Saturday, January 31, 2004
At Least the Spending Wasn't "Gi-normous"
The LA Times has yet another story this morning about the lost fortunes of the Dean campaign (LINK). In it, National Chairman Steve Grossman is quoted as reflecting on the spending in Iowa and New Hampshire in the following way - "enormous, and you can emphasize 'enormous.' " From a well-placed source on the finance side of the campaign, the article dishes out limited skinny on just where the spending went. Case in point (and one of the things I found most ridiculous in NH last week), the Campaign made 75,000 VHS copies of the Diane Sawyer interview to be passed out door-to-door and at rallies. I ask any rational adult to consider just how many of those tapes ended up going straight in the garbage - half, 3/4ths, more? I talked to some in-your-face Deaniacs handing out copies at the Kerry event I saw on Monday and they told me they'd heard that 80,000 to 100,000 had been distributed statewide. It just all anecdotally drives home the fact that I continually saw very-young, very-untested people handling the distribution of resources that were made to seem limitless. And even with all the advance ad spending invested in the Super 7 States and beyond ($3M, according to the LA Times piece), that money's now been sacrificed and replaced with a strategy focusing on Michigan and Washington state. So much for running a "50 State Campaign," eh?
One other major shift in the national reporting on the changing landscape in the Democratic race is the way Kerry's getting re-examined on a host of hostile levels. If he can let it ride until next Tuesday and run the table, it may not matter with regard to the nomination. But this is just the start of the mud to be slung his way, both deservedly and otherwise. Also, there's a piece in the NYTimes about Edwards beginnings as a trial lawyer (LINK). I'd heard the story of Edwards "channeling" the thoughts of an unborn baby girl in his closing arguments - it came from a very-Republican and very-well-informed friend of my in-laws which I took with a grain of salt at the time. That friend was obviously spot-on. When it is re-told here with other references to Edwards' successes the glaring size of his Achilles Heel is pretty imposing.
There's another story just up on the NYTimes website, so the assumption has to be that it will be in the dead-tree edition tomorrow (LINK). For the first time that I've seen, it itemizes just how scripted Dean's "I Have a Scream" speech was. But more importantly, it details rather well just how the competing camps of Vermont and DC advisors pulled the Campaign in dually expensive and often contradictory directions. Jodi Wilgoren gives the best brief history of the Dean ascendency and subsequent fall back to Earth that I've seen thus far.
With Super Bowl Sunday prepped to roll over us all tomorrow, few aside from the Kool Aid junkies out there will be paying much attention to Dean's "Meet the Press" interview tomorrow. From Milwaukee, no less! My home State, my Candidate, my Favorite Talking Head Show. The last (and only) time Dean appeared as a candidate with Tim Russert (the BEST in his business, besides the incomparable Brian Lamb on C-SPAN), the results were ugly. Not to most Dean supporters, of course. I fully expect a round of questioning equally challenging and perplexing as those Dean endured this Summer. My personal fave - how many active duty U.S. Military personnel (were) there at that time. My wife had to endure me screaming 1.4 million at the screen then in hopes of Dean pulling out of his arrogant tailspin in reaction to not knowing the answer. Thankfully, she'll be at work at the hospital tomorrow morning, lest she have to endure any similar rants on my part. Anyhoo, expect the pre-Russert tailgating to start early in my little section of the Nation's parking lot tomorrow morning. The brats come later in the day, the political red meat will be served up first.
The LA Times has yet another story this morning about the lost fortunes of the Dean campaign (LINK). In it, National Chairman Steve Grossman is quoted as reflecting on the spending in Iowa and New Hampshire in the following way - "enormous, and you can emphasize 'enormous.' " From a well-placed source on the finance side of the campaign, the article dishes out limited skinny on just where the spending went. Case in point (and one of the things I found most ridiculous in NH last week), the Campaign made 75,000 VHS copies of the Diane Sawyer interview to be passed out door-to-door and at rallies. I ask any rational adult to consider just how many of those tapes ended up going straight in the garbage - half, 3/4ths, more? I talked to some in-your-face Deaniacs handing out copies at the Kerry event I saw on Monday and they told me they'd heard that 80,000 to 100,000 had been distributed statewide. It just all anecdotally drives home the fact that I continually saw very-young, very-untested people handling the distribution of resources that were made to seem limitless. And even with all the advance ad spending invested in the Super 7 States and beyond ($3M, according to the LA Times piece), that money's now been sacrificed and replaced with a strategy focusing on Michigan and Washington state. So much for running a "50 State Campaign," eh?
One other major shift in the national reporting on the changing landscape in the Democratic race is the way Kerry's getting re-examined on a host of hostile levels. If he can let it ride until next Tuesday and run the table, it may not matter with regard to the nomination. But this is just the start of the mud to be slung his way, both deservedly and otherwise. Also, there's a piece in the NYTimes about Edwards beginnings as a trial lawyer (LINK). I'd heard the story of Edwards "channeling" the thoughts of an unborn baby girl in his closing arguments - it came from a very-Republican and very-well-informed friend of my in-laws which I took with a grain of salt at the time. That friend was obviously spot-on. When it is re-told here with other references to Edwards' successes the glaring size of his Achilles Heel is pretty imposing.
There's another story just up on the NYTimes website, so the assumption has to be that it will be in the dead-tree edition tomorrow (LINK). For the first time that I've seen, it itemizes just how scripted Dean's "I Have a Scream" speech was. But more importantly, it details rather well just how the competing camps of Vermont and DC advisors pulled the Campaign in dually expensive and often contradictory directions. Jodi Wilgoren gives the best brief history of the Dean ascendency and subsequent fall back to Earth that I've seen thus far.
With Super Bowl Sunday prepped to roll over us all tomorrow, few aside from the Kool Aid junkies out there will be paying much attention to Dean's "Meet the Press" interview tomorrow. From Milwaukee, no less! My home State, my Candidate, my Favorite Talking Head Show. The last (and only) time Dean appeared as a candidate with Tim Russert (the BEST in his business, besides the incomparable Brian Lamb on C-SPAN), the results were ugly. Not to most Dean supporters, of course. I fully expect a round of questioning equally challenging and perplexing as those Dean endured this Summer. My personal fave - how many active duty U.S. Military personnel (were) there at that time. My wife had to endure me screaming 1.4 million at the screen then in hopes of Dean pulling out of his arrogant tailspin in reaction to not knowing the answer. Thankfully, she'll be at work at the hospital tomorrow morning, lest she have to endure any similar rants on my part. Anyhoo, expect the pre-Russert tailgating to start early in my little section of the Nation's parking lot tomorrow morning. The brats come later in the day, the political red meat will be served up first.
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