NYT: Worried Democrats See Daunting '04 Hurdles

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/31/politics/campaigns/31ELEC.html?hp

The race for the Democratic presidential nomination shifts into a more intense phase this Labor Day weekend, with some party leaders worried about the strength of their field of candidates and fearful of what they view as President Bush's huge advantage going into next year's election.

Many prominent Democrats said that Mr. Bush might be vulnerable, given problems with the economy, and continued American fatalities in Iraq. But they said he could be unseated only by an aggressive, partisan challenge that built on Democratic anger lingering from the 2000 election, and by a nominee who somehow managed to survive a complicated nominating fight that was pulling their party to the left.

"It's going to be tough," said Walter F. Mondale, the former vice president who lost his challenge to Ronald Reagan in 1984. "You're trying to beat an incumbent who has all this money, and who has got the field all to himself, while all this infighting is going on in the Democratic Party."

Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, said: "It's going to be very, very difficult to defeat Bush next year. He will have more money than any candidate in history."

Even at a packed rally for Howard Dean this morning on a farm in this community just across the border from Vermont, some Democrats were expressing concern that none of their candidates appeared to have what it would take to defeat Mr. Bush, with many mixing strong praise for Dr. Dean with skepticism about his ability to defeat Mr. Bush.

Can't they come up with another line of attack? They're always pushing the "worried Democrats" line of bullshit.

It's interesting, though, they they could only attack Dean for his "liberal" views. The NYT declined to specify which liberals view would be problematic. I assume it's Dean's fiscal responsibility that the NYT really hates.

But the unorthodox character of Dr. Dean's candidacy — and the nature of his support from men and women who have been drawn into politics for the first time by his candidacy — has turned Dr. Dean into a difficult target for conventional political attacks.

Aides to his rivals said they had drawn a lesson from Dr. Dean's unsteady appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" in June, which was mocked as near disastrous among party leaders but now appears to have served to rally his base around him. Several said they feared that Dr. Dean would be strengthened by conventional political attacks. As a result, Dr. Dean's rivals are all stepping gingerly, waiting for someone else to risk the first shot.

"No one wants to be the person to take on Dean," said Ron Klain, a Democratic consultant who was a senior adviser to Al Gore in 2000.

Sounds like the NYT is scared of Dean.

who write about Dean try to attack him and end up telling enough of the truth to make Dean look good. I still don't get why 'they' think he can't beat bush. Wishful thinking???

furthering liberal politics" (from the Howler). He was lumped in with Broder, Balz and Crowley. He will be back on the bus in 2004 as the head of the pack reporting on the election. He is someone to watch.
He wrote an article about the Hillary/Lazio contest which read that she should be worried about turnout etc.. and we all know how that worked out. Take this article with a grain of salt I think he takes dictation from Rove.

He a right-wing-lying-bastard whore. I've written him, and the editor and publisher of the N. Y. Times, several times to tell them so too. His specialty is cheap hatchet jobs on Gore, and the Dems. He wrote me back one time, a rather lame reply, trying to assert that he was "independent minded". Bullshit!

We need to go after people like Nagourney, by writing a massive amount of letters protesting his biased reporting. He is supposed to be a reporter, not an OP/Ed columnist. It is professionally and ethically wrong for him to color his reporting in the manner he's used for the last couple of years. He needs to be fired, and hoisted up the nearest lamp post, ...er, rather, his own petard.
:mad:

He's a tabloid-style hack. If you google him, you'll find a number of neo-conservative media critics hate him. Strangely, they seem to hate him for the same reason we do--he reduces complex issues and events into pablum with a titillating dash of unsubstantiated rumor.

A few years ago, Nagourney coauthored a book on the history of the gay liberation movement with Doug Cleniden called "Out for Good." I stumbled across a review on gaytoday.com by Jack Nichols, who personally knew a lot of the people mentioned in the book. Christ, was he angry!:

"Clendinen's and Nagourney's trashing of heroic people now dead, people who can no longer defend themselves, has happened for other reasons as well. It's happened because—with the hubris their credentials in the mainstream press has lent them—they've waded into a complex thirty-year period armed with a preponderance of gall and with prissy predilections for badmouthing."
http://gaytoday.badpuppy.com/garchive/reviews/051799re.htm

gaytoday wouldn't have been a site I would have thought was neo-conservative, although they may be I really don't know. The bottom line for me is that he is the NYT's pick to head their coverage of the 2004 campaign and that choice speaks volumes about how they are planning their coverage. If he is a dishonest reporter then we need to know that rather than accept whatever he writes at face value.

