Andrew Golis

Guess what, noble readers? John “I just lost to a completely incompetent incumbent” Kerry is pondering giving it another shot in 2008. How do we know? According to the Hill, he’s calling all of the people running for DNC Chair to get promises from them that they’ll be neutral during the 2008 Democratic primary.

Others who are pondering a bid and are therefore chatting with the DNC candidates: Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.), Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y,), New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner. A completely unsuprising list that is, shall we say, less than exciting. More on these crazy characters sometime in the future.

In other news on the race, on the same day that Dean declared his candidacy Joe Trippi (his, shall we say, jilted former campaign manager) endorsed Simon Rosenberg. The bloggers are all in a tizzy about this juicy gossip but, my guess is, they’re the only ones…

Finally, an update on how the race is actually going (and Dean’s chances of winning it). From the Hill:

The vote will take place Feb. 12, and, much like House leadership races, every declared candidate will be on the first ballot, with the list winnowing by one with each round of balloting. Several of the campaigns said that Dean is all but a shoo-in to be on the final ballot, with all of the other candidates scrambling to be among the last two or three standing.

“”Dean has the highest floor and the lowest ceiling”,” a strategist for one of the rival campaigns said.

From the Note:

—Howard Dean’s floor may be larger than some of his opponent’s believe, and there is nothing, aside from what appears to be an unquestioned conviction about the truth of alternative by his opponents, to suggest that he cannot really win the chairman’s race.

—Dean, Martin Frost, and Donnie Fowler have been the most aggressive in courting members themselves.

—We gather that Simon Rosenberg and Donnie Fowler have slowly won support from more DNC members (even as second or third choices) than some of their opponents believe. We eagerly look forward to Rosenberg’s 10:30 am ET conference call to learn about the “series of prominent national figures” endorsing him.

—We don’t know, and no one really does, in the end, how much the netroots support will mean to the final result. Suggestions welcome.

Finally, an unlikely endorsement of Governor Dean that pretty much captures what I’m thinking of the race.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 13th, 2005 at 1:25 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.