Howard Dean on the Campaign Trail
— -- ABCNEWS' Marc Ambinder is on the campaign trail with former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean as he runs for president. For the latest report, scroll down.
A spectacular non-announcement
Nov. 7 — Leave it to Howard Dean to beat expectations by NOT getting an official endorsement.
The unnervingly unusual series of events — morning show hits to talk about, mostly, the Confederate flag, with a joyous (and unwitting) celebration in Burlington, Vermont at 2:00 p.m. ET ("We got it, it being something they would soon learn was sweeter than cherry pie"), a purple-jacketed Dean at a press conference with Andrew Stern, a giggling and winking affair on stage, a paper statement announcing a delay, the first wave of confused television reports, the settling reality that Dean had helped to align SEIU and AFSCME in the same corner — well, now you know why Joe Trippi needs all that caffeine.
The secret was closely held. High-ranking Dean aides did not find out until literally moments before Stern announced it to the world, and there were top SEIU officials who were informed only within the past 24 hours.
It was not a done deal until early this week. Dean met Monday, according to people familiar with the matter, with members of Iowa's AFSCME chapter, and his appearance essentially sealed the deal with members of that union. Around then, people close to AFSCME's president, Gerry McEntee, began to sense that Dean had turned the final corner, destined to be the favorite.
Sources said McEntee and Stern spoke many times over the past few weeks, their relationship growing warmer with each conversation. They agreed to work through many of their differences, though the plan to try and do a joint endorsement wasn't hatched until recently.
It's not totally official: AFSCME's board hasn't voted yet and Dean was coy last night: "Obviously, we hope we get their endorsement," he said as his mouth crept into a smile. "We hope. On Wednesday, we'll found out."
The Dean campaign itself was deliberately kept mostly out of the loop, according to sources. The campaign was not privy to discussions between Stern and McEntee, fearing that it could be held liable under FEC rules for coordinating endorsements with the labor groups.
Dean was frank about one reason why SEIU and AFSCME will matter.
"The service unions have enormous diversity which is something we really need in this campaign and which could really complement us perfectly," Dean said.
An AFSCME spokesperson said that while the two unions may have had their disagreements, their leaders agreed that unity among labor leaders is the best way for them to beat President Bush in next year's election.
"The phrase that comes to mind is, politics makes for strange bedfellows," said Mark Mackenzie, the president of the AFL-CIO in New Hampshire.
Dean's financial prowess, his core identification as the "anti-Bush," his opposition to the entirety of the tax cuts, and Wes Clark's decision to opt out of Iowa's caucuses also helped push AFSCME in Dean's direction, sources said.
Another reason is simple: Both SEIU and AFSCME's internal polls deemed Dean their electorate's most popular candidate.
Stern and McEntee have often clashed about the way the labor movement should engage in politics, even going so far to as to establish rival funds for campaign communications. But their unions share a common economic and political orientation, more liberal and metropolitan than the well-established, so-called hard-hat unions based in the Midwest.
Although it is tempting to see the AFSCME/SEIU union as an alliance of the major service unions against their industrial brethren, two major industrial unions, the United Auto Workers and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, have yet to endorse a candidate, and UAW workers in several states seem to have a soft spot for Dean.
Still, AFSCME and SEIU have grown in influence, while the relative strength of industrial unions has declined.
Dean meets with SEIU, endorsement likely
Nov. 6 — Governor Dean will meet today with the executive council of the SEIU, which will then convene in a private session and hold an up or down vote on endorsing him.
SEIU matters because:
--It's a huge, diverse, growing union;
--Having its full-throated endorsement would help inoculate Dean from charges that he attracts little support outside of white voters, professionals and upper-income liberals;
--SEIU President Andrew Stern commands enormous respect and influence within the Democratic Party; Dean would acquire a very visible rabbi for his efforts to convince the party elite that he's electable;
--SEIU plans to make up what it lacks in numbers in Iowa and New Hampshire by spending lots of money to mobilize thousands, and provide their chosen one with thousands of volunteer hours;
--SEIU has a lot of money to spend on its political activities;
Stern has scheduled a 3 p.m. news conference in Washington, D.C. While the union deliberates, Dean will sit tight, awaiting the call to be summoned to his side.