If you think this is bad, you should see the garbage they publish about anthropology. Arghhh!

No, really, if they say it, it's only a step above the Moonie Times, unfortunately.

Ha Ha--Liberal Media--ROTFLMAO!

Zealots of the far right also knock this NYT article from the exact same perspective. That is: shoot the messenger and his organ! They claim the reporter is untrustworthy and that NYT is biased against them. Same line of thinking here.

Neither here at DU or at Free Republic or Lucianne.dom, does anyone delve into what was reported, what it means, or why it really may be too-early to worry.

are knocking this article. I noted that I used the Daily Howler for a source and quoted Dionne. You have no sources or quotes, if this is your opinion, that is fine but state it as such rather than trying to reference an entire group with no linked support.

no one wants to be the one to take on Dean in a negative manner. Look what happened to Lieberman. Look at the fallout from the MTP interview.

A different article (can't recall the link, it's our there somewhere) said the same thing to the effect that if he was a conventional candidate, he would be getting attacked left and right, especially at the first debate next week. So, it should be interesting to see if anyone DOES try to take him on by going negative.

It really puts the other candidates in a tough spot. If, for example, candidate X put out an attack ad and Dean's numbers went up (or the candidate's went down), I would bet that other campains would be leery about trying the same stunt. You have to think that Gephardt needs to engage him on the labor issue to try and keep the SEIU endorsement away from him, but how he goes about doing that should be interesting to watch.

Have we seen ANY attacks stick on Dean yet?

I want to judge them on how well they can attack George and the appalling mess he'll leave when we pry him loose from the Oval Office.

I haven't the tiniest desire to hear them tear down their primary opponents.

Taking on Dean worked wonders for his candidacy, didn't it?

Seems I've read this story before: In just about every campaign. Can't they get a different angle.

...is clearing those black boxes.

The NYTimes said:

"... resident Bush's huge advantage going into next year's election."

Right. And would that "huge advantage" include the huge deficit, huge nos. of unemployed (& pissed off) people, problems w/our power grid infrastructure, a hugely insane Iraq war (Vietnam II), the US war against Afghanistan, etc.?


"Statistically speaking, it's easier to get admitted into Harvard Univ. than to get a job in this economy."

--CBS News, 8/1/03

Diebold? Just wondering. :grr:

Without even knowing who he'll oppose, barely 50% can stand to think of casting a ballot for the coward bully.

By Ron Fournier:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/08/30/national1255EDT0534.DTL

That's the problem with these type articles. Very subjective. And you can always find evidence to support your view.

This was posted on Dean 2004 blogspot. Props to the researcher- I'm borrowing:

snip>

A few choice bits from his 1991 articles in USA Today:

March 22 --
Battered and facing a bleak future, Democratic Party leaders meet in Washington today in search of a way to shift voters' attention from the Persian Gulf to the economy.

State party leaders say their only hope for defeating President Bush in 1992 rests on a continued deterioration of the economy.
....
Still, the signs do not bode well for the party that has won just one of the past six presidential elections.

Bush's popularity has soared to record levels because of the war.


August 8 --
What once was shrugged off by Democrats as a passing gust of the political winds - the absence of heavyweight challengers to President Bush - is now looming as a major political embarrassment.
....
The way things are shaping up, the Democrats could easily end up with only two viable candidates: Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, both little-known outside their states. The third, and only announced candidate, is ex-Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas, whose campaign has yet to catch on.
....
Still, the lack of interest only reinforces the notion that Bush is unbeatable.


August 21 --
During times of international turmoil, voters are reluctant to turn out presidents. Further, Democrats acknowledge that Bush is now in his element - viewed as a strong president needed to stand up to a renewed Soviet menace.
....
To make matters worse, the turmoil spotlights the holes in the foreign policy resumes of Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder, New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and former Masschuasetts senator Paul Tsongas.

http://dean2004.blogspot.com/