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| Dean's conventional wisdom |
| 01.31.04 (6:44 pm) [edit] |
I've read the [url=http://blog.deanforamerica.co...]new strategies for the Howard Dean campaign[/url] and, frankly, I just don't get them. You may have read that Dean is not running ads in any of the 5 primary states or 2 caucus states with elections on February 3rd.
The theory is that Dean wants to focus on the more populated states that have primaries later in the season (California, New York, Florida, etc.), with the hopes that many of the other non-Kerry candidates will have dropped out by then. I can think of two reasons why this may be short sighted:
1. Many voters are undecided right now and look to the candidates' success (or lack there of) in earlier primaries as a measure of viability. Having no wins in the eight constests that day won't help Dean at all.
2. Even if Dean chooses to ignore some of the Feb. 3rd states that day, he really should continue to give attention to Arizona. Arizona experienced a huge population growth in the last 10 years (giving it 2 more electoral college votes in 2004 than it had in 2000) and is potentially a swing state, having voted for Clinton in 1996 (which is more than I can say about a lot of Southern states). Any candidate who wants to do well in November should start spending some time in Arizona early. Dean has already invested a fair amount of money in AZ and [url=http://www.latimes.com/news/p...,1,7752812.story?coll=la-home-headli nes]the race is close enough[/url] that with some more effort he could make a good showing there.
I'm not saying that Dean should waste money on Missouri or South Carolina, where he doesn't have much of a chance, but I stick to the "conventional wisdom" that an early win is necessary to make it to the convention. We can complain all day that the media are trying to call this race too early, but it's much harder to prevent the public from listening to these early pronouncements.
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