Campaign bits

While the pundits and polls rev up to Tuesday's primaries, the Dean campaign's new strategy goes way beyond them. According to Roy Neel, the new campaign manager:

Our goal for the next two and a half weeks is simple—become the last-standing alternative to John Kerry after the Wisconsin primary on February 17.

Why Wisconsin? First, it is a stand-alone primary where we believe we can run very strong. Second, it kicks off a two-week campaign for over 1,100 delegates on March 2, and the shift of the campaign that month to nearly every big state: California, New York, and Ohio on March 2, Texas and Florida on March 9, Illinois on March 16, and Pennsylvania on April 27.
. . .
Has such a strategy ever worked before?

No. It's never been tried.

It's risky, but just about everything about the Dean campaign has been risky. A major theme of the Dean campaign has been: this candidate is different, this campaign is different, and those differences are the evidence proving that, unlike the politics-as-usual candidates, Dean will do everything he can to keep his promises.

Two other campaign developments: First, this report from the Washington Post:

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who has made a fight against corporate special interests a centerpiece of his front-running campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, has raised more money from paid lobbyists than any other senator over the past 15 years, federal records show.

Hmm. Politics as usual, anyone? Kerry's campaign was crashing last fall; he turned it around by turning up the rhetoric and stealing lines and themes from Howard Dean. One of those themes was "fighting special interests." However:

The note of reality is [Kerry] has been brought to you by special interests," said Charles Lewis of the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, a watchdog group that has closely studied the senator's relationship with special interests. "It's very hard [for Kerry] to utter this rhetoric without some hollowness to it."

Will voters agree? Will they appreciate this "hollowness," or will they continue to vote for Kerry as the "safe," default choice? Remember: We went with "safe" Gore in 2000—Democratic primary voters figured Gore was just boring enough not to offend anyone, but her turned out to be so boring he put everyone to sleep. Gore's changed; Kerry is now taking his former role.

The other campaign development comes in the form of a speculation about where the Dean campaign's money went. Thanks to a couple of lines in the NY Times, some are asking if Joe Trippi abused his position for personal gain. The Times wrote:

Tricia Enright, the [Dean] campaign's communications director, said Dr. Dean was forming "a new creative team" to overhaul its television advertisements. She said the campaign was not firing its media firm, in which Mr. Trippi is a partner. Many Dean supporters have been critical of the ad campaign, particularly in Iowa. Some questioned the arrangements by which Mr. Trippi forfeited a salary as a campaign manager but collected commissions — said to be as high as 15 percent in some cases — based on advertising buys.

Something to think about, certainly. The above article was written in part by Jodi Wilgoren, whose coverage of the Dean campaign has been so negative it inspired its own blog to call her on her most egregious slants. Still, since the Dean campaign has relied so heavily on "regular folks" for its financing, it has a special burden to account for how it spends those funds. The campaign has raised nearly $2 million since Iowa, so it doesn't seem like Dean's supporters are too worried about this yet, but it's something the campaign will definitely need to address at some point.

Posted January 31, 2004 06:55 PM | election 2004