Kos, Jerome and the Dean denial

First off, I think Howard is doing a good job as DNC chair and I am glad he the chair instead of Roemer or Vilsack. Just so you don't think I have an irrational hatred of Dean.

However, HoHo did himself in in 2004. Kos and Jerome in their new book seem to believe that it was the DLC and its allies that killed Dean. Not true. The DLC certainly called Dean names, and saw his rhetoric as dangerous for the party's chances in 2004, but if they are really as trival and on the downswing that Kose et al say they are, how could they take down a major presidential candidate.

The fact is, Dean blew millions on infomercials in Wisconsin, PR events in central park, and on Trippi's old ad firm itself. In December of 2003, the Dean campaign was focusing on getting endorcements from folks like Al Gore and Jimmy Carter. The burn rate of the campaign was amazing. Dean had thousands of his grassroots supporters, mostly from ultra-liberal, storm Iowa with with fancy hats and scarves and it backfired. Iowans got really annoyed with all the handwriten letters, the calls, the out of staters telling them how to vote. Meanwhile, Kerry had hired the best Iowa organzier in the early days of 2003, had locked up Ted Kennedy's endorsement and took out a mortgage on his house to barnstorm with Kennedy around Iowa. Edwards gave the same speech over and over again in small crowds of Iowans and agreed to a devils bargin with the Kucinich folks to insure an inflated result.

Meanwhile, Dean ran negative ad after negative ad against Dick Gephardt. Man, even typing that name makes me laugh, what a joke of a candidate. Gephardt's allies, not the DLC's, did a soft money ad comparing Dean to Osama. While Dean's campaign was wasting money, time, and effort on the wrong things, Kerry and Edwards focused on organizing reliable caucus goers.

And guess how they finished: Kerry, Edwards, Dean, Gephardt. THAT is what killed Dean, not replaying his crazy scream speech over 600 times.
Kerry had the entire Mass. Democratic establishment campaigning for him in New Hampshire. he had been broadcasting ads there since his 2002 senate reelection. Dean meanwhile, got a strong second in New Hamsphire, which is next door to Vermont and was his second home in 2002 and early 2003.

When I was in the "Live Free or Die!" state for Clark, I saw giantic Dean sign after giantic Dean sign held by Dean hat and scarved fans, who chanted their little slogans "hope not fear" and the like. Again, the spent lots of money changing the Dean signs from blue background and yellow writing to yellow background with blue writing. And again, for what?

Clark in the end did better than Dean, winning Oklahoma where Dean never won a single state (I don't know the delegate totals, but Clark had lots of 2nd places in the 3/2 states).

Please Deanies, don't blame the DLC for Dean's horrific flop in the primaries. Clarkies ultimately blamed our loss on our boss hesitating to get into the game so late that he couldn't compete in Iowa and that he got in so late that the only staff left to hire was Gore 2000 douchebags.