(NYDailyNews) Dean Hires Davis Smear Man

Gee. Look who's the first to go negative. I thought this guy was the frontrunner. Look's like Dean and his high command are getting a littel desperate and a little nervous.

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean likes to present himself as a breath of fresh air: He won't join the cynical, insider political culture that he repeatedly describes in speeches as "Say whatever it takes to get elected."
So it was with considerable glee this week that a top aide to a Dean opponent informed me that the former Vermont governor has just hired killer gumshoe Ace Smith to gather dirt on political rivals.

The very same Ace Smith who ran "oppo research" for sharp-elbowed, soon-to-be-ex-California Gov. Gray Davis - "puke campaigns," in the words of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"Ace certainly has that jugular instinct," says an operative who has worked closely with him on Davis' campaigns.

The 44-year-old Smith - who operates from a San Francisco office building that was used in the movie "Dirty Harry" as a crazed sniper's perch - didn't sound pleased when I phoned him yesterday.

"I'm trying to be really low-key," he told me. "My name appearing in a newspaper somewhere doesn't do me a whole lot of good. I'm not doing anything tremendously interesting anyway.

I'm just helping them get their whole research department organized. It's really quite bureaucratic and boring."

Political consultants such as Smith can receive fees of as much as $30,000 monthly, but neither Smith nor the Dean campaign would comment on his compensation.

As for rival campaigns that might accuse Dean of hypocrisy for recruiting this hired gun, "Personally, I think it's laughable," Smith said. "Gimme a break. I don't think anyone cares about who the consultants are anyway."

Dean campaign spokesman Jay Carson told me: "Whenever you get attacked by a bunch of Washington insiders, it's good to have someone on your side who knows them well."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/129739p-115983c.html

Hippo-something??????

and did opposition research against Arnold that the groper thought was "dirty politics". Big deal. And I see it was a Dean opponent who tipped off the paper with "glee". And what do you mean that Dean is the first to get dirty? What has he done? explain.

From the NYTimes

In New Ads, Dean Becomes First in Campaign to Attack Fellow Democrats
By JODI WILGOREN and JIM RUTENBERG

Published: October 23, 2003


CRESCO, Iowa, Oct. 22 — Howard Dean this week began running two new television advertisements that criticize his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination as "Washington politicians" who have failed to deliver prescription drug benefits and were inconsistent on the Iraq war.

The commercials are the first of the election campaign's nascent television advertising battle in which a Democratic candidate has criticized the other primary contenders. (President Bush has been fair game for weeks.)

While the spots fall short of singling out Dr. Dean's opponents by name, they are unusually negative for this stage of the campaign, when biographical commercials are the norm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/23/politics/campaigns/23DEAN.html

on his record by Gephardt and Kerry which is legitimate. He is also speaking out about his own record in Vermont.

When he also first called the others "Bushlite" to smear them.

http://www.cmonitor.com/stories/news/local2003/012303dean_2002.shtml

I can't wait for those four guys from Congress to come up here and explain to us why they wanted to raise your property taxes after they supported a tax cut for the wealthiest people in America," he said.

Dean also criticized his opponents for voting to give Bush a "blank check" on military intervention in Iraq - and, now, changing their tune on the issue.

"Today, they're running around telling you folks they're all anti-war," he said. (Later, he acknowledged that Lieberman's vote was consistent with the senator's comparatively "hawkish" position on Iraq.) "We're never going to elect a president that does those things. If I voted for the Iraq resolution, I'd be standing in favor, supporting it right now in front of you."

Dean said he would have voted instead for the Biden-Lugar resolution, which he said supported disarming Saddam using multilateral action, and which did not call for a "regime change."
>>>>

Then come back here with a straight face and call them attack ads.

http://www.howarddean.tv/v2/streaming_pages/wmp/didit_256k.asp

http://www.howarddean.tv/v2/streaming_pages/wmp/ad-iraq_256k.asp

for not getting anything done! Oh, that's telling the facts, sorry!

...now combing through massive piles of records in VT looking for any dirt they can find on Dean?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=511&ncid=696&e=10&u=/ap/20031021/ap_on_el_gu/dean_divers

Seems to me like everyone is doing it. I'm sorry to see Dean join the rest of the crowd, but I'm not surprised. Self defense of some kind is a necessity. If I were going to vote for the candidate who has never dug up dirt on an opponent I'd have nobody to vote for.

into the top tier campaigns. I don't see any desparation in any of the camps yet.

I'm sure the front runner and his closest competitors state by state will each have a "hatchet man" on staff. I'm sure Senator Kerry & Representative Gephardt didn't do their own research on Dean's past statements, for example.

I did opposition research for Senator Harris Wofford's 1991 campaign against former Governor Dick Thornburgh - a race that we were supposed to lose. We were called the "propeller heads" and spent countless hours in the basement of the state capitol digging through and poring over old newspaper clippings, proclamations, etc. One nice thing about learning all you can about your foe - it helps keep them honest. Wofford ran a clean campaign - and so did Thornburgh, partly at least, because he knew if he started any sh*t, that we were ready to burn him badly. I think Dean's campaign calls it "rapid response".

Regarding the '04 presidential run - the rest of the field won't bother with their own oppo research - not because they don't want to attack the front runner(s), but because they won't have the money for the consultants or for the ads.

Also, they may think if they just let the big boys duke it out, they might be able to slip past to the nomination.