Reply #52: If you want to talk about "campaign management" [View All]

[no name no slogan]

you need to examine Dean's ENTIRE history.

For each gubernatorial re-election campaign, his margin of victory DROPPED. When he left the governor's office, he didn't even succeed in getting a Democratic successor elected.

Dean was also the person in charge of getting more Democratic governors elected in 2002. He also failed in that task, too.

Compare that to Kucinich: he won an upset victory in 1996 against a popular, entrenched Republican rep in a conservative district. In each subsequent re-election, he increased his victory margin. In his last re-election bid in 2002, he won 75% of the vote, despite changing his position on abortion earlier that year. He also won half the Republican vote in his district, too!

Yes, Dean's off to a good fundraising start, but he's got party hacks like Joe Trippi working for him, not to mention he takes corporate cash (unlike Kucinich).

Also, if you're going to cite polls, look at the select group for each poll. You'll notice most of them are taken from identified Democrats. Much of Kucinich's appeal is to disaffected voters who haven't voted in years, and also former third-party voters who are not registered Democrats. Dennis' campaign is completely under the radar of the major news media, who choose to ignore him, even though he broke his Q3 fundraising projection.

More proof? Check his MeetUp numbers. Yes, he's behind Dean, but he's also got the second-highest number of any other political candidate on MeetUp-- even higher than Wesley Clark!