Howard Dean

Earlier, I wrote that some Democrats are not very enthusiastic about seeing fellow Democrat Jimmy Dahroug make a third attempt to unseat Republican State Senator Caesar Trunzo on Long Island.

Today's Newsday has more on the story.  read more »

When 2012 rolls around, Howard Dean’s chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee will be a distant memory. But when that year’s Democratic primary calendar is cobbled together, you’d better believe that states will think long and hard before trying to do what Florida and—especially—Michigan did this year.

Dean has taken more than his share of heat for the still-unresolved status of both of those states this year, a situation that Hillary Clinton could, supposedly, use to justify taking her campaign all the way to the convention floor in August. It could also complicate Democratic efforts to carry both of these large swing states in November.  read more »

I followed up with Clinton campaign finance chair Hassan Nemazee about that summit of big Clinton and Obama donors last night, and he told me that there was a bit of an epilogue to the spirited exchange he had with DNC chairman Howard Dean.

"He did call me," Nemazee said. "We did have a lengthy and a productive and constructive conversation regarding the issues that I had raised and the role that he could and hopefully will play in resolving the Florida and Michigan issue."  read more »

Some more details of the heated exchange between Howard Dean and Clinton supporters during last evening's Obama-Clinton donor summit on Fifth Avenue, from yet another attendee:

After Dean's initial remarks, Bernard Bergreen, a Hillary bundler, rose and said that Dean's address left out any discussion of Michigan and Florida, which was the critical bone of contention between the two campaigns.

Dean said that in his view, the question could be settled only after the primaries had finished in June, and after the superdelegates had made their decision.

At that point Clinton campaign finance chair Hassan Nemazee spoke up. He said Dean's response sounded to him as if the DNC chairman were "essentially trying to kick the can down the road" and that the chairman was not exhibiting the type of leadership one would expect. Nemazee said that since the campaigns obviously could not reach a solution on their own before June, Dean's argument amounted to passing the buck.

Dean then responded, heatedly, that in his experience, those who sought the intervention of party leadership were motivated by their own particular agendas. And that was not the sort of leadership he intended to provide.

Nemazee answered that he had in no way insinuated that Dean should bring about a particular outcome, and was only calling for the chairman to take a more active role in exercising leadership. Nemazee said it needed to happen before the primaries, not after.

He also said, according to the attendee, that he found Dean's tone accusatory and "pejorative."

Nemazee left shortly after the exchange.  read more »

To be fair, I suspect it's pretty hard to verify electronic signatures, but even so, that petition circulated by two of Hillary Clinton's New Jersey-based supporters yesterday isn't--so far--generating a groundswell of support for reinstating delegates from Florida and Michigan.

It's gathered 263 signatures (the letter is undated), one of which is “Sinbad O’Tuzla.” Also, a sizable number of the names are simply listed as “Anonymous," at least one name is repeated, and a sample of other signatures incl  read more »

The day after major Hillary Clinton fund-raisers sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi about the role of superdelegates in the nominating process (as in, please stop taking the Obama campaign's position on it), two Hillary Clinton supporters from New Jersey are circulating a petition, addressed to Howard Dean, asking that Florida and Michigan delegates be reinstated "immediately."

"If they are not reinstated by early April," the petition says, "we ask the Democratic National Committee to show cause why they should not be reinstated and establish a mandate for two full revote primaries for June."

The email in full:  read more »

For all David Paterson's considerable charm and wit, his managerial style has been described by Democratic insiders as "jazz government." He is not into discipline. He's no good at firing people. His greatest political talent seems to be being in the right place at the right time.

But always walking one step behind Paterson now is his own éminence grise, Charles O'Byrne, an extremely intelligent, well-connected, tough and reclusive former Jesuit priest who as the governor's chief of staff will be one of the most powerful players in New York government. When the Spitzer governorship fell under the weight of the recent sensational sex scandal, Mr. O'Byrne became the gatekeeper of the new regime in Albany.  read more »

The day after losing badly in Mississippi, Hillary Clinton's team is back to an aggressive push on seating Michigan and Florida delegates, with or without a revote.

