Thoughts on the latest polls in NH (see front page).
Clarks un-faves are nice (17%) and Dean's are ugly (31%), so you know that the attacking of Dean is having some effect.
However, it seems unlikely that this 31% will unite. I think they're people who were/are very close to other candidates. There's a core around everyone who hates that frontrunner, who on some level just can't believe that they're not it.
These are the bitter people. They're ready to believe terrible things about what is an exemplary candidate to build a national consensus, and what has been and will be a campaign recorded in the books as a watershed event in and of itself.
This has been a rough primary, and will probably get worse in the short-term as the real business begins.
I believe Howard Dean in the man and the campaign for the times, someone who can forge a positive national consesus as to how things aught to be. He's the one who can stick it to Bush the best. 36% of Granite staters agree with that statement too. I doubt there's a ton of crossover between that number and the 31% I mention above.
People are on board for this. People who know how politics works and what a kickass campaign feels like. With a strong grassroots base plus a the kind of record a doctor would have, he's the one who can really open the door for progress when he wins.
Whatever happens, come mid March, we're all participants. There's no sitting this one out. This will not be a replay of any other campaign in history; it will be one that makes history, not follows it.
Photo and mojo-whoring within...
I want my country back.