Campaign aides insist that it's not a done deal; that their hesitant, hopeful (but not definitive) comments reflect a genuine uncertainty about what exactly will happen and how exactly the endorsement announcement will play out.
Financing
One unknown about the vote is what proportion of Dean's supporters are morally committed to the public financing system, and whether that will trump their loyalty to the candidate. Another is whether those donors who contributed to the campaign believing it would be matched will be left feeling misdirected.
To mollify them somewhat, Dean released a menu of new proposals to the campaign finance community Tuesday night. They include encouraging television stations to provide free air time to candidates, quintupling with a public match contributions up to $100 and a stronger, more enforcement-oriented FEC.
The Course Correction
After Tuesday night's debate, a number of Dean's supporters (and not a few of his staff members) told him directly that his answers about the Confederate flag did not, to put it mildly, come off well.
The result was a rare, public, course correction.
"We reacted to [our opponents] and not to the voters out there who did feel there was something wrong with it," campaign manager Joe Trippi said in an interview. "That was part of our problem."
The campaign debated overnight whether to deliberately step on their public financing announcement and take their chances with a press corps bound to the dictum that the news of the day is the news of the day. Dean did not make the final decision to address the race issue until just before he took to the stage at Cooper Union yesterday.
When he did, in the words of one staff member, "we told him to go with his gut."
Several parties — members of Congress included — suggested language to Dean, but aides said he wrote the apology himself.
Dean began to read from a prepared text, but then he looked up, lowered his voice an octave, and began to speak slowly.
"I believe that we have one flag in this country — the flag of the United States of America … I started his discussion in a clumsy way … I regret the pain that I may have caused either to African Americans and southern white voters at the beginning of this discussion."
Dean asks supporters to decide money question
Nov. 5 — The small and obvious question for the campaign now: Does the tongue-lashing over the Confederate flag flap survive the news cycle, creep into press stories about the financing decision, and put a little pressure on the SEIU to postpone an endorsement?
The big and obvious question: Has this affected and will it dampen the enthusiasm of Dean's Internet supporters?
Go to the blog:
The initial comments on the blog on Dean's and the flag question were not especially positive.(For days there has been a big debate, in fact, among the bloggers about whether Dean should apologize for the tone, if not the substance of what he originally said).
The initial blog comments on public financing, however, were overwhelmingly positive. If the 412 who posted reactions within an hour and a half of the news breaking are any indication of what will happen, the vote will result in Dean's rejecting the match and passing the collection plate.
Here is what Dean will say today during a speech at New York City's Cooper Union:
"We have two choices. The first will be for us to decline federal matching funds. It will mean walking away from $19 million. This will place the burden of funding the campaign entirely on our supporters, but with the knowledge that this may be the only way to win this election and reform our political system."
"The second choice will be for us to accept public financing. Unfortunately despite the law's best intent, it will hinder our reform efforts while rewarding the Bush campaign's attempts to further increase the power of special interests. It will cap our spending at $45 million, giving the Bush campaign a spending advantage of $170 million, which they will use to define and distort us from March to August."
If his supporters decide to let him opt out, Dean would become the first Democratic presidential candidate ever to reject public financing for a nomination fight.
"This is the biggest decision so far for our campaign," Dean told ABC News today. "And we want to share the responsibility with 500,000" people.
The campaign expects, and hopes, that his "voters" will decide to reject the match and "create an army of small donors" as Dean put it, to defeat his primary opponents and subsidize a general election campaign against a well-funded President George W. Bush.
"The reason why we're doing this is because if we decide to forgo the financing, then [his supporters] are going to have to help raise a whole lot of money," Dean said. "If [the supporters] are not up for it, we want to know about it."
Campaign manager Joe Trippi said they would accept whatever result the vote brings.
The campaign estimates it has already collected enough money to get the full match — and believes they can raise tens of millions more through the nomination season if they're permitted to do so.
Early this morning, Dean's campaign sent an e-mail to more than 480,000 e-mail supporters to announce the vote. As of this writing, it was unclear how the campaign would contact its nearly 100,000 registered supporters who haven't filed an e-mail address with them.
