The Note

W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 13 &#151;<br> -- Today's Schedule (all times Eastern):

—8:00 am: Senator Joe Lieberman kicks off his "Leading with Integrity" tour, Hartford, Conn.—9:30 am: Senator John Edwards holds a worker roundtable, Blountville, Tenn.—10:25 am: President Bush makes remarks on Columbus Day, D.C.—11:00 am: Senator John Kerry makes remarks on health care, Hanover, N.H.—11:10 am: Senator Lieberman visits Timoleon's Diner, Keene, N.H.—11:30 am: Senator Edwards holds a town hall meeting, Bristol, Va.—12:00 pm: Congressman Dennis Kucinich formally announces his presidential campaign, Cleveland—1:00 pm: Senator Lieberman delivers a speech outlining his vision for the country, Manchester, N.H.—2:15 pm: Representative Kucinich speaks at Wayne Community College, Detroit—2:15 pm: General Wesley Clark visits the Rascal House Restaurant, Miami—5:20 pm: Representative Kucinich speaks at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, Manchester, N.H.—7:00 pm: General Clark attends a campaign MeetUp event, Key Biscayne, Fla.—7:00 pm: Senator Edwards appears on MSNBC's "Hardball: Battle for the White House"—8:00 pm: Representative Kucinich speaks at the Wisconsin Aviation Terminal, Madison, Wis.—8:00 pm: Governor Howard Dean holds a town hall meeting, Council Bluffs, Iowa

NEWS SUMMARY

Darn that weasely David Broder.

Having announced on the Church on Nebraska Avenue that "you can make a case for any one of four or five people still winning this nomination," Broder snuck past the post-show stakeout at which a dispatched (and rare) flying Googling monkey had rushed to the scene to ask Dean Broder: which four or five?

Figuring it out is not as easy as it might seem, in a cycle in which the race is fluid; the impact/influence of Iowa and New Hampshire is still more up in the air than is popularly thought; and the disconnect between the supporters of the frontrunner and the Gang of 500 remains laughably immense.

After another bad weekend of inside-495 news for the Commander-in-Chief, Democrats are still in their "Bush is so beatable, but we need a candidate (and the economy to stay bad)" mode.

Today, someone we are pretty sure ISN'T on even Broder's long list (Congressman Dennis Kucinich) formally announces for president, and someone who we assume IS (Senator Joseph "Joe" Lieberman) tries to re-launch his own candidacy with a second-bite-at-the-apple tour.

Dick Gephardt continues grinding out Big Labor support; John Edwards keeps collecting clips and banking on organize-organize-organize-and-get-hot-at-the-end (not that he isn't hot now, if you know what we mean … .); John Kerry remains, in the eyes of his idealistic supporters, too big to fail; and General Clark continues to defy gravity and attract supporters (the list of C-G alums who are in the orbit continues to astound, with names both good(ie) and stern).

But the person who continues to dominate the seven indices of nomination success (money, momentum, money, message, money, media, and money) is the former governor of state with fewer citizens than Westchester County.

You don't have to be Laura Blumenfeld (but it helps … ) to understand that a big part of Dean's success is that he connects with his listeners.

But he doesn't connect because he is some sort of spell-binding speaker.

And he doesn't just connect because of his opposition to the war in Iraq.

Dean actually has an integrated, coherent critique of why (to steal, yet again, from Bill Clinton) America should fire the guy in the job now and hire him on to take over.

One not-small example:

Well over a year ago, before the New York Times had given Dean stories Ornstein Banishment treatment (and then given up and allowed them again); before magazine covers became run-of-the-mill; before even Howard Fineman saw what was coming — before all that, Howard Dean was criticizing his party for signing on to No Child Left Behind.

Dean would tell any reporter or voter who would listen exactly what was going to happen with the law and why it wouldn't work and why Democrats in Washington had made both a substantive and political mistake by helping the president pass it.

Dean "knew" NCLB behind was not going to work out exactly as planned because he was a governor; because he didn't vote for it; because he knows how education works in the states; because he was confident that the Bush economic plan would keep full funding from being available; and because he had a good enough political ear to hear how well received his attacks on it by Democratic (and other) audiences from sea to shining sea.

The must-read story of the day is the Washington Post 's Jim VandeHei's I-told-you-so bouquet to Howard Dean on why the president just might be vulnerable on what the White House touts as one of the major 43 accomplishments. LINK

NCLB supporter Joe Lieberman relaunches his effort today, with a tour that takes him from Oklahoma to Florida.

Curtain-raising the effort are a trio of white men: Fournier, Lightman, and the New York Times ' Ed Wyatt, whose strong effort today makes it seem nearly impossible that he has been toiling below Chambers and W. Broadway for all these many months: the man has game.