Not only did Maggie Williams write a letter to David Plouffe this morning, but the Clinton campaign just sent out a release with remarks Clinton made at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. this morning. According to the release, she said both that “[t]he results of those primaries [in Michigan and Florida] were fair and they should be honored,” and that “there are two options: Honor the results or hold new primary elections.”  read more »

If Hillary Clinton does well enough in tomorrow’s quartet of primaries to continue, her campaign’s next step will to resume banging the drum about seating the delegates of Michigan and Florida at the convention.

Barack Obama should support this aim.

Realistically, any Clinton nomination scenario at this point requires the inclusion of lopsidedly pro-Hillary delegations from Michigan and Florida at the national convention, since she's all but certain -- even with wins tomorrow -- to finish the primary season with fewer pledged delegates than Obama. Both states held "outlaw" primaries in January: None of the candidates really campaigned in either state, turnout was markedly lower than in other states, and Obama's name wasn't even on the Michigan ballot. Clinton won them both handily.

The Clinton campaign has been playing the voter-disenfranchisement card, arguing that the delegations must be seated to honor the will of voters in both states. This argument has not gained much traction, given the obvious flaws of both contests. But Clinton's hope seems to be that attitudes might shift if she reels off a late series of primary victories, starting with Texas and Ohio tomorrow. Perhaps then, the thinking goes, Democrats might be more receptive to finding a way to dump Obama, even if he has a slight lead in pledged delegates and cumulative votes.  read more »

Here’s an invitation for tomorrow’s Democratic National Committee fund-raiser at 52 Thompson Street, featuring Eliot Spitzer, whose political stock ticked upwards last night.

Also featured on the invitation are DNC chair Howard Dean, Spitzer fund-raiser Cindy Darrison, and Nassau County Democratic chair Jay Jacobs.

With Barack Obama's bandwagon picking up speed, Hillary Clinton's sympathizers have been pushing a new caricature of their opponent: the cultish figure who seduces the weak-kneed masses with vague and meaningless but oh-so-warm-feeling generalities.

"There was something just a wee bit creepy," Time's Joe Klein, a Bill and Hillary stalwart, recently wrote, "about the mass messianism…of (Obama's) Super Tuesday speech and the recent turn of the Obama campaign."  read more »

In an interview taped yesterday for Inside City Hall, Howard Dean expressed opposition to a brokered convention if the Democratic primary contests fail to produce a candidate with enough delegates to win the nomination.

Dean told Dominic Carter he thinks there will be a nominee by March or April, and if not, "we're going to have to get the candidates together and make some kind of an arrangement."

Transcript after the jump.  read more »

The best line of the night has to go to Joe Trippi, the Edwards advisor who used to work for Howard Dean.

When asked if Hillary Clinton’s venting about change had reached an anger level approximate to the Dean scream, he said this:

“I think tonight, change won, and the status quo lost it.”

That got a good laugh out of the reporters, who nevertheless pressed him as to whether the two moments were comparable. Finally, after some ducking, he said, “That’s as close as you get,” And, “It seemed really angry to me.”

Hillary Clinton was on her game all day Sunday, hitting all the right notes, drawing huge ovations from voters, getting people to commit their support on caucus cards.

And yet, thanks to two of her surrogates, it ended up being a rough press day.

After Clinton finished her last event in Cedar Falls, the BlackBerries of reporters buzzed with an e-mail from the Obama campaign alerting them to the remarks of Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio, who disparaged Iowa in a Columbia Dispatch story leading the Drudge Report.
 read more »

Barack Obama is on the cusp of pulling off what no one in his party has achieved for years.

If recent polls, together with the crowds at his events, are anything to go by, he is simultaneously appealing to strident Democratic activists and seducing floating voters and independents. The combination, if it proves durable, is electoral gold dust.

The recent history of the Democratic Party is littered with compelling insurgent candidates—Howard Dean, Gary Hart and Ted Kennedy, for example—who rode a wave of grass-roots fervor before crashing to earth.

Mr. Obama seems to offer a way out of the trap.  read more »

It’s become understandably fashionable to liken the Ron Paul phenomenon to the outbreak of Howard Dean-mania that swept the Democratic grassroots four years ago. But there is less common ground than one might think.  read more »

In a panel on Iraq and the 2008 campaign here at the YearlyKos convention, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg argued that Democrats in the House and Senate are in good shape for winning reelection as long as the War in Iraq continues and stays the most prominent issue.

But he also said that Democrats would be in much better shape now if the DNC had dedicated more resources and borrowed more money for the last midterm elections.

