Wampum

My latest project

For months now, I've been following Kos' Cattle Call over at his popular and informative site. Once in a while I've participated, but find that any site's comments just aren't the forum to do a decent analysis of the current standings in the Democratic horserace for the nomination in Boston next summer. In addition, I've been mentally kvetching over how, as a woman/minority/Democratic official/disabled advocate/yadda-yadda, my salient points are often dismissed by the legions of mostly-white, mostly-male dKos commentators. Not that there's anything wrong with that: How does that old adage go, "Many of my best-friends are white guys". But the Democratic Party is the big tent party; over two-thirds of its membership are non-white and/or female, and there are different issues and concerns which often drive us to the polls, or away from particular candidates. Our voices need to be part of the nominating chorus.

I thought, hey, that's why I have my own blog!

So now, every week or so, Wampum readers will be forced to suffer through graced with my perceptions of the primary race as it unfolds. While I do have personal preferences and biases, as a long-time Democratic hack, I expect I will either work around them, like any responsible columnist, or incorporate them into my analysis, as they are probably similar to the biases of many Democratic women of color. But I won't be pulling my rankings out a hat; at this point in the contest, opinions of candidates are still namely shaped by the media - the more ink a candidate gets, good or bad, shapes the public perception. This is particularly true in those states outside of Iowa or New Hampshire which may never see all the candidates, other than fundraising stopovers. Thus, I'll be listing the significant news stories in which the candidates are headlined. Also included will be new policies, important legislation, scandals, bloopers or staffing coup d'etat. And then there is the "buzz factor"; which campaigns are generating interest in the media corps, so that the stories they want covered, are in fact covered.

Unlike dKos, however, I don't plan on asking my readers their opinions prior to stating my own analysis. You can all kvetch all you like in comments afterwards; I personally believe that, since the Internet as a whole, due in part to the digital divide, and the Lefty blogosphere in particular, is not exactly representative of the voting electorate, particularly the Democratic electorate, such input would be skewed, as it is on other sites.

This past week’s news cycle began with an analysis of the candidate’s political strategies. Deemed the race of the tortoises versus the hares, CNN described it as such:

The campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination will pit the tortoises against the hares, three patient plodders hoping to overtake three confident sprinters after the race's first lap.

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean are the pacesetters. Following the traditional nomination path, they are seeking victories January 19 in Iowa or eight days later in New Hampshire to build momentum for the first multistate showdown February 3.

Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, John Edwards of North Carolina and Bob Graham of Florida are betting their candidacies on a largely untested theory -- that they can wait until February 3 or beyond for their first victories.

The original Associated Press article was also picked up by ABC-News, CBS and 40 other online news outlets.

The article included another gauntlet thrown in the misinformation war: Steve Murphy, Gephardt's campaign director, asserted, "Scenarios for starting later just never succeed.” Truth be told, Clinton lost to Harkin in Iowa, Tsongas in New Hampshire, and Kerrey in South Dakota, the first three contests in the 1992 primary season. He didn’t pick up a win until the first week of March.

This analysis provides a bit of a backdrop to much of what we're now seeing in regards to campaign strategy. I've argued for a few months that Edwards really doesn't need to muck it up in Iowa or New Hampshire at this point; let the hares duke it out, and focus instead on building an organization in otherwise ignored rural and southern states. The same can be said for Graham. It takes 2170 delegate votes to win the nomination. Over a thousand can be found in the South, a similar amount in the Plains and Southwest. As all Democratic primaries and caucuses are proportional, i.e., not "winner-take-all", it is possible to garner a large number of delegates from second-place finishes in large states and combine them with blowouts in Red states for a winning total. Although this hasn't been a strategy in the past does not preclude its success.

William Saletan in Slate provides his take on last week's Emily List event. Winners? Criticism of Bush's Iraq policies, the Big Dog and Edwards. Loser? Dean, mainly for his "bedside manner": There are times when being plain-spoken is not a winning asset for a politician.

CNN looks at the changing concerns of "soccer moms", an important demographic in any 2004 victory. As a member of that demographic, my perceptions are that of the Democratic field, Kerry. Lieberman and Graham are the most likely beneficiaries of such a shift.

So who were the winners in the battle for the presses (or wordprocessors)?

Joseph Lieberman made a bit of an about-face this week, remembering that the traditional foe of the Democratic nominee is the head of the other party, in this case, George Bush, and hit him hard on his post-war policy in Iraq:
Lieberman drops in again: Democrat attacks Bush's postwar handling of Iraq

Lieberman was also one of the first candidates to finally remember the old Clinton mantra, "It's [still] the economy, stupid", and with great fanfare, and a key high-tech endorsement, launched his economic plan:
Lieberman pushes U.S. economic innovation
Presidential candidate Lieberman wins key high-tech endorsement

And Lieberman still leads the pack in the polls, at least in Michigan, and it compared with "Scoop" Jackson:
Lieberman Leads Poll of Mich. Democrats
Double Scoop

