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 06:55 PM | Comments (1) | election 2004

Grade Explosion

Glorfindel of Gondolin dares to post his 1L grades—and gets kicked around for it in the comments. Yikes.

One of the more thoughtful commenters writes:

I've always considered that grades in law school (or any school) are like salaries at an office. You can bitch about them, talk about them in vague terms, but it's just impolite to talk about them. Why? Because the next guy might be doing the same job, just as well, but getting less money (for whatever reason). It's not fair, it's life, and it's polite just to leave that stuff off limits.

But see, this is the problem. So long as we keep salaries and grades secret, relegated to the realm of the "impolite" and the "personal," they'll retain their power over us. The issue of talking about income is the best example: We try to pretend that how much money we make doesn't matter, that we live in a classless society, that we're all middle class, etc. But rather than helping smooth social differences or improve our society in some other way, this willed ignorance about the huge income inequalities in the U.S. simply acts as a screen to hide the brutal effects of those inequalities from our collective "middle class" consciousness. We don't need to worry about poor people, because we're all middle class, right? And so long as we make sure we don't talk about income, we can also be sure our little "middle class" fantasy remains intact. Yay.

Grades work a little differently, I think, but they do seem to be much more powerful and influential as dark secrets we hide than they would be as bits of information we openly share. I suspect that the people who most fiercely refuse to discuss grades are those to whom they mean the most, either because those people have really high or really low grades, and either very proud or very ashamed of those grades. As with income, so with grades—the people on the extremes fear they have something to hide. If you have top grades, you don't want to tell because you're afraid people will think you're bragging, or that people will expect more from you, or that people will be afraid of you or more competitive with you or whatever. If you have bottom grades, you don't want to tell because you're afraid people will think you're stupid, they won't want to talk with you or study with you, they'll be unable to take anything you say seriously, etc.

But imagine a scenario where everyone gets their grades and then freely discusses them. Wouldn't that drain all the power from those little symbols? Wouldn't that show the world that grades are just stupid letters? Wouldn't that make law students collectively seem much smarter, much more mature, much more wise, showing that they understand that those letters have a huge arbitrary component and exist for one rotten thing only, namely, to divide law students into different brackets for employers to choose from? And most of all, wouldn't it show all those people on the top and bottom that nobody really cares half as much about their grades as they do?

Maybe. Maybe not. But after the rhetorical trouncing Carey got for publishing his grades, I'm less optimistic that people are ready to give it a try.

Posted 05:19 AM | Comments (10) | law school

Dean Machine Retooling

One way to describe Roy Neel, Dean's new campaign manager, is as "something of an old hand", but another way is simply "Washington Insider." It's that latter description that has some people ready to give up on Dean (cf, David Corn), and while jumping the "dis-endorsing" wagon might seem tempting, I'll let the option pass, joining other Dean supporters who are accepting the changes "wistfully":

"People working for the Dean campaign might be somewhat demoralized that he picked this Washington insider," [anderbilt University professor Bruce] Barry said, "but they might be energized by the fact that he's reinvented his campaign. He's not standing still."

The L.A. Times provides a few more details on the staff change, and the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz rounds up a bit of the reaction to the change, while the Daily Kos thread on the subject generated more than 400 comments from all over the map.

In Dean's new strategy, it appears he'll largely be skipping the Feb. 3 races, hoping to get wins in Washington, Michigan, and Wisconsin, instead. (Does it make any difference that the Detroit Free Press appears to have endorsed Kerry?) It appears the Dean money advantage is more or less gone, but the campaign took in over $250,000 Wednesday alone in online donations. According to Blog for America:

This race is about the next seven weeks, not the next seven states. We will not let the pundits call this race, the people will, and that means this race comes down to winning delegates. Today, Howard Dean is winning the nomination fight with 114 of the delegates.

We are set to win the nomination because we have two things our opponents don't have and cannot build in the next six weeks:

1) Over 620,000 people who have invested their time and money into our campaign and who if anything are recommitted after Iowa and New Hampshire.

