Howard Dean
Christopher Hitchens: “Mr. Dean was simply appalling when he spun a yarn about a preteen girl supposedly impregnated by her father, and used it against parental notification of abortion. A physician has no business with demagogy of this kind even if the story is half-true, which in this case it apparently was not. And imagine the contempt that Mr. Dean must have felt for the pro-choice audience on whom he road-tested this potential but ultimately self-defeating fund-raising tactic.”
Hitchens makes no mention of the Internet other than to note that many a conspiracy theory about Sept. 11th originated from it, one or two of which Dean may even have fallen for. I have to wonder what the effect of Dean potentially not being a candidate either for President of Vice-President will have on future campaigns with regards to the Internet. Kerry and Edwards have been successful despite not having a major following on it, and while I'm an optimist in the Internet's continued growth, both in terms of size and power, if either Kerry or Edwards win, there will be Democrats in the future who will point to them and say "see? They didn't need the Internet, why should I?" And they'll have a point.
Betsy Devine: “From my point of view, Howard Dean has already won. He has turned the Democratic primaries from a banal centrist teaparty into a spirited critique of George W. Bush. Candidates like Kerry and Edwards who once were politely suggesting that Bush might have gone just a teeny bit too far got pushed by Howard to point out that Bush's presidency has been a major disaster to our economy, our children, and our friendships abroad.”
Dean can claim part responsibility for this, but that does not make him a winner. It's a little hard for me to accept anyone as a winner of anything if by their own definition and measurements—in Dean's case, being the Democratic nominee for President—they fail to achieve their goals.
Fred Wilson on Wes Clark's exit from the race: “He was good, but not great. He was a rookie and understandably made some rookie mistakes. But none of that changed my opinion that he'd have made a great president. Because he is a great leader.”
You know, if he said "player" instead of "president", he'd be accused of spouting sports clichés. Whatever. If I must tip my hand, Clark was up until now my favourite of the Democratic candidates, largely because he was general with real achievements—even though at the time, I (wrongly, in hindsight) opposed one of those achievements—but not insignificantly because of how he described meeting his wife. Sure, it was any one of coached, acted or exaggerated, but it was an effective display of humility. He may or may not be human, but in that quote, he sure comes across as one. It's funny that people don't understand why Clark wouldn't call Bush a deserter, but it's an easy one: as a former general, he has a pretty good idea of what a deserter really is.
Aaron Benson: “Dean's astonishing fall in New Hampshire came not because of his third-place Iowa finish, but rather, because his speech startled supporters awake from their six-month-long intellectual stupor. Dean, who had staked his campaign on cynically exploiting party divisions, was finally unmasked as a symbol of mobocracy.” [via Adam Morris]
And people who think that a candidate's policy matters in elections seem unwilling to grasp this, but as with everything, looks matter.
Photodude has some questions for the Dean campaign: “His vaunted organization? What did it accomplish for him in two critical states on which they had weeks (months?) to focus? What formidable groundwork have they laid in the next seven states, when every poll I’ve seen today has Dean below 18% in every state poll, and below 10% in several? ¶ Where’s the beef? Where’s the cash? What exactly did they buy with nearly $40 million? And given the meager returns so far, what reason is there to expect they’ll do any better if they got another $40 million between now and November? ¶ If I were a Dean supporter, those are some of the questions that would be eating me alive right now. At this point his campaign looks like a textbook exercise in squandering vast resources for negligible return. Lots of noise and heat, but very little in the way of the actual hard results that win a nomination.”
Ryan Overbey on Dean's speech after coming third in the Iowa caucus: “If you create a situation in which the people at Fox News can actually smear you without any effort, without even trying to creatively twist the truth, you are in deep shit.”
