Dean, Party Of One (Time 1/12)

[KittyWampus]

Note: Long Article At Link

Dean, Party of One
Even After Hours, The Front-Runner's Staff Prefers to Hang Alone
By Hanna Rosin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 12, 2004; Page C01


MANCHESTER, N.H.

snip

The unofficial rules for the young staff who work the New Hampshire primary have always been thus: By day they are rivals, press secretaries out-spinning each other, field directors fighting for every vote, interns standing at busy traffic corners holding their campaign posters, shouting each other down. But half an hour from midnight, they are fellow partiers, bumming cigarettes, buying each other beers, bound by the weird facts of their daily existence: long, long days, addiction to campaign adrenaline, month-to-month leases.

This year, however, the rest of the staffs complain that Howard Dean's people don't play by those rules. Stop by the Strange Brew or the Wild Rover in downtown Manchester late on a Friday or Saturday night and you're likely to find any combination of Democratic staffers drinking, letting off steam, talking about anything other than work. But to the great annoyance of everyone else, the Dean people are almost never there.

snip

In campaigns past the comity thrived for a practical reason. Everyone knows that only one candidate will get the nomination... So hanging out together serves as a casual form of networking, a tacit understanding that rivalries fade and ultimately staffers for rival campaigns have more in common than not. But this year seems different. "I've done a cursory survey of my staff," says one campaign official. "None of them would go work for Dean. They hate the guy. His arrogance. The things he says. The way he insults us, like he's the only one who's a real Democrat."

... Because Dean was such a long shot a year ago, he couldn't get any of the professional local operatives to work for him, so he had to assemble a staff from amateurs and newcomers.... when he started to "catch on and assumed a cultlike status among young people who were into politics for the first time," Duncan says, and you get a full-blown culture clash. The result is "folks who don't see themselves in the normal way, who are less likely to say, 'What you do in a campaign is hang out and go to bars with the other campaign staffs,' " says Duncan, who has endorsed Dean. "A lot of them don't aspire to be political operatives. They see themselves as different; they keep to themselves. In turn, the aspiring professionals see them as different. And in that difference is the rub."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8439-2004Jan11.html

[Hep]

1. It's the post, from yesterday, do you really think no one saw and posted?

Or is this one of those all-too-common "Post the same article every day just to piss them off" kinds of threads?

Sorry our campaignis too busy working to kibbitz with other campaigns.

[KittyWampus]

3. I Just Saw It. What The Heck?

[Hep]

5. You post every article you see?

OR what? Next time, think to yourself, "It's about Dean, it's from yesterday, a major newspaper. Someone probably already posted it."

It stops counting once you hit 1000. So maybe it's vanity?

[KittyWampus]

11. Hep If It Is A DUPLICATE Alert The Moderators.

isn't that standard operating procedure?

And FYI, no I don't post EVERYTHING I SEE.

The vast, overwhelming majority of threads I start are postive Clark stuff.

And this is hardly negative, by the way.

It points out differences in the Dean campaign and all the rest... and the implications of those differences.

[Hep]

16. I have the same right to point out your dupe as you have of duping

and don't worry about the alert.

I like how you have to extract "threads you start" from your post total to get "positive stuff".

[dweller]

14. and you are the GD04 police?

as long as it doesn't break the rules, wtf is your beef?

pretty sad, attack the messenger, not the message, really good strategy. NOT.

dp

[Hep]

17. *yawn* Attack the messenger not the message

You decry it yet do the same thing. Odd.

[KittyWampus]

18. Well, No Wonder I Didn't Read The Article Yesterday

Whoever posted it didn't bother to put enough of the Article in the thread for anyone to have a clue what it was about.

[Hep]

19. And God knows clicking a link is too big a chore

Feel free to make up new excuses if old ones don't work.

[KittyWampus]

20. The Other Thread Starts With An Antedote About Dean Supporters CLAPPING

and I didn't bother to read it because it sounded stupid.

SUE ME!

You know I do NOT go on every thread with Dean's name on it an "bash".

For instance, I did NOT pile on the crap about Dean's hiring practices in Vermont.

Now, how stupid am I for even responding to you right now dear Hep is amazing.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dweller]

25. what's so odd?

this thread was started by a member who followed rules, brought the topic in fairplay, and you attacked the poster.
not the message.

i am attacking the message which is you and your punk ass attitude, one and the same.

dp

[Hep]

26. How cute

A dupe is a dupe is a dupe, whetyher it be the dupe posted or the dupe posting.

If you don't know why these articles are posted day in and day out, if you don't understand the mindset behind it, if you don't understand Dean on the Brain, you WON'T. Let's just leave it at that.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

9. I didn't see it - I was on most of the day. Thought it was interesting

Since I've worked on several campaigns I love reading about this sort of thing....

