OK, gives up may be a bit extreme but it appears that Howard Dean is pulling ads from the February 3rd contests in order to focus on New Hampshire.
Dean scaled back his television advertising in states with Feb. 3 contests to concentrate his spending on New Hampshire. He is pouring in about $500,000 through Tuesday's primary and his ads in New Mexico ended Wednesday. Commercials in South Carolina and Arizona will stop running this weekend.
It appears that the Dean campaign is putting all its eggs in the New Hampshire basket (at least for now). This also would seem to lend credence to the Bob Novak report that the campaign is running tight on money. Finally, Howard Dean does not seem to be making any effort to tone down expectations so that a decent second will be called a win. Quite the contrary, he seems to be hyping first.
...Howard Dean voiced fresh confidence that he can surmount Iowa to win the New Hampshire presidential primary.
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Former Gov. Howard Dean told supporters Saturday, "Things are closing fast. We can win this. What we are seeing in the last few days is that people who went away from us after we lost Iowa are coming back."
"There are a lot of people who are going from other candidates into the undecided column," Dean told a rally of volunteers in Somersworth, N.H.
Jay Carson, a Dean spokesman, said the campaign has not yet decided how many days it will be in the dark in New Mexico, Arizona and South Carolina.
Very interesting. Either the Dean campaign is very confident of a last-minute surge in New Hampshire or they are very desperate for a last-minute surge in New Hampshire.
Might near everyone be wrong and a Dean withdrawal in the cards if the New Hampshire surge doesn't materialize?