2) The ability to replenish. We raised $2.2 million since the Iowa Caucuses, including more than $480,000 raised online since the New Hampshire Primary.

And perhaps more important is the media's ongoing fascination with the Dean campaign:

John Kerry may be the front-runner, political analysts say, but Dean is the story.

Walter Shapiro agrees. Why the fascination? Because Dean is different. He's a different candidate who has run a different campaign. And that difference, as Martha used to say, is a good thing. The media attention can be a less good thing, but it may prove ok in the end. The major networks are now admitting that they blew "the scream" way out of proportion.

The Democratic establishment is loving Kerry right now—even Clinton is saying positive things about Kerry today, although he didn't give a formal endorsement. But the question voters should ask remains: What has the Democratic establishment produced in the last four years? Nada.

So Switch to Dean (it's cheaper than switching to a Mac and, difficult as it might be to imagine, the payback will be even greater).

Posted 05:11 AM | election 2004

Thank you, Joe Trippi!

The big news on the Dean campaign trail today:

Campaign manager Joe Trippi resigned after Dean promoted Roy Neel, a longtime aide to former vice president Al Gore, to chief executive officer. Trippi had been credited with organizing the 2003 drive that brought the former Vermont governor from obscurity to a temporary position atop the polls.

Although I have mixed feelings about Trippi leaving (especially considering his replacement is the consummate "Washington insider"), but one thing is certain: For the past year, Trippi has been the most important person in the campaign besides Dean himself, and America owes him a great deal of thanks for having the faith and vision to plant and grow a real, decentralized, grassroots campaign. Chris Lydon (whose reaction to NH is brilliant: "In his confused reiterations, his no-apology apologies about an unpopular war in Iraq, Kerry has conceded a point to Dean, not won one.") interviewed Trippi back in November and that interview captures Trippi's brilliant vision. Trippi may be out of this campaign, but his vision need not die, nor has it been discredited. It almost worked, and what it started may work yet. There's still time, and hope.

Of course, Dean has a lot of work to do. The campaign is saying it has to win at least one state to stay viable, so it's focusing on the "delegate-rich states most likely to determine this year's Democratic presidential nominee": Michigan, Washington, Wisconsin, Missouri, South Carolina, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Some Dean supporters have taken the first week of voting especially hard, saying things like they'd rather vote Bush than Kerry, or not vote at all if Dean doesn't win. I do hope these people will eventually come around to see that even Kerry would be much better for them and our world's future than Bush. But while it may be fun to mock the disappointment of "Deaniacs" right now, it seems only fair to point out that Dean has done more than anyone in this race to bring new people into the electoral process. This means a certain percentage of his supporters only care about this election because of him -- many of them have never voted before, or not in a long time. I suspect it's mostly those political neophytes who are packing up the toys. Dean has inspired people, but it's too much to ask for him and his campaign to also have taught them -- in such a short time -- how the political roller-coaster works and why they need not tear out their hair just because he hasn't won the first two contests (and may not win the nomination). Still, fun as it is, rather than ridicule these people, I think we ought to be concerned about them. If Dean doesn't win (and I still have hope he can), we may end up with an even more cynical, embittered, and apathetic electorate than we started with, and that won't be good for anyone (except, of course, G.W. Bush, and since he's not good for anyone but corporations, that's not really an exception with any meaning).

Thanks largely to Trippi, Dean's campaign has become a movement, and I hope, whatever happens, that movement will live on somehow so that all the energy and talent and passion that has taken Dean so far can continue to lead the Democratic party and/or America more generally in positive, more hopeful, more socially just directions.

Posted 06:39 AM | Comments (1) | election 2004

SCOTUS Humpty Dumpty

After overdosing on Democratic primary news recently, we now return to our regularly scheduled programming, which, at the moment, is a memo in support of a post-trial motion to acquit on charges of using a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.

