DEAN
He’s lost some “Mo” but not Mo-ney — or the troops on the ground. There is the world the rest of us inhabit and there is Dean World, which is still expanding even if Dean has leveled off, or even declined somewhat, in the polls. Inside Dean World — it’s blogs and Web pages, e-mails and Meetups — Dean is still The Man, and the attacks from the outside only make the folks inside the bubble more fervent, as far as I can tell. Campaign Manager Joe Trippi hopes to have 900,000 names on his e-mail list by the end of the year, with perhaps a third of those as contributors. That’s some organizational and financial clout. Dean is pursuing the classic route first blazed by Jimmy Carter: Rise in Iowa, win in New Hampshire, and the rest is history. ... more...
CLARK
Some have suggested to the general that he skip Iowa altogether, just as Sen. John McCain did against George W. Bush in 2000. It worked for McCain, because he could spend weeks on end in the Khyber Pass of politics, New Hampshire, and ambush Dubyah there. Clark is starting too late to camp out in New Hampshire, and no one is so overwhelmingly strong in Iowa that it’s worth skipping. I expect him to try to participate there, while tamping down expectations of any major showing.
New Hampshire is the Wild West of the East, and it loves its outsiders and shin-kickers of The System: McCarthy, McGovern, Hart, Buchanan, McCain... Howard Dean thought he was that man (and a local guy as well) but Clark has a chance to be the outsider darling... He doesn’t have to win the state, but if he can finish at or near the top, he’ll be set up to do well in some of the more conservative, and pro-military states who vote the following week. He’d probably want Dean to be the other main foe at the end. ...more
KERRY
On paper, it’s still all there, even more so: Kerry has the battlefield record of Clark, the liberal credentials of a Kennedy, the foreign policy experience of a Clinton. The senator just has to find a place to win, early. He needs to finish in the money in Iowa, and at the top in New Hampshire. I used to think that he had to win New Hampshire, but he’s benefited from a decline in expecations there. At this point, no one expects him to win, so that if he finished a very competitive second, he’d still be in the ballgame — unless Dean has won both Iowa and New Hampshire, at which point it seems unlikely that Kerry would be chosen the Un-Dean.... more
http://www.msnbc.com/news/980505.asp?cp1=1