Do the Google News search on Lieberman, however, and the headlines are all about his status as a tax raiser, something From which his most loyal supporters might turn up their noses.LINK

In fact, per Fournier, what Lieberman is going to propose is a "major tax reform package" that would "ensure that upper-income Americans pay more taxes than they did before President Bush's record-breaking tax cuts" and "adjust income tax rates to lower the burden on middle-class Americans."

See below for more on Lieberman's tour.

As for the weekend, print out the Washington Post 's two must-reads and you too can play Bush Administration plumber!

Grab a yellow highlighter, and try to guess who all the blind quotes are from.

First, there is a smashing Pincus/Allen tick tock of the Wilson leak (the real-life Pincus and Allen would make a good buddy picture pairing, by the way). LINK

Far and away the most intriguing aspects of this piece are:

1. The return of The 2/6 Source, who, you will recall, set this story on fire.

"The source elaborated on the conversations last week, saying that officials brought up [Mrs. Wilson] as part of their broader case against Wilson."

"'It was unsolicited,' the source said. 'They were pushing back. They used everything they had.'"

The administration itself spinning that the exposure of the agent's identity was simply an attempted political hit job, rather than a knowing leak.

"Administration sources said they believe that the officials who discussed Plame were not trying to expose her, but were using the information as a tool to try to persuade reporters to ignore Wilson. The officials wanted to convince the reporters that he had benefited from nepotism in being chosen for the mission."

Second, there is the Kessler and Slevin unfurling of one of Washington's tightly-held dirty little secrets: some people think Dr. Rice isn't that good at her job. LINK

Dear Ms. Perez: If we can guess who two of the attack sources are, we bet you can too.

Help is on the way! A new Duke University study has massive implications for the future of the Note. We are hoping this break-through research has solved our long standing problem of trying to train our monkeys to type and read at the same time. It appears they will soon be able to do just that. LINK

President Bush will make Columbus Day remarks today in D.C. On Tuesday, the president will have a photo op with the 2003 NBA Champions, the San Antonio Spurs. On Wednesday, he travels to California for a pair of Bush-Cheney 2004 fundraisers and a speech on housing and the economy. On Thursday, he will make remarks on the economy and the war on terror in San Bernardino, California. No word yet on a time for a 43-T3 summit.

All of the Democratic candidates except Reverend Sharpton are scheduled to attend the Arab American Institute's national conference this Friday in Dearborn, Michigan. The candidates will speak individually to the conference goers. Governor Racicot, the Macker, Governor Granholm, and Grover Norquist will also address the conference.

General Clark campaigns in Florida today. He delivers an address on public service in New York City on Tuesday. He delivers another public service speech in New Mexico and attends a campaign fundraiser in Las Vegas on Wednesday. He delivers yet another public service speech in Oklahoma City on Thursday. He's in Dearborn, Michigan, on Friday.

Senator Kerry will make remarks on health care today at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, New Hampshire, and attend meet-and-greets tonight in Franklin and Weirs, New Hampshire. He campaigns again in New Hampshire tomorrow. He'll head to Iowa later in the week. He's in Dearborn, Michigan, on Friday.

Governor Dean holds a town hall meeting tonight in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He campaigns in Iowa on Tuesday and Wednesday. He's in Virginia on Thursday. He's in Dearborn, Michigan, on Friday.

Senator Edwards campaigns in Tennessee and Virginia today. He will also appear on "Hardball: Battle for the White House" tonight live from the JFK School at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

We wonder what the implications are for civic discourse to have this sentence appear in the full page USA Today ad touting Chris Matthews' admirably booked interviews with all of the Democratic presidential candidates over the next many Mondays:

"To get to the White House, they have to get past him."

Bam! Pow! Bang! Zap! Wham!

Senator Edwards will campaign in New Hampshire on Tuesday and in Iowa on Wednesday and Thursday. He's in Dearborn, Michigan, on Friday.

Senator Lieberman kicks off his "Leading with Integrity" tour today in Connecticut. He'll make several stops in New Hampshire today, including what's billed as a major speech in Manchester outlining his vision for the country. He's in Oklahoma on Tuesday, South Carolina on Wednesday, Florida on Thursday, and Dearborn, Michigan, on Friday.

Congressman Kucinich kicks off his formal announcement tour today in Cleveland, where he'll make remarks at City Hall. He then travels to Wayne Community College in Detroit, the New Hampshire Institute of Art in Manchester, and the Wisconsin Aviation Terminal in Madison. On Tuesday, he travels to Albuquerque, Austin, Oklahoma City, Minneapolis, and Chicago. On Wednesday, he goes to St. Louis and Des Moines. He wraps things up in D.C. on Thursday. He's in Dearborn, Michigan, on Friday.