Bush's Advisers Focus on Dean as Likely Opponent Next Year
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/11/politics/campaigns/11REPU.html?hpBy RICHARD W. STEVENSON
Published: December 11, 2003
WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 -- President Bush's political advisers are now all but certain that Howard Dean will be the Democratic presidential nominee and they are planning a campaign that takes account of what they see as Dr. Dean's strengths and weaknesses, Republicans with ties to the White House said.
"We're ready to go," said a senior Republican official involved in the Bush campaign. "The broad thematics and the whole approach to him, those things have been well thought out. As for the tactical stuff, it's still out there. The timing is a big decision."
For months, members of Mr. Bush's political team said that the nine-person Democratic field was too jumbled to predict the outcome of the primaries, and they cautioned that the situation was fluid. But with Dr. Dean, in their view, pulling away from his Democratic rivals by all indicators — the polls, fund-raising and endorsements — Republicans said he was forcing the Bush campaign to begin making decisions about how and when to engage him.
---snip---
Other Republicans who are kept apprised of the Bush campaign's thinking said that the issue of timing continued to be hotly debated among Mr. Bush's advisers and that
the president had not decided how quickly he wants to drop his strategy of remaining publicly detached from partisan warfare.---snip---
Still, Dr. Dean's ability to energize Democrats and potentially attract new voters, while raising large sums of money without the benefit of an established national reputation, has generated some concern within the Bush campaign, where much of the early betting had been on Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri as the most likely nominee. The campaign continues to warn against overconfidence among its supporters by stressing that the 2004 race could be as close as the one in 2000.
"They do not underestimate Dean, because Dean is able to stir the energy in the Democratic party grass roots," said Deal W. Hudson, the editor of Crisis Magazine and an influential religious conservative who is in regular contact with the White House. "That makes him potentially the most formidable of the Democratic nominees."
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
