Weekend Update

By Theron Dash

Dept. of Worst Fears: new national poll showing Bush and Kerry tied at about 45% with Nader at 6%. Why it's not yet time to panic: Nader has high name recognition, maybe higher than Kerry has yet. Six percent is more than double what he eventually got in 2000, when he was on the ballot in most states. It's doubtful he will get on the ballot in many states at all for 2004.

Shot Across the Bow: Relatives of 9-11 victims and firefighters protest Bush's use of 9-11 imagery in his first campaign ads. The Bush campaign so far is defending them, but the publicity isn't good. Strategically this may complicate the Bushies efforts to wrap themselves in the tattered flag of 9-11, which is their main campaign theme.

Subversion in Haiti: by the U.S. .. Columns by Molly Ivins and Columbia University’s Earth Institute director Jefrey Sachs tell the same story: the Bushies wanted Aristide out at about the time they decided to invade Iraq (in other words, Inauguration Day) and didn’t just neglect Haiti but subverted Aristide and democracy in Haiti, for what seems like the same reasons the Kissinger bunch fomented a coup in Chile and were complicit in the assassination of its president, Salvador Allende, and others. Too much of that redistribution of wealth stuff. Stories of Aristide being hustled out of Haiti is just another face of regime change and pre-emption. So when Bush in his commercials says “I know exactly where I want to lead this country” you can trust him, he does.

From Prez to be to VP?


John Kerry won 9 out of 10 states, most of them by 20 to 40 percentage points over John Edwards. Vermont voted its heart for Howard Dean, but exit polls showed that the Dean voters were perfectly content to vote for Kerry in November.

John Edwards, having won nothing and having lost in 8 of the 9 states by devastating margins, made an eloquent concession speech, and sounded like the vice presidential nominee he probably will not be. But Edwards has raised the bar for the v.p. candidate in terms of energy, youth and eloquence.

Kerry reportedly has not spoken of any possible v.p. choices, even privately, but now that he has the nomination, there will be little more inside stuff to talk about for the coming months. He has made known his basic criteria: the candidate must be qualified to be president, and someone he gets along with well, and someone who believes what he believes, and only then do electoral political considerations come into play. His own victory speech comment, that Edwards will be important to the party in the future, suggests what some have said, that he isn't sure than a one-term senator with only personal injury law as his previous experience is ready to be president.

The pundits also argue about whether Kerry should string this decision out, keep people guessing and hence interested. That could be a dangerous strategy, if support for a Kerry-Edwards ticket, already pretty strong among Democratic primary voters, continues to build. No one knows what's in Kerry's mind on this subject, but if he really doesn't want Edwards to be forced on him, he needs to make his decision before any further Edwards momentum (should there be any) gets out of control.

There are two names often mentioned that seem to pass the experience test, and are connected to a key battleground state: Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, and Senator Bob Graham of Florida.

Bob Graham is not the right choice. Kerry doesn't need help with the gravitas imagery, he needs someone with the energy if not the youth of Edwards. Graham reads as old and slow. It would depend on calculations we can't make that he would deliver Florida, but we are skeptical.

Dick Gephardt is the better choice. He is passionate and energetic. He can be idealistic and an attack dog. He can help win Missouri and he has already helped Kerry win Ohio in the primary---he practically has lived there for the past several weeks. Ohio is a better bet as a key state that went for Bush and has a bunch of electoral votes. We believe Florida may go to Kerry, but it won't be because of the presence of one of its Senators on the ticket. It will go Democratic because Jeb Bush is unsuccessful in repeating his subversion of the voting process, and black voters actually get their votes counted.

Kerry and Gephardt look good together. That's become important to the challenging ticket, just as Clinton and Gore looked good together in 1992 when they took on president Bush I. (Kerry and Edwards also look good together, which is one reason that ticket is so popular among Democrats.)

Somewhere between Graham and Gephardt is Bill Richardson of New Mexico. He has experience governing a state and in Washington and foreign policy. But not a lot. He comes with some Clinton baggage. But he is well connected in the southwest, and could help secure not only New Mexico but Arizona. Plus he is Hispanic, which can help in Florida (where there is an increasing non-Cuban Hispanic population) as well as in the southwest. But again, this may not be a factor, or not so important, and may be counterbalanced by problems with other minority groups. Still, it would open a new front in the coming campaign, perhaps one the Bushies aren't expecting.

Another name mentioned that is probably going to be taken seriously is Wesley Clark, but he's not a reliable candidate, and his off the cuff remarks are apt to spark controversy that detracts from the focus Kerry will want to maintain.

Other names can't be taken seriously, like Hillary or even Bill Clinton. Others will be taken seriously. VP candidates in recent years have been surprises, in that they weren't in the public eye for awhile before being chosen. However, these primaries we believe have changed that. The races got so much positive attention for the Democrats that it's going to be hard to absorb an entirely "new" name into the process. If it is a "new" name, it will have to be someone instantly recognized as right, like Gore for Clinton. They were also pretty similar on the issues, and that's important as well. In short, if Edwards were more experienced, he would seem to be just right. But he isn't, and he didn't win anything, especially in a swing state like Tennessee or Ohio. So unless there is a huge groundswell for him in the coming weeks, the Kerry-Edwards ticket is unlikely. But of course that's not up to us. It's up to Kerry.

