More fun with polls: on my weblog I explain the past and future trends in Bush's polling numbers. It looks very bad for him (and great for Dean!)
http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/ ~g...e.html#93748809
Gabriel | Email | Homepage | 05.06.03 - 5:07 pm | #

The thing is, I think it would actually be a terrible idea to withdraw from Iraq. And Dean seems to agree based on his statement right after the war--the excellent but widely ignored seven point reconstruction plan.
Katherine | Email | Homepage | 05.06.03 - 5:25 pm | #

free up Hart's 4%, his campaign's a no-go.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp...6- 2003May6.html
Joe Mariani | Email | Homepage | 05.06.03 - 6:12 pm | #

Isn't Dean the only one to have presented a plan for the reconstruction of Iraq? He should bring that up when asked about his nat'l security cred.
chase | Email | Homepage | 05.06.03 - 6:41 pm | #

Whether the media as a whole have a strong conservative bias or not, it's probably in their ($$) interests to see Dean become the candidate in the 2004 election. Without Dean, the contest between Bush and the Democratic nominee will be a drag because a) there aren't any juicy, dramatic differences between the other likely Democratic candidates for the nomination and Bush and b) all four of these likely non-Dean nominees have sleep-inducing personalities.

Probably a lot of the media outlets aren't going to be sincere in their promotion of Dean as he makes his way through the primary season early next year, but they're going to do it anyway because for the biggest news story of 2004, Dean's the only candidate that's got the charisma to turn the contest with Bush into entertaining political theatre.
NB | Email | Homepage | 05.06.03 - 6:49 pm | #

Great must-read article from the Utne Reader: http://www.utne.com/pub/2003_117...mo/10454- 1.html
Allan Todd | Email | Homepage | 05.06.03 - 7:27 pm | #

Also figure that Lieberman will be out by September or so. He'll realize he's actually a Repulican and submit his name to replace Dick "Oh, my heart!" Cheney on the Bush ticket. Plus Hart's 4%, that puts Dean squarely in the top three.

Jay
folkbum | Email | Homepage | 05.06.03 - 7:53 pm | #

I wonder who will get Hart's supporters. I'd probably spilt between Kerry, Dean or Gephardt.
Luke Francl | Email | Homepage | 05.06.03 - 8:57 pm | #

I've always said that this "support for the war" is soft. It reflects, I think, peoples general feeling that they either do, or wish to be percived as, "supporting our troops."

I think that Dean's mesage of multi-lateralism and waging the peace may sound pretty darn good come this time next year. - Indy
Indy Baby | Email | Homepage | 05.07.03 - 1:30 am | #

Bush/Lieberman 2004 -- a Rovian scenario to be sure... hehehe (actually, only half-laughing, Rove's probably crazy enough to pull that off).
Ziggy | Email | Homepage | 05.07.03 - 1:50 am | #

Polls seem good at the moment, but Howard's stump performance task is this: he has got to learn how to tie up all his discrete policy criticisms into bigger themes - and deliver them with optimism.

That's how you cut through the clutter and appeal to regular people who aren't politics-loving activists like us. If he learns this he'll go all the way.
BrilliantIdiot | Email | Homepage | 05.07.03 - 6:43 am | #

DON'T FOLLOW THE POLLS!
I love Dean for using his brain and not polls for direction and ideas. Yeah, right now Democrats are all looking for a candidate who supported the war - who knows how that situation will change in 9 months?
Same story with rebuilding Iraq - we need to do what is right for the long term interests of America and the world, and while my first choice would have been not to unilaterally invade, my last choice now is to bail and let Iraq slide into chaos!
I must repeat what has been written many times before - If you want to win you cannot be afraid to lose. Don't get frozen by the polls, please!
Steve Wicklund | Email | Homepage | 05.07.03 - 8:32 am | #

I really think supporting the war is a general election handicap, DESPITE the (current, at least) public support for the war.

Basically, my analysis goes like this: Bush will set the "psychic setting" for the election with his convention/9/11 exploitation. Pointing this exploitation out is good, as is pointing out the hypocrisy of Bush's lack of support for first-responders. But, that doesn't change the basic setting of the campaign. And the problem with the other Democrats is that they all have in varying degrees an ambivalent "I support the war, but I oppose the 'Bush Doctrine'" approach. Well, you can't have both. It looks like an equivocation, and it will harm the candidate's (and the Party's) standing on EVERY OTHER issue. Lieberman's formulation of "I can match the President where he's strong, and hit him where he's weak" is completely wrong. The Democrats have to spell out an alternative world-view; the party has to realize that to not have a clear view on the post-9/11 world obscures every other issue the party is rightly pushing. Americans don't really believe in empire-building or unilateral attacks. And neither does the Democratic Party. Pretending that it does is a bad move. That's another reason why Howard Dean is the best hope for a Democratic victory in 2004. He is the only one well-positioned to spell out this alternative world view.
BriVT | Email | Homepage | 05.07.03 - 9:45 am | #

Great comments, enjoying this….

I agree BriVT, and in addition to laying out big ideas for a positive democratic alternative worldview that neutralizes the republican militaristic juggernaut, I’m thinking an interesting line of attack may go something like this:

George Bush GAMBLING WITH YOUR CHILDREN’S HEALTH: declining fuel efficiency, EPA eviscerated, Kyoto etc….
George Bush GAMBLING WITH YOUR CHILDREN’S SAFTEY: unfounded homeland security mandates, police and fire cutbacks, invading a dangerous but contained country promoting the spread of WMD to god knows who etc…
George Bush GAMBLING WITH YOUR CHILDREN’S EDUCATION: heck, he doesn’t even like school.
George Bush GAMBLING WITH YOUR FAMILY’S FINANCIAL WELL BEING: it’s great that William Bennett can afford to gamble away $8 million and not have it effect his standard of living, but can your family afford the trillion dollar gamble Bush’s tax policies are taking?
Just because George Bush likes to gamble doesn’t mean you must too.

Or something like that…….
Ken L | Email | Homepage | 05.07.03 - 12:19 pm | #

Don't buy these polls that have
Lieberman In the lead. The media
wants to end Dean's campagin so they
are trying to tell people he has no
chance. And despite what polls say In
Iowa I think Dean can win there because of Gephardt's Iraq postion.
Chris Roberts | Email | Homepage | 05.07.03 - 1:40 pm | #