"we have a very small majority," said Greenberg. "Another ten seats would have made big difference."

When an audience member asked the panel about the electability of Hillary Clinton, Greenberg seemed to suggest that the doubts over her viability could be a real problem.

To make the point that voters would abandon a candidate they liked if they thought the candidate couldn't actually win, he said, "I think Dean voters made the decision that Dean was unelectable."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Al Sharpton is taking over for Chris Matthews as host of Hardball on MSBC tonight, a spokesman for Sharpton just announced via email. The guests for tonight's show include Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, and Democratic National Committee Chairman, Howard Dean. Since Dean's entire tenure at the DNC has been a not-so-subtle of repudiation of McAuliffe's chairmanship, there'll be ample opportunity for some super-insider vituperation. Good thing the Rev. Al's there to exercise his calming influence.

Just because you're a lieutenant governor -- an office that Al Del Bello famously left on the grounds that it was too boring -- doesn't mean you can't get big Democrats to attend your fund-raiser, as this photo from last night proves.

A reader notes that Howard Dean, the DNC chairman, was in town doing his own fund-raising and Paterson's event just happened to fit into his schedule. Paterson has also made visits to Dean's office in Washington on more than one occasion.

I tried asking Mike Bloomberg if the record-breaking fund-raising by some of the 2008 White House candidates makes it easier to use nationally the message he employed in the 2005 mayoral race: that a self-financed candidate isn't beholden to campaign contributors.

After saying he's not running, Bloomberg offered this gem: a pre-emptive argument that anybody can raise money if they have good ideas.

"I think also it's fascinating, there's no evidence that you can't raise a lot of money if the public likes you. Take a look at Howard Dean over the internet foru years ago. It was, all of a sudden, an enormous amount of money. Barack Obama, you know, six months ago, wasn't on the radar screen. Today, he can raise an enormous amount of money. So, the ability to raise money is there if you have good ideas--ideas that some people think are good."

Which is an argument a self-financed candidate may need to trot out in order to fend off accusations he's buying a campaign.

-- Azi Paybarah

In the comments section, numbers man Jerry Skurnik raises a good point, and politely tells me to stop getting so excited about all these 2008 presidential polls.

"Since candidates have won when polls have shown them down by 20 points a week out, can we just agree right now that no poll a year and a half before an election with a margin of less than 20 means anything?"

In a quick telephone chat, Skurnik elaborated.

"Two weeks before the Iowa caucus, Howard Dean was ahead. And came in fourth," he said. Skurnik said even locally, early polls are not too reliable.

"Michael Bloomberg wasn't ahead of Mark Green in any polls until the very end" of the 2001 mayoral race.

Wonder if this'll slow the pace of all the 2008 polls we're seeing?

-- Azi Paybarah

Among the numerous unofficial "draft" Barack Obama websites that have been popping up lately, one struck me as particularly professional looking: Obama4America.com.

The company that created the website, it turns out, is registered to Joel Berman, whose email address is for a California-based company called Catapult Strategies. That's the company co-founded by Howard Dean's former campaign manager Joe Trippi, who now works there "on a project-by-project basis," according to his bio.

I called Berman to ask whether the website was part of some potentially more involved relationship with Obama, but after I introduced myself, he hurried me off the phone. (He said he was going into a meeting and would call me back.)

On a related note, Ben reported earlier today that Obama has been reaching out to his inner circle indicating he was indeed going to run for president, and Obama blog ads are up and running.

UPDATE: Jude Barry, the company's CEO just called and said the site is a personal venture of his, and that Trippi is not involved. He also said no one else at the company is working in any capacity with another 2008 contender.

And when asked about why he put up the site, he said, "We're trying to convince Obama to run and help him out."

Fair enough.

He is the same Jude Barry, for the record, who was Howard Dean's California state director and who worked on Dick Gephardt and Gary Hart's presidential campaigns in the 1980s.

-- Azi Paybarah

... for the Dems in 2008. Should we really be that surprised?

Full release after the jump.  read more »

- Matthew Schuerman

First, it was after the election. Then, it was "early December." Now, with the revelation that a Denver union will not go along with the no-strike pledge, Howard Dean is saying that he will not make a decision on the location of the 2008 Democratic National Convention until after the holidays.

Why does this sound like a way to give New York's rival a chance to clean up its house before it receives any visitors?

