All The Candidates Were Circulating Press Releases At The Debate [View All]

[DrFunkenstein]

The Dean people have been feigning shock and disgust that another campaign would resort to such a low form of politics (apparently, calling candidates "Bush-lite" seemed within decency).

Big surprise - once again the Dean camp has egg on its face. Remember when Dean people attacked other camps for going after Clark, only to discover that Dean was going to put yet another notch on his belt? I do.

They also felt that there was a conspiracy to keep Dean off the air (another way of saying Dean's moments were uneventful, or at least uninteresting). That fed into the conspiracy between the Kerry camp and the owners of CNN to undermine the unstoppable Howard Dean.

Except, whoops, the Dean people were circulating press releases just like the rest of them.

This comes from a Slate magazine that is otherwise completely wrongheaded:

To me, though, the most interesting moment of the evening occurred backstage. The Dean campaign circulates a long release detailing how Gephardt was "instrumental" in Bush's "miserable failure" in Iraq. Smack in the middle of it is a picture of Gephardt standing next to Trent Lott, President Bush, and Denny Hastert, just over a year ago as they announced the congressional war resolution. Yes, it's a clever slap: "You think I stood with Newt Gingrich during our 'darkest hour'? Look in the mirror, buddy."

http://slate.msn.com/id/2089595/

Is Dean really going there? You bet your sweet patootie he is. Despite his normally squeaky clean campaigning, he is more than willing to "slap" Gephardt with a damning photo. Oh, the intrigue! He's not alone, of course.

One anti-Kerry release, two anti-Gephardt releases, five anti-Dean releases, and seven anti-Clark releases—but four of those anti-Clarks were put out by the Lieberman campaign.

So apparently the story is that everybody was dishing dirt, and only Kerry's was pulled out for the debates. Kerry didn't look too happy about its entrance into a moment of unusual harmony between the candidates. But he did the right thing. He acknowledged it, and returned very quickly to the on-going discussion.

Will this cause the Dean people to suddenly re-evaluate things and admit that perhaps they were hasty in their condemnation? I'll be holding my breath. I promise.

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