Tuesday, February 24, 2004
The Escalation Begins
Bush kicked off his campaign last night with a speech at a fundraiser. How do we know it was the kick off? Because the White House leaked that premise over and over again throughout the weekend. In the end, no one was surprised by the nature of the speech. Personally, I'm more intrigued by the parallel drawn by E. J. Dionne's column in today's Post that postulates how Bush will be attacking Kerry through surrogates just as McCain was savaged in 2000 starting in South Carolina. No matter how you shake it, there's no denying that the general election feel of open combat is starting earlier this year than in any Presidential election in our nation's history.
Nader, Nader, Nader - where should I begin. First of all, his legacy is shot. And the damage done by the 2000 race to the Greens has further marginalized their hopes for Third Party ascendancy. So this year's run appears oddly quixotic - Nader can't hope to win and his quest is downright delusional. Still, ya gotta give the guy some credit for being able to shake the foundation of the Dems. Or rather, that's one reason to question the true strength of what lies beneath any attachment to Kerry or Edwards.
Once again, Edwards has failed to get any bump out of his successful second-place finish in a big contest. With Super Tuesday just one week away, there stands very little chance that he'll find a toehold. The Dems divvy up their delegates by percentages unlike the Republicans - that means Edwards is estimated to need 60% of the remaining votes to beat Kerry in pledged delegates. That won't happen. But it will be interesting to see just how long Edwards will stay in the battle, not to mention how much longer they'll let Kucinich and Sharpton on the stage. After Super Tuesday, March 9th is the last real biggie with Florida and Texas included. If Kerry doesn't have a clear glide path by the 10th, I will eat a serious plateful of crow.
One more inglorious post-mortem on the Dean campaign. It's not a surprise, but the campaign finishes up with around $500K in debt on the books. With most of the staff gone, any fundraising appeals will be especially pathetic. The blog keeps on churning out the outrage and the dream is not dead entirely. But it should be. Wasting through over $50M for about 100 pledged delegates is an absolute disgrace. And everyone knows it.
Bush kicked off his campaign last night with a speech at a fundraiser. How do we know it was the kick off? Because the White House leaked that premise over and over again throughout the weekend. In the end, no one was surprised by the nature of the speech. Personally, I'm more intrigued by the parallel drawn by E. J. Dionne's column in today's Post that postulates how Bush will be attacking Kerry through surrogates just as McCain was savaged in 2000 starting in South Carolina. No matter how you shake it, there's no denying that the general election feel of open combat is starting earlier this year than in any Presidential election in our nation's history.
Nader, Nader, Nader - where should I begin. First of all, his legacy is shot. And the damage done by the 2000 race to the Greens has further marginalized their hopes for Third Party ascendancy. So this year's run appears oddly quixotic - Nader can't hope to win and his quest is downright delusional. Still, ya gotta give the guy some credit for being able to shake the foundation of the Dems. Or rather, that's one reason to question the true strength of what lies beneath any attachment to Kerry or Edwards.
Once again, Edwards has failed to get any bump out of his successful second-place finish in a big contest. With Super Tuesday just one week away, there stands very little chance that he'll find a toehold. The Dems divvy up their delegates by percentages unlike the Republicans - that means Edwards is estimated to need 60% of the remaining votes to beat Kerry in pledged delegates. That won't happen. But it will be interesting to see just how long Edwards will stay in the battle, not to mention how much longer they'll let Kucinich and Sharpton on the stage. After Super Tuesday, March 9th is the last real biggie with Florida and Texas included. If Kerry doesn't have a clear glide path by the 10th, I will eat a serious plateful of crow.
One more inglorious post-mortem on the Dean campaign. It's not a surprise, but the campaign finishes up with around $500K in debt on the books. With most of the staff gone, any fundraising appeals will be especially pathetic. The blog keeps on churning out the outrage and the dream is not dead entirely. But it should be. Wasting through over $50M for about 100 pledged delegates is an absolute disgrace. And everyone knows it.
Comments:
Post a Comment