The vote will take place Thursday and Friday; each e-mail supporter will be sent a unique access code to gain entry into a special part of the Dean web site; they will then be asked to vote on the question.
Dean will announce the results on Saturday in Burlington, Vt.
Dean broadcasts in Iowa, courts younger voters
Nov. 4 — The Dean campaign has secured broadcast time to run an infomercial in every Iowa television market — what Dean's media strategist, Steve McMahon, called a "significant buy." The programs will air on a network affiliate station in each market at least a few times for the next week. Shot in Sioux Falls two weeks ago, Dean answers questions about health care, the economy, and his electability.
A Dean spokesperson said the program will air as early as 6 a.m. in one market as late as 11 p.m. in another. Depending on response, the campaign may extend the infomercial's run, aides said.
Why did Dean spend an hour and a half of valuable Iowa time courting high school students too young to vote?
For one thing, students who are 17 today can participate in next year's caucuses. And lore has it that Dean is trying to build a coalition of GenDeaners to compete with older voters who may choose reliable, safe, Gephardt.
Or maybe, since he's gone for a while with a press avail with national reporters, he was anxious for an old-fashioned grilling.
A sampling of the students' questions:
--"Can you elaborate more on your comment that you made Friday night about the Confederate flag?"
--"How is it possible to get all the countries to come with us that aren't our allies, and how are you going to get our boys back home from the war?"
-- How Dean's "lack of experience" on foreign policy matters compares to his opponents … .
--"I have heard that you are pro-gun, which to me seems as though you are for violence, but you strongly state that you are anti-war or against violence. How can you put both of those contradicting arguments in your campaign?"
For months, prominent supporters of Howard Dean have been urging him to use his background as a physician as a bulwark against attacks over Medicare and health care — to counter charges that he wanted to cut Medicare, had radical ideas about health care reform, or generally held views outside the Democratic mainstream.
On Monday in Des Moines, Dean complied, literally waving a stethoscope as he chastised his opponents for daring to meet him on his proving ground.
"I just thought I'd bring along a prop," Dean said near the beginning of a speech on nursing and health care.
"I spent 13 years of my life with this, and with senior citizens," he said. "And I can promise you that as President of the United States, not only will Medicare not be cut, but every senior citizen will have adequate health care."
Look for more of this rhetoric in the weeks to come.
Dean hands out musical treats for Halloween
Nov. 3 — For only the second time since he announced his presidential candidacy, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean publicly let loose and strummed a guitar.
It took a Halloween party in New Hampshire to get the governor in the right mood. Without too much notice (and having never, apparently, seen the music before), he played rhythm guitar to an original composition creatively titled "The Howard Dean sing-along."
The highlight of the party, according to attendees, was when Dean listened with a broad smile as his staff members re-enacted his stump speech. (The staffer playing Dean rolled his shirt sleeves up past his elbows.)
The skit featured youthful aides wearing outfits designed to evoke key stump speech line. There was
-- a "One Way Ticket Back To Crawford" (Dean says Bush deserves one).--"Ken Lay" and "the boys," to whom Dean says the tax cuts went.-- A child left behind, referring to the education bill Dean criticizes.-- A Costa Rican with health insurance. (" … even the Costa Ricans have health insurance … ")-- A staff member wearing a very large ten gallon hit and a shirt that asked, "Where's the beef?" (That's the "[Bush is] all hat and no cattle" line.)--A John Aschroft look-alike with a copy of the constitution taped to his shoes. (subtle).--One staffer wearing a tee shirt labeled "borrow," another wearing a shirt labeled "spend" (" … .borrow and spend, borrow and spend," Dean says of Bush.)Another feature of the party was the apple bob — but in this incarnation, it was a "WMD bob" — and, yes, the tub was empty. (Get it? You can't bob for apples that aren't there … )
Alas, Dean did officially not wear a costume … but he did take off his jacket. His look: "The next president of the United States," according to his state director, Karen Hicks.
One note: no one dressed as a metrosexual.
In other news, Dean has picked up a new military/foreign policy adviser: retired General Tony "Merrill" McPeak, a former Air Force chief of staff. McPeak joins a growing roster of foreign policy advisers, including retired Lieutenant General Joseph Hoar, a former commander in chief of the U.S. Central Command.
