csua.org/u/5mx -> www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_01_18.php
A friend told me this evening about a mailing the Kerry campaign is sending out - a pretty glossy, done-up thing, it seems - attacking Wes Clark on several fronts, including his work as a lobbyist and his past support for Republicans. I saw what might be another example of that when I went by the new Volunteer Operations Center the Dean campaign just set up to coordinate canvassing and get out the vote efforts for the campaign. In the words of the campaign Dean volunteers in Manchester will now be exclusively organized from the brand new Volunteer Operations Center at 1111 Elm Street. Dean volunteers will continue to be the best organized in the Granite State because they remember why they started working for a little known Governor from a small state with no money and the odds stacked against him: He brought hope. When I stopped by there were maybe thirty people on the premises - a pretty sparse crowd. But I think the center had just disgorged a multitude to head over to the state Democratic party function tonight in Nashua. But one thing I did see there gave a sense of some last minute bare-knuckles fighting that may be afoot under the radar.
Unlike the labeled Dean for America hand-out flyers I saw lying around, this one had no label identifying who put it together or who sponsored it. It listed, in half a dozen or so categories, a bill of particulars about why Kerry would be a disaster for the Democratic party and why hed get creamed by George W. Kerrys been labeled haughty, effete, phony, aloof and patrician, read the flyer. In any election Kerry would be cast as the privileged, entitled Aristocrat that so many of his Massachusetts constituents consider him to be. At another point, the flyer asked whether Kerrys attempt to run on his military background could so offend the Peace-nik wing of the party that we end up with Nader II and later lambasted Kerry for being - along with both Presidents Bush - a member of Skull & Bones, ultra elitist secret society at Yale University. The stacks of flyers I saw on the table in front of me were all Women for Dean flyers about an event tomorrow in Manchester and another which was essentially a letter from the candidate with a last minute pitch for support. As long time readers of this site know, Ive written before about the way campaigns use unlabeled attack flyers in the final run-up to election day. So seeing this thing posted in front of the Dean campaigns canvassing bank three nights before election day certainly raised my suspicion. On the other hand, the Manchester volunteer office struck me as a pretty chaotic, free-for-all sort of environment, so its certainly possible that some over-eager supporter just taped this thing to the wall a half-hour before I got there. This evening I contacted Dean for Americas New Hampshire office and spoke to state Communications Director Dorie Clark. In our first conversation, Clark told me that neither she nor anyone else at the campaign was familiar with such a flyer but assured me that the campaign has never printed or distributed anything like that. Clark told me that a campaign worker she had contacted at the office told her that there was no flyer such as Id described. And she asked me to tell her just where Id seen it, which I went on to do. A short time later Clark called me back and told me that they had indeed found it. She went on to explain that this was something that a volunteer produced and put up and that we now took down immediately. We have and will continue to emphasize to our volunteers that we are runnig a positive campaign.
Id say there are a couple hundred people here with a few dozens more of press. A lot of young people, and a lot of graying liberal-looking folks. CNNs Jeff Greenfield and Bill Schneider are milling around here and there. Some of the late polls show Dean stopping his slide going into the weekend, but having lost a lot of support since Iowa. This mornings ARG poll says the deterioration of his support has ended. When I came in, a Fox News reporter, Major Garrett was doing a live shot, telling his viewers that the Dean spin points to the fact that polls show that they have the highest number of supporters who say theyre sure theyre going to vote for their candidate. Those are the sort of percentages you would have if youd spent the last five days shedding all but your most ardent supporters. One of the peculiarities of this final weekend of reporting is that Dean remains the big story, even as his support falls off and his chances of outright victory in New Hampshire seem to fade. Whether hes on fire or just burning to a cinder, he still has most of the gravity - at least for news coverage. And thats keeping some of the traditional frontrunner scrutiny off him. The chatter among Deans traveling press is that he bottomed out on Thursday - in terms of the mood and size of his crowds, and his as well - and that hes been regaining his footing since then. At the moment Dean is running about a half hour late and Im crouched in amidst a small forest of video-camera-bearing tripods on an elevated platform at the back of the hall. Up on the stage are about eight New Hampshire voters on each side of the stage and four big American flags smack in the center against the back curtain.
Moore said in front of you that President Bush, he was saying hed like to see a debate between you, the General, and President Bush, who he called a deserter. It refers to people in the military who take off with the intent never to come back or who abandon their post at some moment of danger or critical importance. Given that, it seems pretty clear that a charge of desertion doesnt apply. But Jennings seemed to imply that the presidents military record was beyond question. Right after desertion in the Uniform Code of Military Justice article 85 comes the lesser charge of Absence without Leave. And Jennings must know that during the 2000 election there was quite a lot of reporting from in papers like The Boston Globe among others that the president was repeatedly AWOL during the time he served in the Texas Air National Guard in the early 1970s. Nor was calling the president out on this seem as beyond the pale. Just before the 2000 election, referring to a six month period in which Bush failed to show up for required drills because he was off working on a campaign in Alabama, Senator Daniel Inouye said At the least, I would have been court-martialed.
Now, after he started to drift in the polls in the face of Deans surging numbers, all that organizational muscle didnt seem to count for much. But since voters themselves in the state began giving him a second look that organization has played a very important role helping him capitalize on post-Iowa momentum and it seems quite likely to help him harvest those votes very effectively on Tuesday. In short, Kerry had a lot of latent strength in the state even when he seemed dead in the water. And along the lines of establishments and organization, wed all gotten accustomed to thinking that Dean destroyed the Democratic establishment in the Fall when he rocketed ahead of their candidates, developed a new way of fundraising, and bashed them silly for their feeble opposition to the president. Perhaps when he really delivered that establishment a fatal blow was in the winter when he got all of them Gore, Bradley, Carter sorta, Harkin, McGreevey, Kamarck - yes, we saw Elaine, we saw!
Seeing it in person would certainly add something to ones reportage. Generally how it works is this: Youre in a big complex and theres one large hall set aside for the actual debate. In that room you have the candidates, a few of their handlers, the moderator/questioners and the audience. Oftentimes youll have a tiny handful of journalists there too - but only ones from the highest echelon of the elect. Everyone else is in a big room somewhere nearby with a bunch of long school room tables arranged as they might be for an SAT test in high school. And space after space at those tables is occupied by journalists with laptops open, a phone at each station, perhaps some other paraphernalia nearby or a parka, watching the debate on a ...
|
http://csua.com/feed/