However, Joe's religion also came to the forefront in two news pieces this week, raising questions among many Jews if Lieberman is in fact "their" candidate:
A Jew in 2004?: Why is Joe Lieberman behind in the polls?
Jews In No Rush To Back Lieberman

In a bit of a post-script, Lieberman was also savvy enough to jump on the Texas Killer-D bandwagon, and has been active in the fight in Washington to determine if Delay and others acted improperly:
Investigation Links Texas Probe To Feds

John Kerry, following up on his health care plan and community service initiative, headed West to tout his new ideas, and to do some fundraising, with Bush himself as the motivation. Both the national and local press covered both stories extensively:
Democratic presidential hopeful visits Bay Area
Kerry Touts Health Plan in California
Kerry Cites Bush Campaign in Donor Appeal

The Bush-Rove machine made an attempt to paint Kerry with what they deem as the negative Gore brush. Emanating from the righty Boston Herald, it was only picked up by a few Massachusetts papers:
Just call him Al? GOP seeks to link Gore with Kerry

Dick Gephardt had a quiet week policy-wise, but still garnered a decent amount of positive press, including some more "fluffy" pieces about his success in the early endorsement race, and his newfound energy on the campaign trail:
Gephardt relishing newfound freedom
Gephardt takes early lead in 'endorsement primary'

His name is also the one which seems to come up first when the AFL-CIO discusses its much-desired full-monty endorsement:
Unions Confront Candidates on Health Care

For a candidate much maligned by many at dKos for supposedly going nowhere fast, John Edwards had a pretty good week, media-wise. He convinced Thomas Oliphant, the Associated Press, ABC and the NY Times that he can appeal to ethnic Italian, young, rural and NASCAR voters, though maybe not all at the same time:
Edwards can talk the small-town talk
John Edwards Courting Young Voters
NASCAR Democrats’ race after rural voters (Graham)
Key to Iowa Caucus May Be the Living Room

He also received some much needed good local press:
Senator’s Ideas Reflect His Personal Experience

And portrayed himself willing to take on the Mighty Wurlitzer:
Edwards Ready to Take on Negative Ads

And just before press time, Edwards announced backing from 70 prominent Iowa Democratic activists:
Edwards announces backing of 70 activists

That Edwards has picked up these activists really isn't the story here; the fact that AP, along with a number of Iowa news organizations, have deemed the story important enough to print, is, in my estimation, the real story. If Edwards were sinking, as many on cyberpundits would like us to believe, then his body count wouldn't matter enough to print.

Howard Dean received some respectable media attention for his recent letter to FCC Chairman Michael Powell protesting proposed rule changes.

In its weekly expose on each of the candidates, the SacBee apparently didn't get the memo that Dean is a centrist, not a liberal:
Dean: Liberal and proud of it

Dean also got some decent local New Hampshire coverage:
Dean says he disagrees with parental notification bill

His move to a new office was also reported:
Dean Gets New Digs

Florida Senator Bob Graham is obviously appealing to the Democratic arm-chair quarterback vote:
Shula to headline presidential fund-raiser for Graham

Fortunately, the Village Voice didn't following through with the sports metaphor, and hand the Senator a bat or golf club:
Graham Drubs Dubya: No More Beating Around the Bush

And Graham gets to split the NASCAR vote with Edwards:
NASCAR Democrats’ race after rural voters

On the down-side, Graham is still fending off rumors that he's campaigning for Veep:

Graham: I aim just for top of ticket.

Another much maligned candidate, Dennis Kucinich, has been touring much of the West for the past week, and picking up considerable good press along the way:

Kucinich Campaigning In California This Week
Kucinich stumps as the anti-Bush
Kucinich opposes proposed biolab in Davis talk
Fiery populism

Neither Al Sharpton nor Carol Moseley Braun were featured in campaign related news articles this past week.

Not surprisingly, the amount of media coverage each of the candidates received correlated rather closely to their ranking in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll:

Joe Lieberman: 21%
John Kerry: 17%
Richard Gephardt: 16%
John Edwards: 5%
Bob Graham: 4%
Carol Moseley Braun: 4%
Howard Dean: 3%
Al Sharpton: 2%
Dennis Kucinich: 1%
Not sure/none: 28%

So while "CW" in the Lefty blogosphere may argue that Lieberman doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell, or that Dean is taking off nationally, that isn't the perception the media is currently promoting. And thus, most likely, all but the intensely involved party activists accept that as the current snapshot of the horserace so far. Of course, being 8 months away from the Iowa caucus, nothing is carved in stone. But we're coming up on the generally quiet summer season, so unless some scandal erupts, don't expect too much movement in that field. Campaigns should be laying down their organizations, locking in staff and activists. Labor Day is when the real fun begins.

So if you were expecting any big shockers in this initial installment, sorry to disappoint you. Probably the biggest surprise for much of the Internet community is that we’re not as crucial to influencing voter opinion as we may think.

Posted by MB at May 28, 2003 04:43 PM | TrackBack