On the labor front, the Dean campaign has grown steadily more confident that it the SEIU will vote to endorse the Governor on November 6.
He won a straw poll at the New Hampshire state SEIU reception on Saturday, taking 65 votes to Dick Gephardt's 20. Incidentally, the New Hampshire SEIU also voted to recommend the endorsement of a presidential candidate on November 6 — by a 2-to-1 margin.
The Heckler
Oct. 31 — Another day, another state, another health care event hosted by an SEIU local.
SEIU's Washington state council has 60,000 members, making it the largest AFL-CIO union in the state.
They've hosted a conference call with Senator John Edwards before — yesterday, it was a health care forum with Dean.
In Iowa on Monday, Dean will offer his plan to strengthen the nursing profession — something the campaign wanted to schedule before SEIU decides whether to endorse them on November 6.
He is expected to call for, among other things, better workplace standards, a look at national staffing ratios, incentives for nurse recruitment and training and more equitable Medicare reimbursement.
Dean also stopped at a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser at a tony athletic club with munchies and confections galore — and his first real bonafide heckler, according to Dean's longtime aide, Kate O'Connor.
About 10 minutes into the health care forum, a young man at the edge of the crowd stood up.
"Why do you support HMOs … why do you take … money from George Soros?" he yelled. Audience members began to try and shush him, but the man persisted. After about 15 seconds, a Dean staffer began to pull the man out of the room. The man shouted the same questions and then muttered, "This country is bankrupt."
He was escorted from the room under the watchful gaze of two burly members of the Painter's union. He was briefly questioned by Seattle police and left the site.
SEIU decision looms
Oct. 30 — The question now is not whether the Service Employees International Union and a majority of its 1.6 million members prefer Howard Dean; rather, it's when they'll do it. Dean was the only presidential candidate to speak at a major (and private) SEIU political conference in Baltimore last week, but the horse's mouth is more direct.
Writing in this week's New Republic, Ryan Lizza got Andy Stern, SEIU's president, to say:
"'It's come down to the one candidate who has demonstrated enough support among our members … which is Howard Dean. And anything else we did would really not be true to what we said, which is that members are the soul of this union. There is only one candidate who you could honestly say has enough support to merit an endorsement. With the AFL, it was [Dick] Gephardt or no endorsement. With SEIU, it's Dean or no endorsement, and no endorsement could win … .
Some people like Dean, but they don't think the union should endorse.'"
On the trail in San Francisco Wednesday, Dean seemed very confident that he'd get the nod, and soon.
Clad in a trademark purple SEIU sweater, Dean stood on a makeshift stage in Lafayette Park with SEIU local 250 president Sal Rosselli.
Rosselli a huge fan of Dean's. He and New York local 1199's Dennis Rivera have been two of Dean's biggest advocates with other SEIU leaders. But SEIU bylaws prevent him from officially endorsing anyone until his parent union makes its own decision.
When actor Rob Reiner reminded the crowd of more than 1,000 that Dean had just received the endorsement of the California Teachers Association, Dean glanced at Rosselli and piped up. "And so does someone else I know … "
Reiner appeared momentarily confused.
"Who?" Reiner asked. He turned and look at Rosselli. "This guy?"
"We're working on it," Rosselli said.
In a brief interview after the event, Rosselli was circumspect, and would only say that he was "personally" lobbying other SEIU members on Dean's behalf.
With the candidate yesterday was his national labor guy (and former SEIU organizer) Bob Muhlenkamp, who would only say about SEIU, "We're hopeful."
But he said it with a big smile.
Dean is devoting a lot of time during his three-day swing out West to fundraising.
There was an $1,000 a ticket deal last night in Oakland, followed by a second tier event for $100 contributors. In Boulder, Colorado on Tuesday morning, Dean raised more than $50,000. He had two events in Las Vegas Tuesday night.
Judging by whom you talk to, the campaign has nearly accumulated enough (or nearly enough) matchable dollars from donors to receive the full $18.6 million in federal funds.
A decision on that, by the way, is not imminent, though it will be made soon. Dean has not fully made up his mind, aides say.
Still TBD is how exactly the announcement of what they'll do will play out.
