I'M BAD, I'M NATIONWIDE:

A shift to national stage will change the dynamic (Yvonne Abraham, 1/28/2004, Boston Globe)

Today, the race for the Democratic presidential nomination goes national. And national changes everything.

Iowa and New Hampshire, those temples of retail politics, are history. The candidates have logged thousands of hours in those states, flipping pancakes and placing gentle hands on elderly shoulders in hopes of attracting every voter personally. For months they belonged to the voters of those two states, who have now delivered their 67 delegates, out of 2,162 needed to secure the nomination.

Retail is over. From now on, it's wholesale all the way.

And it's going to cost all the candidates now as they race back and forth from South Carolina to Arizona, seeking votes and buying television time. All of the campaigns are strapped for cash after the battles in Iowa and New Hampshire.

John Kerry, now the clear front-runner after his two victories, has had some fund-raising success over the past week, but some of his rivals are nearly broke at a time when they have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to air television commercials to be competitive in the next stage of the primary.

Just six days from today, primaries will be conducted in Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. New Mexico and North Dakota will hold caucuses. A total of 336 delegates will be up for grabs.

That's a pretty good test to see if Democrats across the entire country buy the Kerry campaign's "electability" theory.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 28, 2004 8:52 AM