You’ve got to hand it to DNC Chairman Howard Dean. The campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (as well as superdelegates, the lazy political media and voters of the few remaining battleground primary states) may still be scrambling to determine who will be the least bloodied prospect come the time to award the mantle, but Dean’s in the race to win. Even if it means taking on some of the general election duties of the presumptive democratic nominee with none of the perks.
Dean knows the longer the interparty sniping – and in at least one case, John McCain praising – continues, the more difficult it will be to wage a successful battle leading up to November. Indeed, as “Hillary Will Look For Any Excuse To Stay On Fest 2008†has dragged on, the jackass challengers, once leading Old Man McCain by sizeable margins, now struggle to break even in the polls. Meanwhile, the nationwide party apparatuses that would already be kicking into gear are in standby mode. It only makes sense that a post-scream Howard Dean is stepping up like he’s won the nomination and taking on the aged elephant in the room:
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Thursday that swing voters participating in focus groups commissioned by the D.N.C. bring up John McCain’s age unprompted. “We didn’t bring it up, but they volunteered it,” said Dean in response to a reporter’s question. He went on to explain that voters have expressed two concerns about McCain’s age. “One was a health concern, the other was, and this is really interesting . . . that his views are old-fashioned.”At the age of 72, McCain would be the oldest newly elected president in U.S. history if inaugurated in 2009. Referring to what Dean characterized as the party’s most conservative focus group in Charleston, W. Va., the DNC chairman said “the women in that group were shocked that [McCain] believed health insurance shouldn’t cover birth control pills and they were shocked about his belief in abstinence only education.”
Just so we’re clear, under normal circumstances Dean wouldn’t have to hold a high profile press conference with an Obama pollster on one side and a Clinton pollster on the other, doing the candidate’s job for them. I’m beginning to think Dean has the most thankless job in politics. He builds up a 50 state strategy that is changing the political landscape at the state party and Clinton still lobbies for him to step down. He stands by the DNC rules stripping Florida and Michigan of delegates (which was generally agreed upon at the time) and is painted as being stubborn and undemocratic. He does some of the eventual Democrat nominee’s heavy lifting in the interim… and he probably won’t even get a thank you card.