Tuesday, Dean hinted at a reason why he might decide to fund himself:
"This campaign is two way: you get on the blog, we pay attention to the blog, and we listen to you, and we respond," he told nearly 2,000 students at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "We're going to use television commercials … that's why we need a lot of money … because Karl Rove is going to say all sorts of unspeakable things, most of which, of course, are not true … .But the end of the 30 second spot where 'us telling you' is at hand … ."
Who was that handsome guy in the dapper charcoal gray suit hanging around Dean events this week? Probably Mo Elleithee, formerly a national press secretary for Senator Bob Graham's recently kiboshed presidential campaign.
Elleithee told ABC News he's been talking to several other presidential campaigns about potential employment opportunities and decided to accept Dean's invitation to see what their roadshow is like.
Elleithee said he hasn't made a decision about which campaign he'll join, or whether he'll join one. He worked for Bill Bradley in 2000, ran Janet Reno's 2002 gubernatorial campaign and has a resume of communications experience with Democratic staffs from New Mexico to Virginia.
Dean picks up more African American support as Sharpton launches criticism
Oct. 29 — In Denver and Boulder, Colorado, Tuesday, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean picked up the endorsements of four prominent local African-American politicians, including State Senator Peter Groff, who heads the University of Denver's Center for African-American policy.
There were not timed to coincide with Al Sharpton's charge that Dean's agenda is "anti-black."
But they might as well have been. The campaign argues that Dean's resume, his contextualized statements about affirmative action, and what they characterize as a growing level of African-American support parries the charge with vigor.
Dean's first response, issued through deputy campaign manager Andi Pringle, was brief, indirect, and did not mention Sharpton.
"Governor Dean has always been a strong supporter of affirmative action, and he believes there is still a great need for affirmative action in America. Everywhere Governor Dean travels he talks about the fact that racism is still a serious problem in America, and he strongly believes that we need to actively work to correct these wrongs, and he believes affirmative action is a crucial piece of achieving that goal."
The AP later got Dean himself on the record. "'That's about help for people who don't have any money, and I think we should do that. But I also think affirmative action has to be about race, and I've said that all throughout this campaign,' Dean said." LINK
It's safe to say that Dean's campaign is not worried about Sharpton as a political threat, though they're certainly not cavalier about the threat Gephardt poses in Iowa.
But no one in the campaign would challenge Sharpton directly.
White Democrats wading into disputes among black leaders is a tetchy business, particularly for a presidential candidate who has been criticized for attracting too few black supporters. (The South Carolina poll numbers, the remarks by other campaigns (and some neutral observers) about white-seeming audiences, the small white state thing).
Can a white Democrat running for president, particularly one in Howard Dean's political position, afford to personalize an attack leveled against him by a black Democrat?
Dean's communications director, Tricia Enright, would only say, "You'll have to ask Rev. Sharpton what this is about."
Such things may best be left to surrogates.
Case in point: The most potent statement of the day was issued by Rep. Major Owens (D-N.Y., an African-American who supports Dean. The take-home line:"
"Our people, our rank and file is already with Howard Dean. Black leaders must run to catch up."
It's not the first time Dean has been taken to task about previous musings on affirmative action. In 1995, when he was the governor of a Vermont, which has a very small black population, he hinted that it wasn't heresy to turn away from affirmative action based on race and turn on the program's class consciousness filters.
Asked about that, and his more recent statements supporting affirmative action as currently constituted, by ABC's George Stephanopoulos in December of 2002, Dean said in part "The argument that I would make is that there's nothing contradictory between what you put up on the screen and what I just said, because class is the way to start off and do it. If you find that your class is still not diverse economically or, economically or racially then you have to move to the next step."
Which is what he told reporters in Vegas Tuesday.
Nowadays, Dean mentions his support for affirmative action in a majority of his speeches on the stump, and almost always takes President Bush to task for allegedly playing "the race card" by charging that the University of Michigan affirmative action paradigm employs quotas.
"For that reason alone," Dean says, "we should give the president a one-way ticket back to Crawford."
