Burnt Orange Report

Frankly, I am surprised Dean is doing as well as he is in WA. Makes you wonder if he shouldn't have had WA as a firebreak rather than WI.

Boys and Girls, let's face it, whether we like it or not, Dean is out. It's time to focus on November.

Hmm. Does that mean that Dean has changed his policies such that the union no longer supports him? Or that the union is shamelessly self-interested and opportunistic?

Seriously, I'm not conversant with the endorsement protocol. Is it not unusual for a major entity to formally withdraw its earlier endorsement and jump on the latest bandwagon?

Wow, I think that was the first time I agreed with what Mark had to say.

whether we like it or not, Dean is out. It's time to focus on November.

Agreed, though there's no harm in letting the primaries play out a while longer. As long as there is a "horse race", the media will devote more time to it and less time to administration propaganda.
That certainly won't hurt Sen. Kerry in the long term.

If Dean is making his last stand in WI, this ARG poll tells us that he won't be howling much longer.
http://americanresearchgroup.com/wi/

The lasting legacy of the Dean campaign will not be the flawed candidate, but rather the dedication, innovation, and creative energy that its staffers and volunteers brought to American politics.

Tim - I certainly agree with you from a logistic point, but I think the real legacy will be Dean's accomplishment in making the Democratic party actually stand for something again. I know many have commented on his "spine transfusion" feat, but I don't think it can be understated: without Dean, the Democratic party might well have nominated Lieberman.

A very good summing up from the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3469729.stm

Some had worried that a fierce battle for the nomination would weaken the eventual nominee and lessen his chances of defeating George Bush in the autumn. The opposite appears to be true.

And whereas a year ago, the chances of a Democrat unseating Mr Bush seemed slim, now the party faithful believe they have a fighting chance.

[.....]

As a result of this Democrat primary process, the party faithful have been shown to be very worked up about President Bush and very determined to see him turfed out of office.

Democrats after having felt that basically things were hopeless, there is now a sense of belief.

And in politics, it can be said that victory begins with belief.

Fellow Democrats,

Notice the total numbers of votes cast for all candidates with 49% reporting, as reported in this blog. The # is ca. 6.5k. So let's assume there were 13k votes total. That is only 3k more than attended the 10k rally, if in fact the 10k # is accurate. This is not good news. We need to ask ourselves as a party, "Why did 10k come to a rally in ONE city, yet only 13k go to the pollis in the WHOLE state?" We need to know why and prevent this in the future.

From the link on this page...

Instead of releasing caucus vote totals, the Washington Democratic Party releases a total indicating the number of delegates to the state convention each candidate will receive.

Plus, the total is about 22,000. I think we cannot make such assumptions without knowing all our numbers.

And anyways, that was last summer. Who ever said all that showed up were Dean supporters? No one was doing anything big at the time, so people probably came out to see him to find out more about him. You can't consider them all to be votes just because they where there.

When Kucinich came to Austin, over half of the people there were Dean supporters that just wanted to hear the guy. Extrapolate.

WhoMe: in relation to the Dean numbers, this is an insightful analysis:

For many of us, the first time Dean appeared on our radar was when 300 people showed up for a Howard Dean MeetUp in New York City in early 2003. This was unprecedented, and Dean himself took note of it, coming down from Vermont to speak to his supporters.

We were right to be excited about this MeetUp, but wrong about the reason, because MeetUp was founded to lower the coordination costs of real world gatherings.

The size of the MeetUp in NYC was as much a testament to MeetUp as to Dean--it's a wonderful tool for turning interest into attendance, but it created a false sense of broad enthusiasm. Prior to MeetUp, getting 300 people to turn out would have meant a huge and latent population of Dean supporters, but because MeetUp makes it easier to gather the faithful, it confused us into thinking that we were seeing an increase in Dean support, rather than a decrease in the hassle of organizing groups.

I've seen this sort of effect before, as when written correspondence on letterhead stopped being a sign of a solvent company, thanks to the desktop publishing revolution, or with the way email to politicians matters less than telegrams, because email is cheaper and easier to send. As we get the tools to make such gatherings easy, we need to concentrate on the outcome of those gatherings, rather than assuming strength simply by looking at the number of attendees.

Wow, I think that was the first time I agreed with what Mark had to say.

Ditto