In U.S. v. Sumler, 294 F.3d 579, 583 (3d Cir. 2002), the court is discussing what it means to "use" a firearm in connection with 18 U.S.C.S. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i). Specifically, can a person "use" a firearm when that person receives the firearm as payment for drugs? (The SCOTUS has settled the question of whether giving a gun in exchange for drugs is "use," but the circuits are split on the question of receiving.) Eventually, this court says "yes, receiving a gun as payment for drugs is 'use' for purposes of this statute," but along the way it has to respond to the counter-argument that "there  is no grammatically correct way to express that a person receiving a payment is thereby 'using' the payment." United States v. Westmoreland, 122 F.3d (7th Cir. 1997). To this the Sumler court says:

Although we grant legitimacy to that argument, we cannot evade the brute fact that the Supreme Court in both Bailey and Smith explained that the word "use" means "barter." We recall Judge Learned Hand's admonition, "but it is one of the surest indexes of a mature and developed jurisprudence not to make a fortress out of the dictionary . . . . " Cabel v. Markham, 148 F.2d 737, 739 (2d Cir. 1945). Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass stated it best when he said, "When I use a word . . . it means just what I choose it to mean neither more nor less." L. Carroll, Through the Looking Glass & What Alice Found There 124, reprinted in Journeys in Wonderland (Derrydale 1979). We too are not free to ignore a dictated definition.

The Third Circuit just compared the Supreme Court to Humpty Dumpty! I'm loving that.

Posted 07:05 AM | law general law school

Thanks, NH

Congratulations to John Kerry, but also to Howard Dean who came back from a pretty serious pummeling to take a strong second. You gotta love this: The only thing positive the AP can find to say about Dean is that he kept his cool after his "loss." That takes for granted that he somehow lost his cool sometime, but I'll leave that argument for the history books. I predict it won't be more than a year or two before we see the books analyzing what happened in the 2004 primaries, and regardless of who wins, when the dust settles even Dean's staunchest critics will be forced to admit that the media's treatment of Dean in the last week was among the least professional, most sensational, and most unfair coverage of a presidential candidate of this race.

Is Dean angry? Brent Simmons and his many readers offer a great discussion of that question with opinions from all sides [link via Scripting News.] Why haven't we seen more thoughtful analysis like this in the mainstream media?

But like I said, it's time to move forward. Dean still leads in delegates and the next few weeks promise many more opportunities for voters around the country to choose who they want to be the next President. Another plus: Bush remains under pressure over the fact that Iraq was not an imminent threat when Bush went to war.

The conventional wisdom is that Kerry's got the best chance to beat Bush. Although I don't understand why people think that, if it turns out to be true -- if Kerry gets the nomination and then wins the White House -- I'll be fairly glad to be proven wrong. My hope has been, and remains, that in Dean we have a candidate who can both beat Bush and really start fixing the things that are broken in American politics. If beating Bush is all we can get, I'll take that, sure; but I still hope for more.

Posted 06:54 AM | Comments (2) | election 2004

An open letter to voters:

This is what a U.S. President ought to sound like:

I'm a doctor, and I was proud to be governor of Vermont, where we balanced our budgets, where we made sure every single child in our state had health insurance, where we are proud to be stewards of our natural resources, where we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all are created equal, that all are endowed with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And where we, like all Americans, love our country and want our flag to stand for freedom and justice for all. And where our flag is not the property of either party, that flag belongs to every single American.

We seek the Great Restoration Of American Values. I'm tired of being divided. I don't want to listen to the fundamentalist preachers anymore. I want an America that looks like America, where we're all included, hand in hand, black and white, gay and straight, man and woman. America! Stand up for America!

We seek to build a community of millions. And strengthen the voice of our people. And like the founders of the Republic, we seek change. I ask all Americans, regardless of party, to meet with me across this nation to come together in common cause to forge a new American century. Help us in the quest for a return to greatness and a return to high moral purpose to the United States Of America.