IUPAT endorsement paints good picture for Dean
Oct. 28 — With 3,000 active Iowa members and 1,000 retirees, the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades may not be a match for the potent union coalition that Dick Gephardt is building in Iowa. But IUPAT, will try to match Gephardt's numerical strength by setting an ambitious shoe-leather goal.
"We might be only one-tenth of that crowd," said James Williams, IUPAT's president, of Gephardt's union endorsements in the state, "but our feet on the ground means a lot of us will be out there."
Williams told ABC News said the union has pledged to devote to Dean's election a quarter of a million activist days. That, for a union with less than half that number of members.
IUPAT endorsed Al Gore in 2000 and Bill Clinton in 1992. Three years ago they were a ubiquitous presence at Gore events around the country, surprising other unions with their political aggressiveness, and even received an internal AFL-CIO award for it. But they've never endorsed this early, Williams said.
Sean McGarvey, IUPAT's political director, said he was skeptical of Dean at first.
Earlier in the year, campaign manager Joe Trippi had shown IUPAT's leaders the Powerpoint presentation outlining Dean's grassroots goals.
"I thought they were wildly optimistic," McGarvey said.
But then came the $7.6 million second quarter, a rapid rise in the polls, and a surprising show of strength in the union's internal balloting.
"We had assumed," said McGarvey, "that [the union members] would be for their champion, Gephardt."
But Gephardt came in second.
After the AFL-CIO executive council decided not to meet in mid-October to propose a unified endorsement, IUPAT's political officials began to discuss the possibility of selecting their own candidate.
"We decided to do it for no other reason than our members have 15 percent unemployment," Williams said.
When the secretary-treasurers teleconferenced and laid out their arguments in mid-October, Dean was the clear favorite, union officials said.
California Teachers' support no surprise to campaign
Oct. 27 —Sunday's endorsement by the 335,000-member California Teachers Association (CTA) did not take Governor Dean's campaign by surprise.
Senior CTA officials approached Dean after he spoke to the California Democratic Party convention in March of 2003, and a courtship began. The CTA formally interviewed Dean in June, and he won by a large margin a vote of CTA's elected teacher representatives yesterday, according to the union. The union said that Dean's strong criticism of the No Child Left Behind education law, and his desire to fully fund special education programs, resonated with its membership.
The CTA is a very powerful prong of the 2.7 million-member National Education Association. Both campaign and union officials refused to speculate whether the CTA endorsement represented a good omen about the parent's union's choice.
In Iowa today, Dean will pick up an endorsement from his first national labor group — the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.
Attacking the "attack" ads
Oct. 24 —
The pushback by other campaigns characterizing the new Iowa and New Hampshire ads as direct attacks persuaded Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi to issue a statement explaining the ads' phrasing:
"We know the American people understand the difference between results and rhetoric, and when other candidates distort Governor Dean's record of results — as they have for months — we're going to set the record straight," Trippi wrote."
So the Dean oppo research team did a Nexis search to find newspaper headlines where the other candidates attacked Dean, and came up with more than 100 hits.
"As you can see by the headlines below, the other campaigns made a strategic decision to attack Governor Dean after he surged ahead of them in the polls. Below are three pages of headlines on these attacks. Also, click on links to Governor Dean's ads below and see them for yourself," Trippi wrote.
A sampling: "Kerry slams Dean," Boston Globe , 9/1; "Democratic White House Hopefuls Focus Attacks On Dean," Bulletin's Frontrunner, 9/2; "Kerry launches campaign, takes aim at Bush, Dean," Seattle Times, 9/3.
On the endorsement front, the nod from Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, the Democratic caucus's youngest member, brought The Doctor's congressional endorsement total to an even 10 on Thursday.
On the health front, The Governor and The General have a new thing in common: campaign trail colds. Dean is down today in Vermont, recovering from a nasty cold that developed over the course of the past week and hit full force during three days of intense campaigning in Iowa.
Dean is off Friday, but he'll call into the ABC Radio Network's "Mitch Albom" show tomorrow at 3:35 pm ET. Note that the show is based on Detroit (!) … and of course, Michigan is a key February state for the campaign's national delegate accumulation plan.
Zephyr Teachout, an energetic wunderkind who is currently the campaign's director of Internet outreach and organizing, is wildly popular in the Dean blogosphere world. There's even a nascent movement to nominate her for vice president.
