Is 'President Dean' that impossible?

[poskonig]

Think about it. If Dean wins the blue states and New Hampshire and Nevada, or perhaps just Ohio, he's in.

We all know his issues and his personality. The only way I see Dean blowing this is if he sucks in the debates, mouths off something extremely crass, or loses his temper on someone in public. Opponents may be able to paint him as Mr. Mean and Angry, but after seeing the Texas ad, he looks like your simple average family doctor, an image which works in our favor.

The GOP strategy is to paint Dean as the candidate of terrorism, taxes, and gays. Dean easily handles the gay issue with the "state's rights" talk. George Bush's weapons of job destruction, i.e. his tax cuts for the wealthy, also aren't a winner for the GOP. Lastly, if we're still talking about Iraq in 2004, Bush is in trouble. If we aren't, we play on domestic issues where we have issue superiority.

I think Dean's odds are pretty damn good. What do you think?

[Redleg]

Not at all.

Of course that's not accounting for republican dirty tricks.

[UrbScotty]

1. I think he has a better chance at beating Bush...

...than Bush has of beating anyone!

[jenk]

2. With Dean running, the Green vote won't hurt us as much

More Nader 2000 votes would go to dean, so he might win states like Wisconsin or Iowa with a bigger cushion

unfortunately I don't think he'll break any ground in the South. Dean won't get swamped like McGovern but Bush would still win.

[jenk]

3. our ticket to victory is Edwards/Gephardt

We'll have the solid northeast locked up and have the best chance at taking states like Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Louisiana with that ticket.

[jbou]

6. you don't need the sout to win

Dean can pick up New Hampshire, and win all the states Gore won, and beat Bush. The 04 election is going to come down to keeping the states Gore won, and picking up one extra state, and of course we all need to volunteer to work the polling places in order to keep an eye on the result's tabulating.

[DavidNY]

13. New Hampshire won't be enough (unless we count FL as a Gore state)...

because of the 2000 Census reapportionment. _Gore_ would have gotten 271 electoral votes and won if he'd carried NH but not FL, but those same states only have 264 electoral votes now because they have fewer House seats after the reapportionment. (NY lost two House seats, PA two, MI one, CT one, IL one, WI one, and the only Gore state to gain a seat if you don't count Florida was CA's plus-one.)

So even if we get NH, we need 6 more electoral votes to win. Nevada or West Virginia, unfortunately, would only give us 5 and a 269-269 tie, which we'd almost certainly lose in the House under the 12th Amendment unless we made major gains in the 2004 Congressional elections (each state gets one vote and the Republicans currently control more than 25 of the House delegations). If we don't get a big state like Florida or Ohio or Missouri on top of the Gore states, we need New Hampshire and Nevada _and_ West Virginia, or perhaps any of New Hampshire/Nevada/West Virginia plus Arkansas (6 EVs) if Clark is on the ticket. (This is a big part of why my top two VP choices at the moment are Graham and Clark.)

[quilp]

4. Judging by the way the "talking heads" are bashing him it is possible.

Who had ever heard of Carter or even Clinton before they got the nomination? Dean has a kind of "McCain" image that will appeal to independants, and enough fire in his belly for the Dems. Of course he has not had the Republican dirty trick machine turned on him yet. But it will. And a lot will depend on how aggressively he responds. He will also have to take on the media's willingness to publish "half-truths" about him, and that will be very tough.

[mandyky]

5. Great odds for the following reason -

Dean is attracting new voters
Dean is attracting swing voters
Dean's grassroots organization, especially the internet, is head and shoulders above most of the others.
The dem party machinery is in Dean-ial.

[Warren Stuart]

7. Dean who?

I don't mean to be sarcastic, but he is not on the radar screens of 90% of the population. Most people just don't know who he is. Can he change this? Maybe, but keep in mind Bush has 170 million dollar warchest (and counting). This can buy a whole lot of ads, which will emphasize Dean's stands on the gay issue in a way that will resonate with a sizable portion of our population.

This is not to say it can't be done, Jimmy Carter came out of nowhere to win. But he was running against a whole different set of circumstances. Watergate and the fall of Saigon were the two most damaging things to happen to the Republicans, coupled with a weak candidate.

In order for Dean to win there will have to a major event that will cause disenchantment towards the republicans. You can't count on miracles.

[jab105]

9. Nope.....

Dean has 12% in the national polls, up from 4% in March, he's the ONLY democratic candidate that is surging ahead, that is a very positive sign....

170 million is impressive.....but so are the nearly 70,000 people signed up for Dean meetup, so are th 250,000 people signed up for Dean for America network....

[chimpymustgo]

11. And 40% of Dems are undecided. Get real.

This is August. Early August.

[killbotfactory]

16. That seems to be changing...

He's getting on Larry King, the covers of Time and Newsweek, and having his ad played on all the political shows.