- Matthew Schuerman

One interesting detail amid the mega-coverage of Hillary Clinton's presidential gear-up is the hiring as her national field director of the highly capable Karen Hicks, who worked for Howard Dean in New Hampshire and for Gifford Miller here.

Hicks's recent New York stint ended somewhat unhappily: she was in charge of gathering petitions for Miller's 2005 mayoral campaign, allowing them to omit the salary and the cost of her operation from the list of expenditures that counted towards the campaign's overall spending limit. But when the Miller campaign publicly pointed out the campaign benefits of what she had done -- "We knocked on more than 150,000 doors of targeted primary voters to get their signatures and introduce them to Gifford" -- her role became one of a number of negative story lines that helped doom the campaign.

Not that anyone's expecting the prospective Clinton '08 campaign -- which is hardly going to lack for financial support -- to resort to accounting tricks to save money on staff salary.

-- Azi Paybarah

Hillary Clinton told supporters upstate that she is "so relieved and so exhausted" after this campaign season.

Not that she broke much a sweat anywhere during the campaign, but Hillary beat John Spencer in Yonkers, where he was mayor.

The Fix says she's the candidate most likely to win the Democratic nomination, but... "From a policy perspective, she may be vulnerable. Clinton's stance on the war in Iraq is out of step with many in the Democratic base, and she is clearly vulnerable to a challenge from someone who has been opposed to the war from the start."

Wesley Clark may announce whether he'll run for president in two months.

There are exactly 448,077 who voted against Joe Lieberman...in two elections.

The fate of the Times campaign blog, Empire Zone, is uncertain now that the 2006 races are over.

Also uncertain is the fate of Gifford Miller, who lost the 2005 mayoral election pretty soundly, but was just spotted chatting with likely 2009 mayoral contender Bill Thompson in Puerto Rico.

Ben has memories of people talking about impeaching George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Kos tells James Carville to quiet down after the Ragin' Cajun said Howard Dean should be replaced as head of the DNC.

Steven Malanga of City Journal says there is no pot of gold in DC for the city's congressional delegation.

New York typically ranked number one in per capita spending for social programs. By contrast, Mississippi (to take Rangel's example) received about 25 percent less per capita in social program spending than New York, though Mississippi has a higher poverty rate.

And pictured above is the upcoming New York Times Sunday Magazine post-election issue.  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

I can't wait for the Republican fingerpointing to begin. I can't wait so much I want to start it myself!

My Monday-morning questions for Karl Rove: Why didn't you sacrifice everything else to try and hold the Senate? Howard Dean had a 50-state srategy, you should have had a 5-state strategy: Montana, Virginia, Missouri, Tennessee, Rhode Island. Right now it looks like you won one of those, and you needed two. How bad was your polling—why didn't you understand ten days ago that you had lost the House and forget about it? Most important, you famously abandoned Mike DeWine in Ohio, and good for you, but why didn't you abandon Pennsylvania? DeWine lost by 12 points but next door, even as the conservative websites were saying he was competitive, Rick Santorum lost by nearly 60/40. Santorum got absolutely crushed—in the most expensive race in Pennsylvania history. Why didn't you know this? Why did you put one nickel in Pennsylvania when power was inching out of your grasp in smaller markets?

Here, Howard Dean explains why he won't appear on television alongside the RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, basically using the argument Jon Stewart used to deconstruct Crossfire.

-- Azi Paybarah

While many Democratic activists and fund-raisers are in an almost celebratory mood at the prospect o  read more »

It's one thing forThe New York Times to say the Mayor might have trouble raising money for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, another for him to do so himself. When a reporter asked about convention fundraising today, Bloomberg said:

"I think it will be difficult for the city. As you know, we are trying to raise a couple hundred million dollars to pay for the memorial and we have a poverty initiative which I'm really excited about, which we'll have to raise the money privately for because it is so innovative, and I think those things, in terms of raising money, would probably be much higher priorities for everybody. But we would be honored to have the convention. But these conventions have gotten so expensive."

The original leak for the Times story came from inside City Hall. Is the Mayor trying to inspire the private sector to pick up the slack, or is he sending the Democrats a message, or has Howard Dean already decided to go to Denver?

-Matthew Schuerman

Howard Dean's webmaster sings the praises of John McCain.

Alan Hevesi's Republican challenger praises the comptroller's new fraud hotline, but wonders "how come it took him two and two-thirds years to think of it?"

