January 26, 2004
PLAYING STABLE:
Dean Loses Ground as Primary Voters Shift Toward Stability (Ronald Brownstein, January 26, 2004, LA Times)
In 2003, Howard Dean's rise set the tone for the Democratic presidential race. Now his decline is reshaping the race in 2004.Dean's meteoric ascent encouraged all of his rivals to try to match the anger and passion he brought to the campaign. For months, the other Democratic contenders jostled to see who could express the most contempt for President Bush.
At times, the race seemed above all a competition to see which candidate could stuff the most adjectives into a single sentence vilifying Bush. Dean led the field in part because almost all of the other candidates were trying to be like him, and none of the imitations matched the fervor of the original.
But a funny thing happened as the actual voting approached: The anger that exhilarated so many of the hard-core activists who dominated the process in 2003 is proving much less attractive to the broader universe of Democratic voters now checking into the contest.
Suddenly, the dominant voice in the race belongs to voters like Jeannine Tucker, a retired life insurance company employee from Goffstown, N.H., who initially intended to support Dean but is now considering Sens. John F. Kerry and John Edwards and retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark.
"One time I went to see Dean, and he was right on in what he said," Tucker said last week, while waiting for Kerry to speak at a rally in Manchester. "Now, after the couple of little missteps in what he's saying, and losing his temper, I'm not too sure…. As president, you've got to have somebody who's stable. This is a very precarious job."
Tucker's comment, echoed by other voters here, may offer the key to the upheaval that has transformed Dean from frontrunner into beleaguered underdog.
So, for the Democrats stability isn't having ideas and sticking to them but aping what works for other people? Posted by Orrin Judd at January 26, 2004 4:48 PM
Polls are showing Dean closing fast on Kerry (Zogby has it nearly even). So either the polls are wrong or Brownstein has written a stupid piece. My betting right now is the latter.
Posted by: AWW at January 26, 2004 5:00 PMHey, doesn't an LA Times hit piece right before the election guarantee victory?
Posted by: David Cohen at January 26, 2004 5:09 PMI don't understand OJ's comment coming right after what was said. Jeannine Tucker didn't say anything about changing ideas, but about her perception of Dean's emotional stability. What's with OJ's comment on ideas and issues? Seems like a non sequiter.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at January 26, 2004 6:12 PMChris:
In what sense is Kerry more stable if he imitated Dean when Dean was hot and has now swung towards being Edwards-like?
Posted by: oj at January 26, 2004 6:22 PMDean's personality has been, shall we say "shaky" at times -- but his political positions have been among the most stable of the major candidates since entering the race for president. Lieberman has been relatively stable on the other side (though always ready to pander on domestic issues), while it's the the three in the middle, Kerry, Clark and Edwards who have let their beliefs bounce around like lotto balls in the air blower.
Edwards is just luck so far that his candidacy had apparently faded so much by the latter part of 2003 no one really took much notice of his flip-flop on the Iraq issue compared to Kerry's shifts and Clark's lurches from one position to another (that said, I think the undecideds are probably going to break Kerry and Edwards' way again on Tuesday -- if a voter is too wishy-washy by now to have figured out who their candidate is, they're going to go with the ones who seem the safest according to the polls and pundits).
Posted by: John at January 26, 2004 9:16 PM