The Note

W A S H I N G T O N, Jan. 24—
, 2004 -- To paraphrase both Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Chuck Todd's Spotlight — happy frontrunners are all alike; every unhappy frontrunner is unhappy in his own way.

NEWS SUMMARY

With the campaigns of Dean, Edwards, Clark, and Lieberman trying to figure out what the press will require them to achieve on Tuesday to keep a beating heart for Feb. 3, John Kerry continues to rack up favorable news cycle after favorable news cycle.

Without prejudging the matter or taking anything away from the voters, it's safe to say that if Kerry keeps this up, he will be impossible to beat on Tuesday and in a strong position for the nomination.

In the "dated Kerry, dated Dean, married Kerry" narrative that may end up defining the nomination fight overall -- as well as the New Hampshire primary -- one of the most poetic dynamics is the tables being turned on Kerry-Dean in terms of frontrunner scrutiny.

For months, when Dean was riding high, Team Kerry regularly cried in its Heinekens over the the failure of the press to hold Dean accountable for statements and actions present and past.

Of course, Dean's fall was accompanied by a level of scrutiny that at times bordered on the absurd — and often represented shifting and inconsistent standards.

The press too often keys off of the political combatants to decide what to go after and what not to, but for reasons that will be much discussed at Harvard in 2005, this week at least, John Kerry can do no wrong.

If Kerry were being treated like Dean was when Dean was the frontrunner (assuming any of you can remember that far back), these things would be monster flaps and areas of aggressive reportage:

-- Kerry saying "North Korea" instead of "South Korea" in the debate.

-- Kerry limiting his press availabilities.

-- Kerry "borrowing" aspects of Dean's message.

-- Kerry's record of legislative accomplishments (?).

-- Fritz Hollings using the word "Chinaman" at a Kerry event yesterday and Kerry not denouncing him.

-- Kerry bragging about his campaign finance record in the face of taking presidential PAC money, DSCC record, and Busta Caps.

-- Kerry claiming "endorsements don't matter" and then saying "We got Hollings and Mondale!" and, today, the League of Conservation Voters (and more are coming … ).

-- Kerry's apparently limited release of his tax returns.

-- Kerry showing an unpresidential temper in flipping out at kindly David Wade.

-- Kerry's team putting his traveling press corps at a different hotel than the candidate.

-- Kerry not being attacked at the debate and there being almost no pickup for his Vietnam medals answer.

-- Luis Navarro's quitting after yesterday's hiring of Steve Elmendorf.

-- A million other Kerry controversies that have been chronicled in the Boston papers over the years and clips on which exist in a bulging RNC file.

-- No Mike Isikoff stories (or: are there??).

The big news out there today:

The New York Times ' Jim Rutenberg reports that the Dean campaign pulled all of its ads running in states other than New Hampshire following Dean's disappointing third place finish in the Iowa caucuses. LINKSteve McMahon, Dean's media adviser, is quoted as saying the pulled ads will probably only be down for a few days until the campaign sees new, presumably more positive, poll numbers. Dean campaign officials are quoted as saying to advertise as Kerry surges would be like throwing money into the wind.

McMahon insists that Dean's finances are still very good and that the decision to pull the ads was NOT made out of an economic necessity.

But as the article points out, this is a very sharp shift from Dean advisers' statements about the importance (and difficulty) of running a "50-state campaign."

According to the article, the Dean campaign spent $932,000 in Arizona then pulled its ads the day after the Iowa caucuses; $932,000 in Arizona then pulled its ads the day after the Iowa caucuses; and $1.3 million in South Carolina until the day after the Iowa caucuses. The campaign also had ads running in New Mexico and, to a lesser extent, in Oklahoma.

And as Dean referenced during a post-interview discussion with Diane Sawyer on Thursday, the campaign cut a new commercial featuring Judy Dean that it planned to air today in New Hampshire, but the article Notes that the campaign has not decided whether to air it.

How much DID the campaign spend in Iowa? And was that 4th-quarter burn rate? Has another previous Dean advantage largely slipped away?

Into the maw of somewhat questionable and sketchy tracking polls comes now a new, solid Los Angeles Times poll:

"Demonstrating the broad appeal that powered his victory in Iowa, leads by double digits among likely voters in Tuesday's pivotal New Hampshire primary, a new Times poll has found," reports the LA Times' Ron Brownstein on Senator Kerry's lead. LINK .

"Kerry's three main rivals — former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina — are locked in a tight struggle for second place that could shape the race's next stage."

"The poll also found that the New Hampshire contest remains unsettled. One in 10 likely voters said they were undecided. Nearly two in five who have picked a candidate said they still could change their mind. That's the same share who described themselves as open to switching candidates in The Times poll shortly before Monday's Iowa caucuses, in which Kerry and Edwards surged to an unexpected one-two finish."

All the Union Leader links:

--News of the day: LINK

--Kerry and veterans: LINK

--DiStaso on Kerry's race to lose: LINK

--Clark tried to recover: LINK

--The health care plans: LINK

--Thursday's debate: behind-the-scenes. LINK

The Union Leader editorial board asks the question, "Is Senator Edwards too positive?" LINK

The Edwards press van hit a moose last night.