In a new attempt to generate grassroots support, Teachout will travel to 20 states (more than 100 cities) in six weeks to chronicle the stories of what the campaign calls "the greatest grassroots campaign presidential politics has ever seen."
She'll ride aboard a converted 1978 Airstream bus with a full-time campaign videographer, who will record her blogging, canvassing, and signing up people to go to Iowa and New Hampshire to turn out voters on caucus and primary nights.
Teachout will begin her tour on October 27 in Los Angeles and end it in mid-December in Philadelphia.
Dean channels his anger over Medicare
Oct. 23 — It's an interesting choice of words for a campaign allegedly concerned about its candidate appearing to be too angry.
"I get pretty mad when I hear Dick Gephardt telling everyone I hate Medicare."
Dean has said this (or a slight variation of it) at least a dozen times since Monday. And Dean really is piqued about it, his aides say. It works for him as a personal motivating tool and, judging by how often he expresses it, works as a way to add passion to the rebuttal.
"I realize," Governor Dean said yesterday morning, "that people are starting to believe the nonsense on Medicare."
That latter point is not something his campaign readily acknowledges, but it is as good an explanation as any for the tough new television ads in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Dean occasionally addresses the charges by credentialing himself as a doctor who actually worked with Medicare for years and telling audiences how important the program was to his patients — but lately, the stress has been on his experience as an executive. That's the swing phrase in the ads.
"Howard Dean wants to contrast a record of results with a record of nothing but rhetoric on transcripts," a senior aide said.
The spots refer blindly to "my opponents." But they are clearly aimed most directly at Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Dr. Dean's most serious competitors in Iowa and New Hampshire.
In recent weeks, Dean has stepped up his antagonism to against 'Washington politicians' and their "hot air."
At the stroke of 7:44 p.m. ET last night, Dean's caravan rolled into his 99th Iowa county.
They called it "Howard in Howard," not to be confused with "Howard at Howard," which was a stop a few weeks ago at the Washington, D.C. university; (though did Dean did wear a Howard University windbreaker.
A plan to have Howard county residents named Howard join him on stage was dropped because the campaign simply couldn't find a whole lot of said-named people there.
Dean first visited Iowa as a presidential candidate in February of 2002.
Rumors abound that Dean will try to double the feat — somehow re-visiting all 99 counties in a typical fit of exuberance. But a campaign aide said that was unlikely.
Dean said he looks forward to playing the slots in Las Vegas when he dips into the city for a short visit next week — but for an innocuous reason.
It seems the governor collects the newly-issued state heritage quarters, and since he spends most of his time east of Denver, he hasn't been able to collect the quarters minted in Denver.
"I'll spend five bucks," he said. "If I don't get it after five bucks," that's it.
Dean said he also collects pennies — and is a self-described "pack rat."
"I am the cheapest S.O. B. you ever met," he said.
Incidentally, Dean still carries his own wallet — and is not averse to pulling out a bill to give to his driver to pay a toll.
The most surprising thing about the Governor long-anticipated tour of "Large Scale Hog Confinements" was how un-smelly it smelled. Blame or credit favorable winds. And thankfully, a scheduled stop near an actual corporate hog farm turned into a brief drive-by.
At Paul and Phyllis Willis's family-owned hog farm (which, Note to Washington, produces the great beef you eat in burritos at Chipotle). Surrounded by a gaggle of gobbling, oinking pigs, Dean made the inevitable joke about Washington lobbyists, and even reached out to pet a porcine specimen. It was unclear if the pig was impressed or not.
Coming soon to the blog? In Howard County, a man identified by Dean campaign staff as the Kerry tracker attracted the attention of Dean's aide, Kate O'Connor, who, upon learning his identity, moseyed over and videotaped him taking notes for several minutes.
Dean Hits Iowa Airwaves to Talk Prescription Drugs
Oct. 22 — Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean hits back at Dick Gephardt, implicitly, and Washington politicians, explicitly, in a new ad comparing his record in Vermont with what he has called the failure of Washington politicians to pass prescription drug legislation.
The campaign won't say how big the buy is, but it'll run in every major television market in Iowa and will stay up for an indeterminate amount of time.