Instead of praise, a federal judge has bad news for people who leak info.

There is also bad news for Tom Suozzi's hometown of Glen Cove, where his cousin, Mayor Ralph Suozzi, is calling in state auditors.

John Desio spots Bruce Ratner outside yesterday's meeting for Atlantic Yards.

-- Azi Paybarah

The Daily News reports that Howard Dean said yesterday that Joe Lieberman should drop his independent bid.

Ben Smith covers primary night in Meriden, Connecticut, hangs out with bloggers; and reports that Carl Andrews used taxpayer funds to send out a series of mailings.

In case you missed it, the Sun reports on Washington Post Op-Ed team Mike Bloomberg and Jeb Bush.

-- Nicole Brydson

More evidence that Al Gore, endorser of Howard Dean for president, insurgent hero of the Netroots, once again finds himself in the party's warm embrace...

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's latest fund-raising letter, which recently arrived in mailboxes on Al Gore letterhead, runs nearly two-and-a-half pages in length and is filled with plenty of outrage, urging donors to give "$50, $75, or even more" to help the Democrats reclaim the Senate and "pull our country back from the brink of constitutional crisis."

He also reprises one of his pet theme of the GOP message "machine":

"We know that George Bush and Dick Cheney will not give up the power they claimed for themselves easily. The GOP muckraking machine is already in full force in Senate races around the country -- distorting the truth and smearing our candidates."

-- Lizzy Ratner

June was a very good month for Ann Coulter.  read more »

June was a very good month for Ann Coulter.  read more »

RudyBlogger offers a scornful critique of the "conventional wisdom" that John McCain is a more viable presidential candidate than Rudy Giuliani, putting the notion right up there with such erstwhile pearls of insider wisdom as "This is Kerry's race to lose" and "Howard Dean looks unstoppable in the Democratic primary."

And - carrying out a now-standard function of the web-based partisan -- RudyBlogger urges supporters to "email the reporter and his or her editors" each time a story understates Giuliani's support against McCain and other prospective Republican candidates.

It's hard to argue that Giuliani has been under-exposed as he's laid the foundations for his possible presidential run.

But there does seem to be a persistent idea that a Rudy candidacy is much better in theory than in practice.

Fair or unfair?

-- Josh Benson

In an almost quadrennial ritual mating dance between New York and the Democrats that has persisted t  read more »

In an almost quadrennial ritual mating dance between New York and the Democrats that has persisted t  read more »

The race to replace David Paterson in Harlem's historically significant state senate seat is shaping up as a contest of money versus organization - for now.

While C. Virginia fields managed to raise about $100,000 at a single fundraiser last week, Bill Perkins is continuing to pick up potentially valuable organizational endorsements.

The Perkins camp can now point to the Broadway Democratic Club's vote of 34 - 12 in his favor earlier this month, the Park River Independent Democratic Club's lopsided vote of 46 - 6 last Thursday, and an endorsement, announced today, from Democracy for New York City - the political action committee spawned by Howard Dean's presidential campaign.

Perkins has also won the backing of 1199 SEIU and UAW Region 9A, and as Ben pointed out earlier, he has a proven ability to turn out voters in the district on Election Day.

It's worth noting that the clubs that have endorsed Perkins so far are in the southern portion of the district, based in the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights and that, as a Fields advisor cautioned me, the endorsements from a handful of Harlem-based clubs are yet to come.

Anyone have any idea how those endorsements will go? Or how much any of them matter?

The March fund-raising numbers are in for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee, and the two committess are effectively neck-and-neck -- a first in recent history.

After trailing its Republican counterpart for a really ... long ... time, the DCCC, chaired by Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel, reports that it raised $9,160,832 and spent $2,447,259. It now has $23,018,449 in the bank -- just a million or so shy of NRCC's $24,488,775. The NRCC raked in $9,196,101 in March and shelled out $5,513,680.

But the situation isn't looking as rosy over at Howard Dean's Democratic National Committee, which reportedly has a humble $10 million in the party piggy bank compared to the Republican National Committee's $43 million. The Washington Post's Tom Edsall has the full rundown.