Sunday on This Week, George Stephanopoulos hits the trail with four leading candidates — Kerry, Edwards, Clark and Lieberman. Plus, the Funnies, The List, The Note, and lots more. That's Sunday, on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Check your local listings.

President and Mrs. Bush attend the Alfalfa Club Dinner tonight.

Vice President Cheney speaks to the World Economic Forum this morning.

Sens. Kerry, Edwards and Lieberman, Gov. Dean, Gen. Clark and Rep. Kucinich are all in New Hampshire and attend tonight's New Hampshire Democratic 100 Club Dinner.

Rev. Al Sharpton is in South Carolina today.

If it's the Saturday-before-New-Hampshire, it must be the New Hampshire Political Library! Join USA Today 's Walter Shapiro and Stormy Weather Guru Dante Scala at noon at the Center of New Hampshire for more first-in-the-nation forum fun.

ABC News 2004: a big bonus for you!:

In the journalistic equivalent of "you got chocolate in my peanut butter!"/"YOU got peanut butter in my chocolate!," ABC News and C-SPAN are hooking up this weekend to give you another chance to see some of the best political reporting done so far this election cycle.

In a marriage that would make Verne Gay gay, all weekend Brian Lamb's Gift to Democracy will air interviews that Peter Jennings conducted with the Democratic presidential candidates that were originally done for the "Who is … " candidate profile segments that aired over the last several weeks on "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings."

ABC News has agreed to provide C-SPAN with the full-length, fabulously lit interviews. They run from between 40 minutes to 1 hour and 10 minutes.

To give you some of the insider back story that our "Entertainment Weekly" culture craves about how this mega-media deal came about (Ken Auletta, eat your heart out … ):

The keen-eyed Steve Scully, C-SPAN's King of all Politics — saw the series on free TV and decided it had to be brought to a wider, additional audience.

Scully contacted Mark Halperin, ABC News' political director, who he knows from their time together in both Sun Valley for the media moguls conference and from Davos.

Halperin liked the idea instantly, but he saw some obstacles. So, over a secret lunch at "21" in Manhattan — the reservation was made in the name "Lee Kamlet" to avoid detection — the two men tried to reach an agreement.

There's much more to the story of how all this worked out in the end, but we'll save it for the big post-election book The Note is doing (and unlike the Newsweek book, this is one tome that people will actually want to read!).

All you really need to know for now is you should check out C-SPAN all weekend, where the Jennings' profiles (sweetly produced by Vinnie Malhotra) will run in the interstices of the free cabler's amazing live coverage of events around New Hampshire.

First slated to run is the John Kerry segment, tonight after the New Hampshire Democratic Party dinner.

As Steve said in an exclusive e-mail to The Note: "I really think the political junkies will LOVE seeing these."

As they say on the Republican line, the Democratic line, and the "other" line: first time caller, long-time listener and thank you for C-SPAN.

The Clips:

The Dean campaign spun its renaissance all day Friday to reporters, which is to be expected after a relatively good Thursday of press. But the almost-completely unspinnable Ron Fournier seems to see what the Dean folks are seeing, which is that Dean it meriting a second look from many voters. LINKRobin Toner and Jodi Wilgoren report that the Dean campaign is on the mend and that the candidate himself said yesterday that "Things have started to turn a little bit. We're back on the upswing, and you know what? New Hampshirites love to undo what Iowa does." LINKThe Washington Post 's Jim VandeHei and Jonathan Finer write a summary of where things stand, Noting that "Four days before the primary vote, the Democratic candidates are showing caution and restraint on the campaign trail for fear of alienating voters here and undercutting their campaigns at this critical juncture in the nomination process." LINKThe Boston Globe 's Tom Oliphant writes a must-read on the New Hampshire independents:

"For the most part, they did not like the US invasion of Iraq last March, and some did not like it with a purple passion. Over time, however, that anger has changed into a mood of determination to help elect a new president this year. It has also been superceded by a more powerful desire for a president who understands their concerns about economic issues that directly affect their hard-working lives, and who is most likely to beat President Bush. In candidate terms, this means that the Dean bubble of 2003 really has burst. Far more than temperament is involved. To the extent the Dean candidacy has continued to be about attitude and emotion, it has missed this shift in sentiment and is thus far failing to connect at the kitchen table." LINK

Now the frontrunner, Senator Kerry is limiting his public appearance and shortening his stump speeches in an apparent effort to allow his poll numbers to stay high asserts the Boston Globe 's Patrick Healey. LINK

Front Page, Washington Post : "Clark Express Losing Speed."