The text: "Seniors today are getting clobbered by prescription drug costs. But instead of fixing the problem, the best my opponents can do is talk about what was said eight years ago. As governor, I provided prescription drug assistance for seniors and got health-care coverage for nearly every child in my state. For years the politicians in Washington have talked about health insurance and a prescription drug benefit. And all you got was talk. But we did it in Vermont. I'm Howard Dean and I approved this message because only you have the power to change Washington."
This is Dean's first newly produced Iowa ad in more than a month; he's been on the air intermittently since the summer, and has been on the air with his old "take our country back" ad for a while.
In other ads news, Dean will return to New Hampshire's airwaves today; the campaign has bought at least a week's worth of ads on WMUR.
Finally, the Trippi, McMahon and Squier film crew showed up again to get more classic presidential campaign advertising moments, all for use in future ads. Today, there was the "sitting in the restaurant talking about health care" picture… and the "sleeves rolled up, leaning against the fortuitously parked red truck gesticulation" shot.
And more:
Dean hit Iowa county 97 today, hopscotching from Emmetsburg to Algona to Klemme to Lake Mills to Joice to Osage, and winding up at a community college in Mason City. The scent of hog farms and rendering plants permeated through half of the appearances, but Dean's professional campaign staff appears to have jettisoned their nose-wrinkling reflexes, so the locals aren't offended.
Dean has done three events this trip primarily with students so far — not the type of voter you'd think he'd court in rural Iowa. But then again, if you're 17 today, you can vote in the caucuses come November, and the campaign knows it seems to do especially well with the cohort of voters aged 18 to 30.
And if it's cold and snowing, younger voters are less apt to stay away from their precinct caucus on Jan. 19.
At nearly every stop, not just the ones with younger people, Dean trots out the statistic that a quarter of his donations came from that age group and that younger voters are "leading this campaign."
Dean calls Clark and Lieberman Decisions 'Strategic'
Oct. 21 — Gov. Dean took a minute to comment on the Clark and Lieberman decisions to skip Iowa:
"I think Iowa is a pretty important state, but I don't think it's up to me. It was a strategic decision that they made. It may diminish Sen. Lieberman and Gen. Clark, but it won't diminish Iowa."
Dean began a three-day tour of rural northwestern Iowa on Monday, visiting his 91st Hawkeye State county in a bid to become the first candidate since Dick Gephardt in 1988 to set foot in all 99. By normal Dean standards, the crowds were small. (He rarely turns out less than 100 in New Hampshire.) But by the standards of largely Republican northwestern Iowa, the turnout was appreciable, campaign aides said, and bystanders agreed.
Dean's final stop Monday at Iowa Lakes Community College attracted more than 150 people, but at least 50 of them were students receiving extra credit for being there.
Jane Campbell, a spokeswoman for the college, said that two teachers offered their students extra credit for their attendance and their completion of an essay assignment about it.
Dean was trailed at several stops by media strategist Steve McMahon and a film crew. In between events, they shot several classic Iowa ad tableaus — Dean with his coat slung over his shoulder talking to older Democrats outside a diner — Dean listening intently to school board members and older Democrats in a school library — Dean on the side of the road explaining to older Democrats the virtues of his rural development policy, a farmer's co-op beautifully framed in the background.
Finally, Dean pierced the veil on a few elements of his higher education policy, which he'll roll out sometime in November.
Asked at a town hall meeting how he'd improve the system, Dean said he had a plan that would "guarantee that the first year [of college] will be essentially free," and that he would quadruple the size of AmeriCorps.
Dean Campaign Pushes Back
Oct. 20 — After months of hearing Sen. John Kerry say that former Vt. Gov. Howard Dean would effectively raise taxes on the middle class by repealing all the Bush tax cuts, the campaign has decided to push back, questioning Kerry's credibility to make the charge.
They are publishing comments their research team mined from newspapers appearing to show that Kerry looked askew at the entirety of the 2001 plan.
Kerry has said that getting rid of all the tax cuts would raise taxes substantially on many middle class families.
"This is completely false and Sen. Kerry knows it, at least he did at one time," Dean said in a statement sent to Iowa reporters Saturday.