Howard Dean gives Hillary a little nudge

Here's the new front page of the DNC. Howard Dean is not exactly known as a man of subtlety.

Scapegoating Dean

Howard Dean comes from outside of Washington. He's never been that close to Washington culture; he doesn't have a ton of contacts that owe him favors or go to all the cocktail parties there, and the Washington political and media elite don't consider Dean to be one of them. He goes home on the weekends and stays in a hotel while he's in DC. The Clintons don't particularly like Howard Dean, partly because they've never been close or worked in the same circles, partly because of significantly differing ideologies of how to manage a national party, and partly because Dean did something completely unexpected from a DNC chair when two big, swaggering, powerful swing states decided to flout the universally accepted party rules and cut to the front of the line: he put his foot down, and hasn't budged since. He doesn't even try to contact their party heads to stroke their egos or listen to their whining.

Curiously, Adam Nagourney and The NY Times think this is a bad thing.

Howard Dean beats Mark Penn

Yesterday I talked a little bit about Hillary Clinton's big state strategy, whereby she's ceded lots of small states to Obama to focus primarily on the "big" prizes and hoping that they put her over the top. Today we're seeing this strategy bleed over into the rhetorical side of the campaign, which you generally don't want to happen.

Allow me to illustrate. This morning MSNBC let us in on this gem from Clinton's unionbusting campaign architect Mark Penn:

“Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn't won any of the significant states -- outside of Illinois?”

Wow, thanks Mark! Myself and the other tens of millions of people living between Nevada and Virginia will just file that away with all those coastal elitist jokes about "flyover country!"

Other campaign spokespeople have been dismissing many of Obama's wins because they were in caucuses. From the Boston Globe:

But Clinton will not concede the race to Obama if he wins a greater number of pledged delegates by the end of the primary season, and will count on the 796 elected officials and party bigwigs to put her over the top, if necessary, said Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson.

"I want to be clear about the fact that neither campaign is in a position to win this nomination without the support of the votes of the superdelegates,'' Wolfson told reporters in a conference call.

"We don't make distinctions between delegates chosen by million of voters in a primary and those chosen between tens of thousands in caucuses,'' Wolfson said. "And we don't make distinctions when it comes to elected officials'' who vote as superdelegates at the convention. [emphasis mine]

Of course, it's primarily small, western states that hold caucuses, and Obama has swept all but one at this point. Interestingly, it's also small western states that have seen the most drift toward the Democratic party in the last 8 years. Montana elected a Dem governor, a Dem Senator, and turned over one of their statehouses. Colorado has done the same, and is likely to flip the second senator this year. Idaho nearly flipped one of its two House seats in '06, and Wyoming came within a handful of votes of doing the same thing with its one lonely seat. New Mexico, a caucus state that will probably go for Clinton, has a Hispanic Dem governor, voted for Bill and for Al and also has a red Senate seat that's likely to flip blue. Iowa and Missouri went for Bill as well (Missouri is considered especially important in presidential races), and Missouri has flipped a senate seat and may flip their governor this year. Even Arizona, John McCain's homestate, flipped a House seat or two and has a governor who's not only a Democrat but a woman, Janet Napolitano (there's also a woman Democratic governor in Kansas).

Needless to say, small western states have proven themselves to be plenty "significant" in the makeup of Congress and even in presidential elections, even the ones with caucuses. Moreover, candidates up and down the ticket are connected to each other and to the party as a whole; when a presidential candidate shows up in a congressional district, it generally boosts the party's congressional/Senate/local candidate, too, and a solidly built and funded party office will help elect Democrats to the school board and the presidency alike. Nevertheless, the penny wise, pound foolish strategy of ceding entire regions of the country to the other side has been a staple of Democratic groupthink for decades. Remember how crazy Howard Dean was for advocating a "50 state strategy?" In May '05 on CNN, for instance, Paul Begala said about Dean's strategy of, ya know, actually contesting elections in red states:

He has raised $74 million and spent $64 million. He says it's a long-term strategy. But what he has spent it on, apparently, is just hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose. That's not how you build a party. You win elections. That's how you build a party.

In the next election, Democrats gained 31 House seats and 6 Senate seats, including House seats in North Carolina, Kentucky, Texas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, and Nevada, plus 3 of Indiana's 9 House seats and Senate seats in Montana, Virginia, Missouri, and Ohio.

The Clinton strategy is a perfect representation of so many previous Democratic candidates' strategies, and perfectly illustrates how they managed to lose elections they should have won. How can a Democrat win almost every big state, California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Florida, and Michigan, and still lose, Mark Penn asks? Hell, just ask Al Gore and John Kerry.

it's NOT because she's a woman

Joan Walsh at Salon mentions this ridiculous defense of Clinton, this attempt to frame Tuesday's debate as men beating up on a woman, and ultimately rejects it. I agree with her (obviously). Alternatively, there's a lot of dissing Obama et al. for insinuating that Clinton "played the gender card," as well, but I think they're wrong as well.