The truth is, the future of our country lies in your hands not mine. You have the power to reclaim our nation's destiny. You have the power to rid Washington of the politics of money. You have the power to make right just as important as might. You have the power to give America a reason to vote again. You have the power to restore our nation to fiscal sanity and bring jobs back to our people. You have the power to take back the Democratic party. You have the power to take our country back. And you have the power to take the White House back in 2004. You have the power!

Download the remix. Read the speech. Think. Does that sound like the usual empty rhetoric you usually hear from politicians? Are you happy with what professional politicians have been doing with your money and your country in recent decades?

Listen. Read. Think. Vote. Use your power.

Thank you.

Note: As mentioned below, Musclehead also quoted from this remix in a post yesterday, and I originally saw some of these lyrics printed in a comment on Blog for America.

Posted 06:57 AM | election 2004

From the Frothy Lips

Musclehead, who beat me to the next post about the "Faulkner Remix", has been thinking out loud a little about Howard Dean. It's nice when people acknowledge the quality and value of Dean's message, but it's incredible to hear the news recently with so many people saying things like this: "I like what Dean has to say and the fact that he breathed life back into a Democratic party that seemed to be in something like a terminal coma, but now that all the candidates have adopted his best ideas, I'm supporting Kerry (or Edwards)."

How does that work? Why? Dean's got the best message, but we're going to vote for someone else?

Dean's message is the antidote to the politics of the last 25 or 30 years where citizens have been reduced to passive recipients of a "message" and where the only thing that's asked of them is a check and a vote. Kerry's asking people to be consumers—to consume his campaign, just like they consume their fast food dinner and their new outfit from the mall. A campaign like Kerry's offers absolutely nothing new, nothing that we haven't seen a dozen times before in Democratic campaigns. Dean, on the other hand, is all about making a new start, doing things differently, better. Dean's asking people to stand up, to work for change, to make things happen for themselves. Is that what people are afraid of? Do people support someone like Kerry because he says nice things but asks nothing from them other than for their vote (and maybe some cash)?

I don't know. But I do know that not all of Dean's supporters tend to shoot from the "frothy lips," and neither does Dean (at least not all the time). The Dean tent has never included only "Bush-bashers" or "radicals"; there's always been and there remains an abundance of room for the many moderates and centrists out there. Read the Blog for America comments and you'll see a lot of this, especially recently.

Here's a theory: So long as Democrats shy away from the passion and the vigorous activism that many of Dean's supporters have shown in this campaign, the Democrats will lose to those who have embraced passion and who have far more money and resources than Democrats -- the Republican far right and corporate America.

Just a theory...

Posted 06:53 AM | Comments (2) | election 2004

The Day Before NH

Today is a Snow Day here in D.C. and it would be hard for me to be more pleased since I spent too much time this weekend watching the news that wasn't, and too little time writing the brief that isn't. (If anyone wants to send me a nice, tidy, post-trial motion to acquit on charges of "using" guns in connection with a drug trafficking crime after the D accepted a gun as payment for marijuana, just let me know.)

In 36-40 hours, we should know what NH voters think of the Democratic candidates, and that may or may not mean much for what happens next week in the overall race. In their most recent poll (released this morning) Zogby's calling it a statistical dead heat between Kerry and Dean (more info), while yesterday's polls show wider margins.

Of course, NH is supposedly "the graveyard of pollsters," so who knows? Whatever happens, the Repubs are looking forward to running against a "liberal, liberal, liberal." It's telling that Republicans say that Lieberman would be the biggest threat to Bush; they're just spinning. Most of the 2002 Dems took the Lieberman "centrist" approach and were beaten soundly. If it comes down to Kerry, he'll lose for the same reasons Gore lost—he's easy to lock up in a "boring liberal" box. If it comes down to Edwards, he'll have a challenge to stay out of the "eager and energetic but too young and inexperienced" box. And, of course, if it comes down to Dean they're already trying to lock him into the "angry and unpresidential" box, but that's the becoming a huge strength for Dean: If he beats that rap with a comeback in the next few weeks, the Republicans will have to come up with a new weapon against him because the "angry" one will be pretty well defused.