-- Lizzy Ratner

Two Hillary items not to miss: The Washington Posts's disclosure yesterday of the fact that Harold Ickes is setting up what amounts to a parallel Democratic Party to the one run by Howard Dean (whom they obviously don't trust), using George Soros's money for one of those fancy voter databses that some credit with giving the Republicans an edge last cycle. (Others credit voters.)

Also, Greg Sargent has a look on The American Prospect's blog at Mark Penn's briefing with donors, at which her pollster talked up that WSJ/NBC poll that has her as the nation's leading Democrat.

I've been reading the galleys of John Podhoretz's new book on Hillary Clinton, Can She Be Stopped, of which more later.

His central argument is that Hillary will win in 2008 unless conservatives take pre-emptive action now, trying to force her to choose between left and right in Senate votes and public statements. The trick, he writes, is either to push her so far left that she's unelectable, or so far right that she inspires a Howard Dean candidacy.

Podhoretz has a list of 10 strategies the Republicans should adopt now. You can buy the book for the other eight, but here are my two favorites:

Point #1: Smoke Her Out: ...This should be our cry: "We want to hear it from Hillary." On blogs and radio shows, in letters to the editor and op-eds in newspapers, and in communications with reporters, we should insist on "hearing from Hillary." .... This is one aspect of the Stop Hillary campaign where Republicans and conservatives can expect full help and support from the mainstream media. Point #10: Nominate Rudy...

If Hillary doesn't wind up running for President, this chart, from the George Washington University's Battleground Poll released today, will explain why.

Forget the Howard Dean line. John McCain is just preposterously popular.

This is a few days old; just catching up on a backlog here.

In response to the suggestion here about a gay revolt against Hillary, Hotline on Call wonders who gay voters and activists will turn to, and suggests ... Tom Vilsack.

Because "he's not afraid to touch gay issues," which is to say he's against beating up gay kids.

I love Hotline's newish blog, which regularly breaks news, but I think this mis-reads the situation. What's changed is that marriage is starting to become a litmus test for mainstream gay groups and -- of more importance to Democrats -- donors. It's hard to imagine that some new form of nod-and-wink to gay rights, while opposing a central issue of interest to ordinary gays and lesbians, is going to persuade anyone.

The question for 2008, to the extent that this matters, is whether a longshot from the left will come out strong in favor of same-sex marriage, and raise a pile of early money from deep-pocketed gay donors (who were important to Howard Dean's early surge back when civil unions were big). Russ Feingold seems the only one with a shot at doing this: So far, he's fought the Defense of Marriage Act and the Federal Marriage Amendment, and taken the stance that marriage is an issue to be decided at the state level. He seems to duck the issue of whether he actually supports same-sex marriage, though he seems to hint at supporting, saying:

"I generally think a society where people who are monogamous, where people who love each other come together and form stable families is better than the opposite."

"We are entirely capable of bungling this opportunity to regain control of the House and Senate and the trust of the American people," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said to scattered applause. "It will take some doing, but we're in this for the long and pointless haul" ...The Onion reports.

"Some rising stars with leadership potential like [Sen. Barack] Obama (D-IL) and [New York State Attorney General Eliot] Spitzer have emerged, but don't worry: We've still got some infight left in us," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said. "Over the last decade, we've found a reliably losing formula, and we're sticking with it."

Over on the West Side, one of the Assembly candidates, Charles Simon, has a couple of mailings that perfectly illustrate how hard it will be for the state Democratic Party establishment to extricate itself from a lobbyist-heavy political culture. The central problem being that the establishment is composed in no small part of lobbyists. Here's one mailer (.pdf), highlighting Simon's call to "ban gifts from lobbyists," his refusal to take donations from lobbyists (it helps to have your own money), and his general disgust at their proliferation. And here's one with headshots (.pdf) of a couple prominent Simon supporters; one is Ethan Geto, identified as Howard Dean's New York campaign manage. In his day job, Geto is ... a lobbyist and P.R. man whose clients include major real estate developers.

Contra DNC chairman Howard Dean, New York State Democratic Party chairman Denny Farrell seems to think the war in Iraq is winnable, a sharp-eyed Eve Kessler notes:

Denny, on Cheney's speech at Fort Drum today: "...Americans are also looking for leadership and a plan for how we're going to win this war -- and on that count, the Vice President's call to just stay the course was sorely disappointing."  read more »

Dean, on WOAI radio in San Antonio Monday: "The idea that we are going to win this war is an idea that unfortunately is just plain wrong."