Garance Franke-Ruta and Michael Tomasky are two of the best political reporters out there. The AMerican prospect is a must read because of them. I posted this on the BFA blog:
Garance of the American Prospect also has a right-on analysis on how the Governor's tired stump speech and refusal to adapt to the changing political environment hurt him while Edwards and Kerry re-tooled.
http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2004/01/franke-ruta-g-01-23.html
I hope campaign is smart enough to realize the war vote isn't going to win him many more voters--he's already got all of us who are disgusted at the "washington democrats." there aren't many more to be had. as we saw in IA, Kerry got most of the antiwar vote, so obviously contrasting his position with the other Senators, while it enabled Dean to catch fire with the grassroots faithful, won't work with undecided voters. most voters don't care that the DLC doesn't like Dean (if they know what the DLC is). they have no clue who Al From is and don't care. but i fear campaign (and some supporters) are too enamored of the us vs them (those bad Democrats) theme that worked well in 2002 and 2003 but won't for 2004.
I spoke to a classic independent voter. She voted for Bush in 2000 and now is frightened mostly by Cheney and co. She supported the war, and overthrowing Saddam, but she hated the way Bush went about it so arrogantly and alienating all our allies. So an argument about Dean standing up against the war won't really rally her. but certainly all the other aspects of the good Doctor's character might.
Posted by ihlin at January 23, 2004 02:33 PM