Bush got into the act yesterday with jabs along the above lines at both Dean and Kerry. About "the speech," Bush said:

Boy that speech in Iowa was something else," a guest at the no-media-allowed Alfalfa Club dinner Saturday quoted Bush as saying, The Washington Post reported.

"Talk about shock and awe. Saddam Hussein felt so bad for Governor Dean that he offered him his hole."

Ha ha ha. Very nice. Of course, if the Dems compared Bush to Saddam in this way, we'd probably hear indignant outrage from the Right, but whatever. Bush wasn't finished:

Then we have Senator (John) Kerry. I think Kerry's position on the war in Iraq (news - web sites) is politically brilliant. In New Hampshire yesterday, he stated he had voted for the war, adding that he was strongly opposed to it," Bush reportedly said.

At least Bush is sticking to the facts on this one. I saw an interview yesterday where Ted Kennedy tried to explain how he could support Kerry, despite the fact that Kerry voted for the most recent Iraq war, while Kennedy has been staunchly against it. Kennedy said that he and Kerry were actually of like mind about the war, they just voted differently. Hmm. And that makes sense how?

But the Republican's can also attack Kerry for other reasons, including the fact that he's got a seriously questionable record on important votes, including the fact that in 2003 he only managed to be present for 28% of his Senate votes. Wow, that's certainly the record of a dedicated representative. Not. But he can ice-skate, windsurf, and ride a Harley, so who cares about his record, right?

I think the Washington Post's John Harris sums up the last week pretty well when he writes:

Tuesday's vote has come down to a classic contest of novelty vs. convention.

It's exactly what Dean has been saying for the last year. Now the question is: Will primary voters (the "base" of the party) give general election voters a candidate they can be excited about and find a reason to vote for (Dean) or a candidate who will bore them to death and encourage them just to continue their pattern of not voting (Kerry)?

Dave Winer has been making some great comments on the media circus, the Democratic primaries and the, Dean campaign. See most of Saturday's posts, and several of yesterday's, including this gem:

Watching Tim Russert interview Wesley Clark this morning, it occurred to me how dysfunctional the system is. I saw the Great Dean Scream another dozen times. I heard the chief of the Democratic Party asked if he thought it was the end of the Dean campaign and he said the obvious -- it wasn't, and it should't be. Then they asked if Clark had screwed up by letting Michael Moore call the President a deserter. Later Russert repeatedly asked Clark to denounce Moore for saying that, but he wouldn't. The system is so perverse that Clark just danced instead of coming out and saying the obvious, yes, he's President, and yes, he got elected without his character getting the kind of examination the Democrats are getting. "So Tim, let's turn it around," Clark might have said, "Why didn't you grill Bush on that during the 2000 election? How did he become President without that getting vetted?" I might go further and wonder how he got the nomination without his military service being fully examined. And then to nail it, ask Tim to play the Dean Scream a few more times. (I'm starting to like it.) If the Republicans cry bloody murder, let's go back and figure out who painted Dean with "angry" label. Yeah, it was the Republicans, in case you were wondering.

With brilliant concision, Winer hits the nail on the head. We need candidates who approach the media with precisely this sort of aggressive quick thinking that turns their questions right back on their hypocrisy and failures—not to pick on the media, but to force them to do a better job, for all our sakes.

(BTW, I also saw that Russert interview with Terry McAuliffe and I was glad to see him standing firm on the fact that Bush went AWOL in 1972 when he simply didn't show up for a year of Air National Guard service. Maybe "deserter" is the wrong term; I don't know. What would be more appropriate?)

Posted 07:05 AM | Comments (2) | election 2004