnant woman, to cause the injury or death of a fetus. He voted against funding research on RU-486. He voted for a ban on dilation and extraction (so-called partial-birth)abortions without a maternal health exception. He even voted against contraception coverage in health insurance plans for federal workers--a huge work force of some 2.6 million people (and yes, for many of them, Viagra is covered).

Ouch.
However, while a Kucinich candidacy could upset Pollitt and others who will hold their candidates to the abortion rights litmus test, others don’t seem to mind that Kucinich is not pro-choice:

It is time for a Kucinich candidacy to speak the truth, to relate to the everyday problems and concerns of Americans, to throw out the political-speak of those who reach out to Corporate America for their support and speak directly to the people and allow them to hear, in plain, clear terminology the truth about the blatant assault on their rights, the failure of their government to lead on the domestic problems facing the average working person, the war hungry insiders who want to fight first and talk later (while enriching defense contractors)," said Mike Swickey from Oklahoma and the creator of the Draft Kucinich Web site:
http://www.draftkucinich.com/