Dean Campaign Is Latest to Learn About Fickle Press

[Feanorcurufinwe]

Describing his assignment covering Howard Dean's presidential campaign, a correspondent for the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain, Tom Fitzgerald, likened it to "ghoul patrol."

"It's like you're a group of sick people, on the sidewalk, as some guy's up on the roof, waiting to jump: `Oh, my God! When's it going to happen?' " Mr. Fitzgerald said as the campaign bus, only half-filled, rumbled through the snow-covered streets here on Thursday night. Even though Mr. Fitzgerald said he believed Dr. Dean could pull off a resurrection, he added, "You're just waiting to hear the splatter." What once had the spirit of a rock 'n' roll tour now has one more of a funeral procession that has lost its way, reporters with Dr. Dean said.

<snip>

Still, the fortunes of Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont, and the journalists assigned to him are intertwined in ways that go beyond dashed dreams of book contracts and plum assignments to affect the Dean campaign, analysts said, in ways that could make a comeback extremely difficult. "He has to change his story line and the only way he can do that is to win something, and, of course, that's the rub," said Bill Carrick, a strategist for Representative Richard A. Gephardt, who left the race after placing fourth in Iowa. "It's very hard to win something when you've got the smell of loser about you, and you get less coverage, and the coverage you get is that you are in deep, deep, deep trouble."

<snip>

And the jokes can be relentless.

Offering one of his favorites, Rick Pearson, a political correspondent with The Chicago Tribune, said, "I was half toying with keeping a fork in my pocket and a thermometer — or a jar of jam, for when he's toast." Such dark humor became so intense during a round of cards on the campaign plane on Wednesday night — somebody, for instance, folded "faster than Governor Dean" — that a campaign spokesman, Jay Carson, laid down a new rule: "No gallows humor within 15 feet of me," he said, only half jokingly. Striking an upbeat note, he added, "Over the course of a couple of weeks everyone's opinion of something can change, drastically. One can only imagine the gallows humor on John Kerry's bus in early January."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/07/politics/campaign/07PRES.html?8bl

[dsc]

1. and of course we who complain about negative press

have been portrayed here as bitter, lying, crackpots, in deep denial.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

2. If someone calls you a bitter, lying, crackpot, hit 'Alert'.

That's against the rules.

[D G]

3. LOL

How the heck did I get in "Ask the Administrators"?

As tonight's messenger, you've sure been dodging some bullets, Feanorcurufinwe...

[dsc]

15. Please try responding to what actually has been written

I used the word portrayed not called. If you are still confused then I don't know what to say.

[nofurylike]

4. painfully true.

but, one thing to keep sight of is it's proved Dean can take it.

awesome calm and perseverence.

keep on!


peace!

[buckeye1]

12. The Dean plan can't win....

enough votes to be considered viable. He might recover, but I have doubts.

Its hard to believe how he blew it. He had more money, more time in NH and IA,terrific press and all those grassroots people on the ground.

I can only speculate that Democrats just don't like him.

[Skip Intro]

5. The media reports the media's effectiveness of the media's trashing of HD

Guess who's next, Kerry supporters.

[D G]

6. Is it Kerry supporters?

Thing is, the media won't be nearly as effective trashing Kerry. They may put in the same effort, but they won't get the same results.

[stickdog]

7. If they put in the same effort, they'll get the same results. But they

won't. Kerry is part of the club. He has the keys to the executive restroom.

[Skip Intro]

8. You're not forgetting media coverage of Gore, are you?

Wish I shared your optimism.

But watching with glee while the media tears down one of our own, be he your favorite or not, is sad on many levels, and dangerous in the final analysis.

When the time comes, and I have no doubt that it will, it will be very hard for me to sympathize with certain Kerry supporters after watching the almost bloodthirsty manner in which they relish each twist of the media's knife in Dean's back.

[D G]

9. I think Kerry is a stronger candidate than Gore was

and Bush the younger is definitely weaker.

[Skip Intro]

10. I think the media may not care

We may see.

[Old and In the Way]

11. Downside of Campaigns............

We started with 9 candidates.....8 will eventually feel the pain of loss in the primary battles. I hope, though, that we all recognize that it is only a process that's designed to get our strongest candidate into the GE. Isn't that what Democrats should celebrate? The battle of competing ideas and coming together with a candidate that can reflect the broadest and strongest aspects of all?

I know one thing, the Republican Party, has far more scripting of their candidates and choreograph their process to the point of no real participation of their Base. They pick their candidates to run based on the Party line. What you have is a cookiecutter Republican Congress, all programed to reflect the core values of the Party...which is pretty much no values at all.

Warts and all, I'll proudly stand with all Democrats on whomever the majority decides that candidate will be.

[Rocinante]

13. Well said

And I agree with you completely.

[Mairead]

16. "a process that's designed to get our strongest candidate into the GE"

Really? Who did the designing, and what makes you think that was the goal?

[Old and In the Way]

17. Is there any perfect primary system?

I know it's the general consensus for those whose candidates are losing that this process is unfair, but I don't recall any of the same posters wailing about the process prior to the 1st caucus.

I happen to think this was smart move on Terry's part. The system is designed to benefit the Democratic Party, not the individual candidate who is running. In fact, I think this frontloading benefits the weaker candidates who have a better opportunity to capture the imagination of the voter early on. A long drawn out primary season works to the interests of the wealthier candidates. This seems to even the playing field between money vs. ideas. But the real winner is the Democratic Party whose candidate emerges less bruised and the voters hopefully less divided. More money is saved for the GE too.

Kerry could easily have made critical missteps early on that could have cost him Iowa and/or NH. He'd be handicapped in the same way the other 8 were. The fact that a significant % of Democrats are rallying behind Kerry nationally, though, seems to support the fact that he is the right candidate to lead the Party in November.

[Gadave]

14. This is what's wrong with the press

The "journalists" only want to cover the "winner". It does not matter to them about getting out the ideas and themes of a campaign. They just want it to be one candidate from each side so they dont have to read so many press releases (my godz, all doze werds!!) or put much effort into the coverage.

I bet if you looked at the news coverage, "momentum" stories probably make up 90 percent of the news, policy coverage make the remaining 10 percent at best.

[kenny blankenship]

18. what do you mean by "fickle" ?

what do you mean "fickle" ?

The press was against Howard Dean from the very start. They didn't exactly make a secret of it. Then in the last 3 weeks before Iowa, they opened the airwaves to anyone who had something negative to say about him. Constant attack, never once asking the other candidates to renounce negative campaign tactics against Dean the way, for example, Petewhore Jennings practically demanded that Wesley Clark repudiate Michael Moore's criticism of Bush's desertion record.