Politics Blog

Howard Dean’s Christmas message included no mention of… Christmas!

(Thanks to James Taranto for pointing this out.)

— PoliPundit

According to the Brazilian government, fingerprinting and photographing applicants for US visas is “absolutely brutal, threatening human rights, violating human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis.”

As a recent legal immigrant, I suppose I should be shocked and outraged that BusHitler’s FBI took my photo and fingerprints when I applied for my Green Card. Never mind the fact that I get to live in the greatest country on the planet. How dare they photograph me?

— PoliPundit

The slow holiday news cycle continues. Skip the news and read the Media Research Center’s invaluable media bias primer.

— PoliPundit

The Dean campaign says it’s already raised at least $14 million this quarter (there are still three days left in the quarter.) That should put to rest rumors that Dean was having difficulty matching the previous quarter, when he raised a blowout $14.8 million.

Meanwhile, watch for the dropping shoe I’ve been expecting for several weeks now - Weasel Clark’s fundraising numbers. If the Clark campaign reports the $12 million it expected to raise this quarter, that would instantly make Clark the Stop-Dean candidate.

— PoliPundit

An interesting factoid on presidential job approval ratings:

Polls are useful, but it’s too early to predict a winner, says Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. Bush’s approval in March or April will be a more reliable clue to his staying power, Newport says.

He points out that every incumbent president since Roosevelt who was at 50% approval or higher in April of his election year went on to win. “If Bush is still above 50% in April, a defeat in November would be unprecedented,” Newport says.

The last two presidents who lost their bids for re-election, Carter and the elder Bush, were both at 39% approval in April of the election year.

In March 1968, Johnson’s job approval was 36%, due largely to growing objections to the Vietnam War. He quit the race.

In March 1952, Harry Truman’s approval had been dragged to 25% by the Korean War. Truman won a full term after serving a partial one following Roosevelt’s death, but ended his 1952 re-election campaign after losing the New Hampshire primary.

So, while the president’s job approval ratings today may affect the Democrat primaries, look for the March/April numbers to discern the general election results.

— PoliPundit

Lileks has some useful New Year’s resolutions.

— PoliPundit

Things are getting testy between Gephardt and Dean:

In the style, if not the spirit, of the Christmas season, the Gephardt campaignpenned a letter to the North Pole from President Bush. Dear Santa: “Could you please make sure Howard Dean is the Democratic nominee?” it asked. “I know this is asking a lot, but it would mean so much to me and Dick Cheney and John Ashcroft and, of course, Karl Rove.”

Dean’s elves retaliated in kind, writing a Dickensian exchange that occurs between Gephardt after winning the 1988 Iowa caucus, and the Gephardt of today. In this fictional visit from the ghost of campaigns future, the younger Gephardt is incredulous that his future self has not done better.

“So honestly, in 16 years we’re still a congressman?” 1988 Gephardt asks.

“You lost the House? We had it for 40 years!”

“I’m a perennial loser? This has to be some sort of nightmare. Come on, slap me, I’ll wake up in the West Wing.”

The younger Gephardt continues: “You really stood up to the Republicans, though, right?”

Replies the future Gephardt: “Does going to war count?”

The reason for the increased testiness? If Dean wins Iowa, he’ll have the nomination wrapped up. For someone like Weasel Clark or Dick Gephardt to steal the nomination away from Dean, Gephardt has to stop him in Iowa.

— PoliPundit

Hey, Republicans can vote in the South Carolina Democrat Primary! Get out there and vote for Dean on February 3.

— PoliPundit

I’ve been saying for months now that Weasel Clark is emerging as the most likely anti-Dean candidate. Susan Estrich agrees:

I’ve taken to stuffing myself with meatballs at holiday parties, which beats trying to reassure nervous Democrats about Howard Dean.

Are we committing suicide, they keep asking me. Is this what it was like to be a grown-up during George McGovern’s run? Most Democrats I meet these days, especially those over 35, are worried about the prospects of the presumptive nominee. With reason. In shoe departments, shopping malls and parties across America, a backlash of sorts is brewing.

…

Dean is in no danger in Iowa and New Hampshire, but no one’s going to give him the nomination quite as quickly as they might have. Second matters. Third will count. Look for the process to run a little longer. It’s still his to lose. Someone will emerge as the un-Dean. My guess is Wesley Clark.

You know a party is in trouble when its supposedly-electable alternative for president is a lying insane nutjob who nearly started WW III and was despised by his superiors, peers and subordinates alike.

— PoliPundit

Every time Howard Dean talks campaign strategy, he gets in trouble. His latest campaign-strategy revelation is that he’s going to start emphasizing his faith:

Mr. Dean said he will start mentioning God and Christ as the campaign moves into the South.

Mr. Dean, please stop talking about your campaign strategy. Implement it!

Remember Dean’s testy exchange with Tim Russert on Meet the Press in June? When pressed on the number of active duty US troops, Dean said that he didn’t need to know that information to “win the Democratic primary.”

More recently, Dean got into hot water for saying he wanted to win the votes of “white Southerners with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks.” Then there was the comment about how Southerners should stop voting on “guns, God, and gays.”

Dean should stop talking campaign strategy with reporters. He should just implement the strategy by harping on his “enduring faith” (never mind the fact that he left the Episcopalian church over a bike path) and let reporters look crass and cynical for suggesting that he even has a campaign strategy of emphasizing his faith.

— PoliPundit