Originally posted by upnorthkyosa
I would say, don't count Dean out yet. That scream of his is getting him lots of attention and much of it positive. And Clark is more then a wild card.
Dean?
Yes but did you see his "consession speech"?
Can you say WWE wrestler? I was waiting for him to add "snap into a slim jim" or "I ain't got time to bleed" after rattling off the list of states he's going to "take" in the primaries.
His public persona turns off a lot of people. He comes off as really arrogent and oftentimes angry when he is in front of a crowd. Because he lost the Caucus, his speech should have been more congratulatory to the other canidates then it was. I think he lost some votes after that incident.
Regardless, I agree that Dean is by no means out yet. The causus is only an indicator of what the upper level party members think, which has no real correlation as to how the public will vote in the primaries. I know that at least in a few states before Iowa, Dean was a favorite.
Personally, I don't want Dean to be our choice, and it isn't because I don't like him. I think he looks very good on paper, almost better then my pick (General Clark) when it comes to issues. Yet, I think that if Dean is our pick, we will have a VERY difficult time taking the whitehouse from Bush, which is my main concern at this point. I just think that Dean comes off insincere, arrogent, angry, untrustworthy, and like a 'loose cannon' sometimes, which will turn people off to voting for him. The republicans WANT Dean to get picked by the Dems, according to conservative analysts. Bottom line: for Dean to win, the general public, many moderate republicans included, would REALLY have to hate Bush. I am just not confident that people hate him THAT much.
I was kind of glad to see that Kerry won in Iowa, and I am starting to rethink him as a canidate. I think that Bush's worst nightmare for 2004 would be Kerry or Clark. Their military experience alone completely trumps any tactics by the the Bush administration regarding the war, foriegn policy, and security. THis is huge. On the domestic front, Bush will argue that medicare is taking care of seniors, tax cuts have boosted the economy, and that his new Minimum wage and green card laws are somehow good for working america. All of these can be easily rebuttled except for the tax cut arguement (because the issue will be difficult to understand for the public, yet it can be easily stalemated because of this), plus there are many shortcomings and empty promises that can be brought to the table ranging from education to environment to weapons of mass destruction. If Kerry or Clark are the pick, all they have to do is out argue on the domestic issues to the satisfaction of the public, and they have the election in the bag.
We'll have to see what happends in the next few primaries!!
PAUL