Now the drama will be in the first forays of the Bush ads, and whether they define Kerry or Kerry defines himself. Bush has something like $150 million to pollute the airwaves with, and he has to spend it all by August. If he can't get traction with that, it might not even be close in November.

The Dash Brothers Voters Guide


All you Super Tuesday voters, gather round. We offer our thoughts not on who to vote for but on how to vote. Consider, and make your own choice.

We are not believers in symbolic votes. We believe in voting for the candidate we believe has the best chance to do the most good, and stop the most evil. This is a kind of calculation, but it is to our minds a better one than the calculation of "I'll vote for that person even though he or she has no chance of winning, because [fill in the blank: to send a message, they seem nice and likeable, I feel sorry for them, etc.] and anyway, IT WON'T MATTER, the frontrunner doesn't need my vote.

This is gambling---making decisions based on an outcome you foresee but which has not yet happened. It is always dangerous. You have to calculate what you might lose. When you buy a lottery ticket, all you can possibly lose is the buck you paid for it. When you vote symbolically, you risk a dire outcome. For instance, G.W. Bush.

In a state like California, where the Democratic candidate is expected to do very well, there is already a movement to "swap votes" with voters in other more apparently contested states: so a Democrat in CA will vote for the Green candidate, in exchange for a Green party partisan in, say, Ohio, voting for the Dem. We don't support this. Our confidence in the media's ability to forecast the future is not that high. The fun of guessing outcomes stops at the voting booth. Vote for the candidate who has the best chance of doing the most good and stopping the most evil, wherever you are.

Lastly, we urge voters everywhere to become actively engaged in the ongoing debate and ongoing process of how voting itself is being conducted. Tomorrow many of us in CA, Maryland and other states (Ohio we're pretty sure) are going to be using touch-screen machines that supposedly register our vote. There is currently no way to verify that our votes are registered and counted correctly. There are many ways to sabotage these machines and change the outcomes.

This is especially troubling when the CEO of the company that manufactures the most used of these machines is a Bush partisan who has said in public that he "guarantees" Ohio will go for Bush.

Tell your local officials that you want a system that leaves a paper trail---that if you're using some form of electronic system, you want a paper receipt that shows your votes were recorded properly, just like you get when you use a credit card. Demand a system that tallies the number of live walking and talking people who come to vote with the number of votes counted.

If the integrity of voting is compromised, every state will be Florida, and we'll be waxing nostalgic for the verifiability of the hanging chads.

Super Monday

After complaining that John Edwards was too polite in the last debate, media parrotheads started complaining that he got too aggressive in Sunday's one hour scour, ruined his good guy image, seemed desperate and may have lost his spot as v.p. in the process. Give the guy a break. He tried the I'm an Outsider card, a proven loser this year, probably to convince Howard Dean people to work for him on election day in the Super Tuesday states where Deaniacs have some sort of presence. But he gave Kerry the perfect opportunity for a very clear comeback, asking him if he thought the country could be changed from Washington. Yes, Kerry said, because that's where the Congress is and where the White House is.

The entertainment value was a little different this time, with everybody fighting with the questioners as much as with each other. But this debate is very unlikely to have any effect on tomorrow's voting. It was held on Sunday morning, 11 a.m. on the East Coast, when mostly political addicts and reporters are watching. Not more than a handful of people in California probably saw it, since it was either on too early or was rebroadcast during the Oscars. And the soundbites were mostly Kerry's. Though Edwards again showed some skill at quickly and efficiently communicating the heart of the matter.

Kerry got some Ohio and New York newspaper endorsements on Sunday, and the San Francisco Chronicle this morning. These endorsements tend to say what the voters have said: yes, Edwards is a smart and articulate guy, maybe a more attractive candidate (to some), but he is not ready to be president. Kerry is.

The latest polls show no indication of Edwards' famous last minute closing; the trend in Georgia is towards Kerry. Kerry's lead in New York, California and Ohio is hefty. Maryland is looking good, and the New England states are solid. The only poll done in Minnesota so far was by the Kerry campaign, and it showed a formidable Kerry lead there as well, but it's a caucus state so polls are dodgy. Still, we see Kerry winning 7 states by 20 points or more, and 3 states by no less than 10 points, for a total of them all.

If it is this lopsided, then Edwards really will have to think about dropping out, or face the possible humiliation of losing to Kerry in the south next week. He'll be under a lot of pressure to do so, because the Dems don't want to risk the opposite possibility of Kerry doing well everywhere but in the south, when it's clear he'll be the nominee and Edwards can't possibly overtake him. But if Kerry does face him down in the south, then he'd be that much stronger---but Edwards wouldn't have much of a future in the party anymore.

The danger for Kerry is that he's now expected to win all 10 and win big. That sets a pretty low bar for Edwards. The only other storyline on Tuesday night's coverage is to jump on any sign that Edwards isn't being pulverized everywhere.

Why does this matter? It's a good idea to try figuring out how the media parrotheads operate, because in anything like a close or difficult race, their attitude towards candidates can shape the campaign. The media despised Al Gore, and so they joyfully grabbed every lie and self-serving characterization the Bushies gave them. Certain of them (like the Howard Fineman/Gloria Borgia crew at CNBC) seem ready to do it to Kerry this year. But voters so far this year have been operating with their own dynamic, and the bobbleheads have been trying to adapt their patter. But they can't quite keep from spraying their cynicism everywhere. The interaction of candidates, party, voters and media will decide this campaign, and the election will decide nothing less than the forseeable future.