And we still have months to go!

[jab105]

8. No.

It's not impossible at all...the biggest "criticizism" of him isn't even true...



MORANS!!
:D

[Ellen Forradalom]

10. Not impossible

but whether it's probable is another question altogether.

[farmbo]

12. He absolutely dominated the Yak-Show circuit this morning...

...mostly stories about his early resonance with DemVoters and his Internet fundraising success.
The press corps seems to be having a hard time pigeonholing him, so they, somewhat lazily, resort to the 'too liberal' stereotyping. But they also suspect that he might be in the vanguard of a new phenomonon, and they appear to respect that; as a big potential news story, if for no other reason.

[AlinPA]

14. NO. It is entirely possible.

Hurdles:
-Media loves Bush and Republicans
-Media and rPIGS will say that he is "pushing gay marriages" and Rove will spend 200M on that one message. I'm afraid that will turn off too many people. Dirty bastards.

Dean will bring out Democrats and young people.
The election will be won "on the ground"

[Jacobin]

15. Call me silly

I think he has a good shot in the South (I live there)

For reasons that are too obtuse to explain, I think he has a better chance in the South than Kerry......who would be compared to a "typical NE librul" and thus among certain groups, not up for consideration.

I just gave Howard another $50. He's the only candidate that I can listen to and not cringe in disbelief at what is emanating from his vocal orifice. I'm totally and absolutely and have been from the start totally and absolutely against the invasion of Iraq (and other "axis of weasle") countries and it is difficult to listen the Dem Smirk enablers who are now trying to distance themselves from the invasion by saying how they would have done it differently.

I find it ironic that people would somehow find Dean "not electable" in a race in which he is running against George Fucking Bush*, who is completely and absolutely unelectable and was not elected.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. History Doesn't Support You

The last northern candidate to do well in the South was JFK who had a southern running mate and that was before the Civil Rights Revolution which drove many white southerners into the hands of the GOP.

I don't think Kerry will do well in the South either.

With either of these two candidates the Dems have to pull the Electoral College equivalent of a straight flush.

As you can see by 00 it's hard to win when you write off an entire region of the country that has four of the nation's ten most populous states.

[Jacobin]

22. Dean is not from MA

Big difference.

His leaving gun laws up to the states will help him. They can't whack him on the head with "gun control" scare tactics.

Health insurance is a BIG problem among the lower middle class of which there are plenty in the south.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. Let

me preface my remarks by saying that I will vote for any Democrat that emerges from the primaries as I have done since I cast my first vote for Jimmy Carter in 1976.

What makes you think it's a given that Dean will carry all the blue states that Gore did.

As I remember , Michigan and Pennsylvania were pretty damn close as were some smaller states like New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Iowa.

Gore ran a centrist campaign with a populist wrinkle.

I also think the number of single issue gun voters is illusory. Bill Clinton was the most anti-gun president in history and he did pretty good in rural areas.

The big divide is not gun and anti-gun but modern valuses versus traditional vales. We need a candidate, like Clinton, who could finesse that debate without selling out his progressive values.

We need a candidate who can be pro-choice, pro gay rights, and pro affirmative action but pays tribute to traditional values.

[loyalsister]

19. I think so

He has some great campaign strategies that I think could really help him in the midwest and south.
This idea of community and facillitating downtowns is something that would help him in the south and midwest. Also in the south, "states rights" all the while letting people know who failed them there. Guns. And, this new southern strategy. The statement about wanting to talk to guys in pick up trucks with confederate flags on the back about the fact that they also need health insurance is inclusive in a way that I find very interesting. He's willing to put aside his objection to the offensive positions they may hold in order to consider their needs. Liberal elitist???? I think not.
Saying things like "Bush has made language meaningless," indicates he's read "The Tyranny of Words" and is about to turn the very use of political propaganda against Bushco. That's the next best thing to castrating Rove. The true brilliance is he is working on this while using it masterfully himself. He is cultivating one message after another that resonate with a wide range of people. People have different reasons for wanting to work hard for this guy. One message is that you can't have one size fits all policies in many instances, and he doesn't have a one size fits all message. Different problems require different solutions. I think flexibility is the essence of progressivism. The beauty of Dean is he is conservatively, moderately, OR liberally progressive on a variety of issues. This "something for everyone" quality very well could translate into the plurality that wins national elections.

[Eloriel]

21. Excellent post and

I concur.

I see very little to hold Dean back, really. Rove and Kerry dirty tricks are always an unknown quantity, of course, but barring that, I think he'll do very well in a lot of unexpected places. He's got a LOT going for him. More than most people realize, esp. if they're reading others' reports ABOUT him, rather than taking in him and his campaign directly.

Eloriel

[laura888]

20. he's our best chance n/t

n/t