This is a very stupid time for Hillary's campaign and supporters to play the gender card (and yes, Mark Penn, her campaign manager, most certainly played the card, and coincidentally on the same day as her speech about the "all-boys' club" of Washington politics), because it's patently bullshit here. The other candidates piled on her for one reason, and one reason alone: she is winning. They're not scared of a woman running the government, they're scared of themselves not winning. This is not a difficult concept to grasp. How many people would have found it appropriate for Obama, if it were him instead, to play the race card as soon as he got attacked?

And as far as li'l Russ goes, yes, yes he did lay an ambush for Hillary. Yes, he was gunning for her and not the other candidates. No, it wasn't very professional, and yes, he is a douchebag for doing it, but there's a much simpler, more obvious explanation than sexism or anti-Hillaryism for why he targetted Clinton yesterday: ratings. Russ is moderating the 827th Democratic debate on the the least-watched cable news channel in a Democratic primary that's looking increasingly like a cage match between Bruce Lee and Dr. Stephen Hawking; he needed to up the ante here to get some people talking about this one. Meanwhile, Obama's been promising all week that he'll finally start bringing in the heavy artillery, giving Russ a shot to draw out some real fireworks from the candidates, so he does what any irresponsible, ratings-driven pundit would do: he eggs them on.

There's nothing new about this: the primary candidates and media ganged up on Howard Dean just as badly (even worse, in my opinion) once he threatened to sow up the nomination before they'd gotten enough of their precious horse race. Again, it didn't hurt that they actually didn't like him, either, but this is business. And more importantly for this post, it worked. So why wouldn't they try it again?

And look, as far as I'm concerned, a lot of the criticisms leveled at her were absolutely accurate and deserving. The ambush by Russert is thus, in a way, irrelevant, because Obama, Edwards, and Dodd walked into the room intending to beat up on her, and they would have no matter what Russert had asked.

the importance of Iowa

A lot of people who are pinning their hopes on Edwards/Obama/whoever to pull the nomination out from under Hillary Clinton point to Dean's historic meltdown in the week before the 2004 Iowa Caucus. So I was wondering: how much does Iowa matter, and what tea leaves are there from Iowa 2004 to read for today?

First, let's look at the Dean meltdown itself. Here's the point at which Kerry pulled ahead in Iowa (January 14th). It really is an epic flameout when you look at the numbers; Dean went from 10-point frontrunner to 5-point underdog in 1 week. That being said, Dean was only the favorite in Iowa for a short time, having pulled ahead of Gephardt sometime in November or December.

Now, check this out, the NH numbers according to ARG around the time of the Iowa Caucus. On January 3, Dean has 39% support to Kerry's 14%. By the 17th, that number has dipped to 28%, nearly the entirety of the difference flowing to Kerry over the next couple of days to 19% (after a dip to 10%). Closer, but Dean's still clearly ahead 28-19%. Dean's numbers hold steady until the 19th, the day of the Iowa Caucus, after which they drop a breathtaking 12 points in 5 days, with nearly the entire difference going to Kerry. By the 24th, Kerry led Dean 38-16%.

So yeah, Iowa matters. It wouldn't be the first time the cornfed kingmakers lifted a moribund campaign to instant anointed frontrunner status. And it is easy to forget how moribund the Kerry campaign appeared: I distinctly remember Jay Leno telling a joke in late 2003 about how the Kerry campaign was "on life support."

However, looking at national polls, Dean even in his heyday never commanded nearly the numbers of Clinton. This particular poll, from Dec. 2003, only gives Dean 23% to everyone else's 10%-- over 50% were still undecided. Comparatively, Clinton currently polls in the forties, and one poll had her poking over 50%.

Furthermore, the '04 candidates were far less charitable to the front-runner than Obama and Edwards are to Clinton. Dean joked about how he knew he was ahead because he was picking so much buckshot from his backside. He was treated as an outsider from the very beginning, a rabble-rousing yokel from out of town who just didn't know how things are done. Kerry and Lieberman let him have it frequently, and Gephardt burned his entire warchest in a knock-down drag-out in Iowa that drove up Dean's negatives in that state and may have won the caucus for Kerry.

In fact, I have heard rumors from people on the ground in Iowa at the time that Gephardt saw the writing on the wall and intentionally immolated himself killing Dean for Kerry's sake. It would explain this rather strange moment in the middle of the campaign:

In December, Mr. Kerry, in an unguarded moment, did not hesitate when asked whom he would support if he were not in the race: ''Gephardt.'' Similarly, Mr. Gephardt did not hesitate when he was eliminated from the Democratic race the night of the Iowa caucuses to say whom he would support.

Perhaps it is still early, but Clinton has no Gephardt at this point willing to empty his clip on her, no DLC working to undermine her, and no Kerry or Lieberman legitimizing her attackers.

Yes, it is true that Dean didn't start his descent until January of '04, and yes it is true that he dropped some 25 points over 3 weeks, and a similar drop from Hillary would be enough for Obama or Edwards to run away with it. However, Dean was working under far more adverse circumstances than Clinton and never had a lead as large as hers. So I'm not saying such a comeback is impossible in '08; I just don't see a mass exodus away from Hillary like what happened to Dean.

Then again, I didn't see USC dropping one to Stanford, either, so what do I know?