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March 01, 2004
Catch 22

Howard Kurtz (thanks to the Chairman for the link) has a story in the Washington about infighting on the Dean campaign. Most of the piece will be familiar to anyone who has ever worked in any campaign. But Kurtz says one interesting thing along the way:

…Senior officials plotted against each other, complained about the candidate and developed one searing doubt. Dean, they concluded, did not really want to be president.

In different conversations and in different ways, according to several people who worked with him, Dean said at the peak of his popularity late last year that he never expected to rise so high, that he didn’t like the intense scrutiny, that he had just wanted to make a difference. “I don’t care about being president,” he said. Months earlier, as his candidacy was taking off, he told a colleague: “The problem is, I’m now afraid I might win.”
The path to nomination is so empty, so dishonest and so undignified that anyone who navigates it successfully is virtually sure to be unfit for the office he seeks.
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Posted by Jerome Doolittle at March 01, 2004 10:04 PM | TrackBack
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Well, yea. I mean, after all, we're just evolved pieces of slime without an instruction book. What does everybody expect? Perfection? Flawless navigation of vicious and mind bogglingly complex moral and ethical terrain?

I think Dean did a pretty good job of jumping in front of the parade that had formed. So what if he found out he didn't want to do it any more.

It didn't seem like the whole thing was that big of a failure. It should be really viewed as a learning experience for us all. In four more years, we get to try again. Then there's always the local races and Congress to get involved in and make a difference.

This wasn't an all or nothing shot, and I don't blame the man for looking at the maw of an angry media with 200 million dollars bearing down on him and deciding to swerve out of the way.

Posted by: Hal on March 1, 2004 11:33 PM

All that blood, sweat, and tears for someone who didn't really want to be President. How long before these young people recover from their disillionment? I'm sorry, but I don't see much of a silver lining in all this. And I used to have a Dean bumper sticker.

Posted by: Tom Street on March 2, 2004 09:37 AM

This is garbage. Dean will be back in spades if W wins. All this means is that Dean understood from the start he was a long shot, and was at peace with that, and he had to adjust to being a contender. He'll be back.

Posted by: scattershot on March 2, 2004 03:35 PM
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