Howard Dean on CNN re latest Quinnipiac poll

It would be THE BEST way to retake the Senate.

Too bad that one silly gaffe in Iowa tanked his presidential ambitions.

The sound was edited in a way that removed the tremendous room noise and amped up his tell so it looked and sounded bizarre. I watched it live and there was no resemblance between reality and the tampered clip that was played on a virtually continuous loop.

He lost a race the national audience expected him to win by 20 points! If anything, the story likely hurt Kerry, because it took a lot of the coverage from his victory.

Even with no scream, THAT result likely doomed his campaign. He already was declining in NH. Kerry got a lift from his Iowa win and won NH. At that point, Dean having blown through a huge money advantage, made a strategic decision to not actively contest the next set of contests because they were a set of states not favorable to New Englanders.

These states were SC, OK,MO,NM,AZ,ND, and DE. Had Edwards and Clark split them, there would be no one frontrunner and if Dean took the next set, he could move to become that frontrunner. As soon as Kerry won 5 of the 7, it was clear he would be the nominee.

The math is already working against us (we essentially need a sweep), and top-tier candidates aren't lining up (yet) to run in states we would need to take it. We somehow need to change that.

Once they see the mechanism in place for campaigns down the ballot, they will feel confident in jumping to the statewide level.

We ran the type of democrats that can win in moderate districts. Which means most of our new freshmen are in the moderate wing of the party. The liberal firebrands you hear so much about won in safe districts.

Tom Perez helped engineer it and I am glad for it. We need more of it.

And if we use it to take the senate, which we will, you will see more moderate Democratic Senators.

That is where the party and nation is right now.

The DNC's overall efforts in the Sunshine State are moribund.

We have decreased the republican lead in house members to 1- 14 to 13. Mainly by running moderate democrats in moderate districts with DNC help.

And we won the Agriculture Commissioner.

And the DNC can’t keep us from hurting ourselves. The governors race was ours to take. But we made 2 mistakes. We failed to nominate Graham who would, in my opinion have won. And once Gilliam was nominated he could have won. But by then he had tied himself to Bernie Sanders by appearing with him to try to win the primary he already had wrapped up. After that he never could find a way to shake the socialist label. Really could not try since he happily appeared with Sanders.

If nothing else good comes from it, it squelched those on the left who claimed incessantly with no proof that to win we need more liberal candidates everywhere. Florida proved that wrong.

Dean's lessons to heart. His DNC leadership helped immensely with 2018 wins at all levels in many "red" states.

I'm so glad to see this. It's apparent that those in charge of the DNC since Dean stepped down in 2009 were only paying lip service to a 50-state strategy. Perez and his team are actually implementing one.

Go everywhere, no blue areas taken for granted and no red areas written off. Go everywhere and show up with the courage of your convictions to listen, learn and sell progressive policies by explaining how they would help everyone.

He was incredible at his CNN town hall last night.

It's not the only factor influencing the polls.

I do agree that it's quite early. Anything can happen.

Rump could have an aneurysm and drop dead in the morning.

A few posters on DU keep insisting otherwise, however. "It's all name recognition at this point" is a common refrain.

he didn't say that was the only factor either.

And, he's also right that it's very early, of course.

This is a unique cycle - huge lead for one candidate in a race with two dozen candidates - so it's hard to apply any historical context to it. It's going to prove interesting, I'm sure.

Home of Steve King (in fairness, NW Iowa is most of the problem there).

I really wish they didn't have as much (perceived) influence as they do. Ditto NH.

are decent. I'll never forget the night when they went for Obama!

Sanders is no Obama and his presence likely makes it harder for any of the "fresh" candidates to gain momentum.

The dynamic is completely different.

In terms of people who could be considered serious, in addition to the top three, there were 3 second tier as accomplished as the current serious candidates, including Biden, Dodd and Richardson. In addition, there were some, like Vilsack, who dropped out early. There were others like Kucinich who were extremely unlikely.


Had all of them other than Clinton and Biden not failed early, Clinton would have been the nominee. Here, if all but one of the non Biden candidates fade in the early primaries, it could come to a two way choice. I think to work, Sanders will have to fade to insignificant.

This is my daily dream.

But Biden has such a large lead that it's hard to see him losing the lead, even after losing ground.

If one of the fresh faces that can inspire enthusiasm gets a bump it can snowball into caucus time.

just between you and me, I wouldn't be upset if it were Pete.

will lose a significant part of his lead as this wears on, spread around a few competitors as they get a lot more exposure. Democrats have lots of interesting flavors to browse before we finally have to settle on one.But I'm doubting Biden will ever lose the lead itself.

Sanders should continue to lose support.

And our first debate is less than a month away now.

commanding leads tend to be too boring for cable💵news💵viewers.

how things turned out for him in 2004.

Still, he seems to have learned a lot about political organizing from his experience.

...the Good Doctor has it right...

...

And he already has substantive star power. But there are a number of good candidates barely showing up in the polls right now. It’s going to be interesting once the debates get going for sure. I think Dean is right about this.

Beto is also very popular among young voters, many of which who will be voting for the first time and most of which who simply don't get polled. Even in Texas the polling there had Cruz ahead of him by a much larger number right up to that election. You'll see his numbers go up after the CNN town hall. He also has an HBO documentary in 6 days that will help even more. He's made a bunch of great new hires, too.

at or near the bottom right now.