Paul Schwartzman and David von Drehle report on the two dozen empty seats at a "mistake" of an event (according to spokesman Matt Bennett) to Note that "Having hoped for a surge, Clark has been battling stagnation, spending precious days explaining past positions, grappling with current controversies, and trying to fine-tune both his rhetoric and his campaign organization." LINKAnd Ed Wyatt reports that when asked about his Democratic Party credentials on the stump yesterday, Gen. Wesley Clark used the question to call a similar question from Fox News' Brit Hume at Thursday's debate "part of a Republican Party agenda." LINKAnn Gerhart writes a memo to Joe Trippi. Excerpts: "Word to avoid: Warts. An ugly word." "That anecdote about the Deans enjoying cold family bike rides and squished cupcakes? Better keep that one in New Hampshire. Down south, people will think they're Shakers." LINKAnne Kornblut of the Boston Globe reports that as Senator John Kerry's lead appears to keep growing, the other Democratic presidential candidates are trying to figure a way to break through. LINK

Some Note readers would be instantly intrigued by a Howard Fineman web-only piece that contains this phrase "Being the jerk that I am … ," and Howard on Howard does not disappoint. LINK

The New York Times ' Christine Hauser reports that Dean yesterday returned to labeling his rivals "Washington insiders" and called for the removal of Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan if he lacks the "political courage" to oppose the Bush Administration's tax cuts. LINKThe New York Times ' David Halbfinger writes that Kerry, liking "the direction" but not trusting "the numbers" of the polls, "is trying to run up the score on his rivals by playing to his strengths: stressing his experience and demonstrating a mastery of domestic and foreign policy in frequent question-and-answer sessions." LINKThe AP's Glover writes that Kerry is increasingly focusing on Bush. LINKJohnny Apple was dispatched to South Carolina and reports that following a call from former DNC Chairman Don Fowler to the Kerry campaign, Kerry campaign canager Mary Beth Cahill assured Fowler that Kerry did indeed intend to invest heavily in South Carolina, "where two other candidates, Senator John Edwards, who was born in the state, and Gen. Wesley K. Clark, seem to hold the advantage." LINKThe Washington Post 's Darryl Fears reports that "With South Carolina's Feb. 3 primary approaching, voters in this state seem to have awakened. After six months of campaigning by the candidates, four months of their television ads and a month of intensifying coverage leading up to last Monday's Iowa caucuses and this Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, they seem ready for the TV close-ups that will come when the Palmetto State holds the South's first presidential primary of the 2004 election cycle." LINKAnd Randy Archibold writes from Columbia, S.C. that Edwards' trip to South Carolina yesterday demonstrated "the need to make a showing in New Hampshire while staying strong in South Carolina, his neighboring state. Mr. Edwards's advisers say he must win here and raise the money needed to carry on beyond that." LINKThe New York Times ' David Brooks produces an op-researcher's list of Kerry-as-conservative moments but then ponders Kerry's not following through on some of his seemingly conservative ideals: "He will momentarily embrace daring ideas, but if they threaten core constituencies, he often abandons them, returning meekly to the Democratic choir. That is the difference between speechifying and leadership." LINKMinister Nancy Taylor has an interesting write-up in today's Boston Globe of Howard Dean's religious history. LINK

The Washington Post editorial board defends Dean's "Rant": "Let's get a grip. We don't mean the candidate. We're talking about the public and the press, the late-night comics and the Internet remixes, all of whom have seized on the speech as the most revealing political moment since Dan Quayle flunked the spelling bee." LINKThe New York Post 's Morris speculates that Dr. Judy will set up shop in the White House. LINKA mellow Dean reprised his "rant" last night. LINK"Arizona Democrats will vote in their presidential primary Feb. 3, earlier than ever before. Its 72 delegates are second only to Missouri's 74 among the seven states voting one week after New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary. Its status as the first Western state to vote is no accident," report the AP in their look ahead to the next set of primaries. LINK

The AP takes a look at the endorsement dodge, in the who's supporting whom game of politics. LINK

The Los Angeles Times' John M. Glionna takes a look at the Concord Monitor and its effect on the race in New Hampshire. LINK

Mark Z. Barabak and James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times investigates the small town politics the presidential candidates are taking part in while fighting for New Hampshire. LINK

Novak's sources say goodbye, forever, to Iowa's FOTN status. LINKThe New York Times ' editorial board thinks that the New Hampshire primary's time has past. LINKAnd The Times gives the return of Gennifer Flowers a good 1500 words. LINKVirginia's GOP House of Delegates rejected of No Child Left Behind. LINK

"The large spending increases that President Bush is seeking for defense and homeland security will set up an election-year showdown with Congress over largess for other domestic programs, with the White House girding for a fight to prove the president's budget-cutting mettle, congressional and White House sources say," per The Washington Post 's Weisman. LINKIn the Washington Post 's Outlook section, David Broder believes the Democrats will unify but still find it difficult to challenge the incumbent President. LINKBush-Cheney '04 is quietly gearing up to face the eventual Democrat nominee, while surrogates take up the fight for the president, reports Mary Leonard of the Boston Globe . LINK

"This week, the GOP's campaign planners were abruptly forced to turn their sights on the Democratic race's new frontrunner, Senator John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) — and at least some of them suggested that he might be tougher for Bush to beat," reports Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times. LINK

Glen Dacy's Red Bus Log takes a Gephardtian/Dean shot on its rivals: "We were glad to help wash the blue bus yesterday. And appreciate their noting the effort. Tomorrow we will change their oil too. PS Has anybody heard from the White Bus lately? Seems like they have had a lot of time off."