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| Wednesday, May 17, 2006 |
| My history with Howard Dean |
I first came across Howard Dean in January 2003, when his bandwagon was still pretty small. A year later he was the leading money-raiser and poll leader for the Dem nomination, but then a few months later it came to a screeching halt.
Before I started this blog, I had a similar space on an Amherst College proprietary website (only accessible to students and alumns). I recently went through my old posts there, to see what I had to say about Dean in the early days. Here's a sample:
Jan 15th 2003 [To my friend Josh]
what's the story with howard dean? good guy, right? seems like he's got good ideas, but jesus what circumstances of events could ever get the guy elected?
[turns out he came very close, but my initial instinct was pretty on]
Jan 16th, 2003:
kerry has the gore problem. totally unexciting guy. plus, i'm not sure people will like his wife - inherited republican senator john heinz's fortune, then turned around and married another (democratic) senator. i think the guy with the best shot of beating bush (though i'm not sure he'd make the best pres) is edwards. the whole southern thing - last three democrats elected (four if you count gore) have been from the south. i also hope bradley enters the race and runs a better campaign. still love that guy. similar in idealogoy to dean i think. and please here's hoping
gephardt gets nowhere.
hey man, i hope dean wins. i signed up for the newsletter, i'll work on the campaign, whatever. but he just won't get enough money. what these guys are doing RIGHT NOW matters a shitload. dean will be out of the race in 6 months when gephardt and edwards and lieberman
and kerry each have $5 million +. he needs to get the VP job or something big needs to happen whereby people learn his name and where he stands.
[well, i was basically right about kerry. and i do still think edwards would have had a better shot at bush. but i was dead wrong about dean raising money. i definitely did not see the power of the internet the way joe trippi harnessed it. "something big" did happen]
July 23, 2003
almost nothing on the internet is more fun than giving money to howard dean and watching the bat go up. this is the second time he's inspired me to give him some $.
[i'd give him money a lot more than twice before the year was over]
One of the conclusions I made from all of this is that candidates really do need to be getting in gear now. Dean, a come-from-nowhere candidate, was making waves large enough for me to see in Jan 2003, analogous to Jan 2007. So whoever is planning that dark horse run better be setting up his shop in the next few months. Very soon it will be the time to come public with your campaign.
In my next post, I'll explain why I went to look this up. Dean, 3 years later, still strikes me as a brilliant guy that we need in government somewhere. |
posted by CB @ 9:31 AM   |
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