[Hep]

10. Uh huh.

Interesting. Well I guess we should have some sort of archive so that you folks don't miss these important articles in the future.

[Don Claybrook]

2. This is pretty damning

I didn't realize that Dean's staffers were refusing to go out drinking with Lieberman's people. Once people realize this, and once they figure out that Vermont is so small, and once they discover that Dean's wife hates the poor, it's all over.

I'm switching my vote to Admiral James Stockdale.

[MoonAndSun]

7. Don, I just love your sense of humor. I look forward to your posts for

a good laugh. Thanks. :hi:

[TheMiddleRoad]

24. Dean's people offered

Dean's people offered. But Lieberman's folks couldn't hang on friday night ;-)

[9119495]

4. Sounds like the other campaigns have a real problem here

I think this makes Dean sound pretty good:

Doesn't rely on seasoned opperatives.
Some of his supporters can't get into bars.
Some of the insiders doubted him and went to work on other campaigns.

[dave29]

6. So we're supposed to be mad

that Dean's team won't hang out with the other guys? Maybe it's because a lot of them are working 24/7, and don't want to go out drinking. Or maybe these folks just aren't that much fun to hang out with.

Seems like a silly thing to whine about

[robbedvoter]

12. No. Don't be mad. Don't be surprised either. This is symptomatic

of the larger world. The campaign world is a microcosm of the larger world: the voters. Ignore them at your own peril. Arrogance only works when propped by the media and sold as "the guy you want to have a beer with". Once it's revealed, it doesn't bring votes. If you are not above wanting other people's votes, that is.

[LuminousX]

8. Sooo...

Dean's campaigners aren't seasoned campaigners because he couldn't attract the regular political campaign types because he was an asterisk. Thus, they are unaware of the 'rules' of campaigning and thus are further ostracized.

Maybe at 30 minute to midnight, they are still in the office working.

Maybe, being volunteers and workers for Dean and not having had previous campaign experience, they have no interest in working for someone else. Isn't that their right? Has the Dean campaign officially or unofficially prevented their workers from fraternizing with the opposition?

[JNelson6563]

13. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=104358

[jonnyblitz]

15. this is so damn petty. who cares who parties with who.

jesus fucking christ. you people are getting DESPERATE!

[NashVegas]

21. *sniff* "Why Won't They Play with Us?"

Do ya think maybe they don't want to put up with this?

But this year seems different. "I've done a cursory survey of my staff," says one campaign official. "None of them would go work for Dean. They hate the guy. His arrogance. The things he says. The way he insults us, like he's the only one who's a real Democrat."

...

One Friday night at the Strange Brew, Dean pops up on the news and staffers from two rival campaigns begin booing. Soon the mocking gets transparently bitter: "Woo-hoo. I bet it's Mardi Gras all the time over there. Party on, pass the organic peanut butter."

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

22. Muckraking

[TheMiddleRoad]

27. Not culture ... Career

As some of you may be aware there are a hordes of career politicians who NEVER run for office. They have their own sets of rules. Often the idealism they stump in public hides the seedy underbelly of politics as usual.

Perhaps the clash we see is the clash of people who genuinely idealistic vs people who are campaigning for the sake of their next job. These people are interest in "public politics" and aren't interested in the career politicos engrossing them in "office politics".

Even among the Democrats and Republicans there is a certain fraternity that unites them. That fraternity turns into unwritten rules that they can skim certain rules and make all kinds of backroom seedy deals.

Though, I would make one comment to Dean campaigners. Don Corleone was right. You keep your friends close and your enemies closer. There is no better time to glean inside information than when your rival is piss faced drunk. They should have people "hanging" with the other politicos as policy. Preferably people who despise drinking and have tight lips ;-)

The fact that many career politicos may be shut out from an insurgent nominee is NOT distressing. Clinton was an OK president. Most of the stuff that they accused him of was bogus. But he also DID do some stuff that that was pretty shady. No doubt the insiders now working primarily with General Clark are intimately involved in these deals. This is the only thing that disturbs me about Clark.

You see, I largely like the philosophy of the Democrats. But there are insiders who are WAY to cozy with big business. This got in the way of President Clinton being a REAL liberal. The irony is staggering.

There is an army of politicos out there who are entrenched in "business as usual". By that I mean taking effective bribes from PACs shilling for big biz. Dean has managed to sidestep them by going DIRECTLY to the people via the internet. This no doubt burns the middle men of these transactions. I'd wager that a LOT of these people are the one's pissed off because Dean's folks aren't going bar hopping with them.

[janx]

29. He has pissed off more than politicos.

The media are going nuts. They don't know what to do.