Ok, so yesterday I read a few well respected Kos posters claiming that Brit Hume's interview with David Yepsen was decidedly pro-Dean and knocked Kerry/Edward's chances of winning this announcement. Read on...
From Marisacat
Yepson last night with Brit Hume said the Dean org is the very best, the strongest and deepest he ahs seen in over 30 year. He said it is stronger than Gep's.
From teacherken
He was talking about Dean's organization and raving about it when Hume interruprted ans asked if he just meant biggest,. and he replied that, and best, too. Her was talking about how they aren't even bothering with phone calls, but are going knocking on dorrs, organizing people with local captains to travel to caucuses together.
Sounds to me that if they can impress him that way, his gut feeling that Dean will win, which he offered to Chris Wallace this morning, is likely to be correct.
And I thought I heard a comment (I was not listen with full attention as I was making dinner) that the Gephardt people at this point know they don't ahve the organization and hoping to finish second, which seems to imply that the Kerry people believe that Dean will win.
When asked about Edwards, who really has no organization, whether someone can win the caucuses with just a popular swell, Yepsen flat out said NO.
You can have a look at all the comments about Yepsen's appearance here.
So why am I bringing this up? Because I just looked at the transcript of his interview with Brit Hume and it does not jive very well with what people here were saying. Either Fox News has altered the transcript, Yepsen said these things elsewhere, or Dean supporters were seeing Yepsen's take through some particularly strong rose colored glasses. Here is a few pieces from the transcript:
Fox News transcript
YEPSEN: Yes. There are other polls that confirm those kinds of things and what you see on the ground is also evidence. If you look at the
Kerry campaign and Edwards, there's a
real energy about them. The candidates are pumped up. You can sense it with their people.
Where as in the Dean campaign and the Gephardt campaign, it is a much more of a methodical, hunkered down kind of a, we've got some serious work to do here. So it is having a psychological effect on the race. ...
YEPSEN: Out here, I think elsewhere. But certainly you could sense it out here. There was some real energy. And then came the arrest of Saddam Hussein and it flattened his numbers out. You could see that in polls here and in New Hampshire.
But what it did was it caused a lot of undecided Democrats to take a second look at him. Both Dean and Gephardt have been frontrunners in Iowa. But they've -- they're not breaking through. They are not piling up huge leads, because a lot of Democrats have reservations of one kind or another about them. I mean some people are worried about Dean's gaffes or his temper or the position on the war. Gephardt is an old face. I mean they like these men, but they just have concerns. And so that is what's contributed to the high undecided for so long.
Now here in the end game, we're starting to see some of these undecideds start to make up their mind. And having visited Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt, and found them wanting for some reason, they are now moving on to John Edwards and John Kerry. ...
Hmm... Yepsen doesn't seem down on Kerry and Edwards at all so far. In fact, he is acknowledging what is happening in Iowa. Let's continue and see what Yepsen had to say about the relative organizational support of the candidates and how that will play out.
HUME: Now, obviously all this comes down -- I think obviously we can agree that
John Kerry would be happier where he is now if this
were a primary and not a caucus. Where you know, voters turn out and poll. And they can just vote and go home. And it doesn't require the organizational muscle that this place requires.
We've talked about this before. Gephardt has a lot of labor support, Dean has a lot of people on the ground and has a good organization. Do you think that Kerry or the Kerry or Edwards organizations are enough to give them a real -- to possibly carry them through here?
YEPSEN: They're not good enough. I mean I think Dean has the biggest organization. It's also a younger organization. But it's clearly the largest. I think Gephardt has the best. He knows labor organizers. That's what they do for a living.
HUME: He's seasoned.
YEPSEN: They are disciplined workers. John Kerry and John Edwards have simply not had the chance to build that kind of infrastructure. Kerry has a better one than Edwards does. But it's just -- I don't have a sense that it is as big as it really needs to be.
HUME: So one senses that he could end up disappointed that he could have more supporters actually people would vote for him, but can't get them to the polls?
YEPSEN: He could. I mean he clearly kicked this thing in, but it may have come a little, bit too late.
HUME: Great. David, great to have you, thank you.
Yepsen did say that Kerry and Edwards lacked organizational prowess. He did cast doubt on whether their organizations could capitalize on their recent surges. But Yepsen wasn't wholly dismissive of the idea. He wasn't wholly dismissive of the candidates and the recent polls. Yepsen didn't say that Dean had the best organization, just the largest. He didn't say that it was the best he's seen in 30 years. At least not according to the Fox transcript.
I don't have cable TV anymore so I rely upon the Kos community to accurately report these interviews. Could be that the transcript doesn't do justice to Yepsen's body language. I don't really know, but look... I support Howard as much as anyone. I will be one of the most disappointed people here if Kerry wins the nomination. I don't like Kerry... at all. But I'd rather we keep honest with each other even if it doesn't fit what we'd like to see or hear. To me, Yepsen was decidedly more nuanced in his views about the upcoming (hours away) caucus than posters here on Kos let on.