Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Marking Period

Wednesday July 2, 2003

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TRAVELOGUE ALERT: As you are reading this, the Mullmeister is winging his way east enroute to Kuwait for the next five days. As the many Mullsters from Arizona have hastened to remind me, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity." Here's a Mullings corollary: "When the heat nears 120�, humidity is a footnote."

As those of you who have suffered through one of my lectures on "Politics and the Press" you will remember that one of the points which always appears on the final is this:

Prior to election day there are only three ways for reporters to judge the progress of a campaign: Polling data; fundraising; and the press operation.

If that is true, then the report card for this Marking Period - the end of the second quarter - shows Howard Dean with two A's and a F.

The second quarter financial reports won't be released until mid-July, but it appears that Dean will lead the pack, out-raising John Edwards (who led coming out of the gate), John Kerry (who's second-place finish to Edwards was more damaging to his campaign than anyone then realized), Joe Lieberman (who is in danger of sinking out of the first tier), and Dick Gephardt (who may well pass Lieberman in second quarter fundraising).

Stories indicated that Carol Moseley-Braun's campaign didn't return calls from reporters asking for their fundraising totals leading some in Your Nation's Capital to waggedly suggest the phones had been turned off for non-payment.

Like everything at this stage of the Presidential campaign, everything depends upon how the candidates do against the expectations of how they were supposed to have done.

In the 1992 New Hampshire primary when Bill Clinton, who was (according to CNN) "under attack for marital infidelity and avoiding the military draft," declared himself "The Comeback Kid," he actually LOST the election to Senator Paul Tsongas from next-door Massachusetts.

Nevertheless, second place was better than the press corps had predicted, so "The Comeback Kid" he became and "The Comeback Kid" he remained.

We discussed, earlier this week, the MoveOn.org straw poll which Dean won. While this was in no way scientific, it WAS demonstrative of a certain organizational ability which the Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, or Gephardt campaigns were unable to match.

The Fundraising totals will be (1) a confidence-booster to the Democratic Left and (2) more Democratic primary voters will recognize Dean's name leading to (3) Dean's polling numbers to rise dramatically.

That's A and B.

Now, to C. Dean is not beloved by the WELPs - the Washington Elite Liberal Press. They wanted to love him. The tried to love him. They invited him out on dates. But Dean has what has been described by ABC News as "prickly when second-guessed" by the press corps and the press, as we know, does not take kindly to being scorned.

The world's best media reporter, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz had an article yesterday dealing with many of the reporters who have tried to give Dean the benefit of the doubt and have come away doubting his ability to function at this level of politics.

Kurtz quotes reporter Jakc Tapper as writing Dean "Doesn't suffer reporters or fools gladly," which may, upon further review, be cause to notify the Department of Redundancies Department.

But that cheap joke notwithstanding, Dean's press team actually went so far, after an unflattering story by the LA Times' Ron Brownstein to "put out a press release denouncing the piece, left a message for Brownstein and called an editor in Los Angeles to try to get the story changed."

Ron Brownstein is, by any measure, the most insightful political analyst writing in America today. Getting into a public fight with him is not likely to attract better coverage by any other reporter.

So Dean's report card showing two A's and an F is probably better than the other eight candidates in the field.

Not bad. But not Dean's list.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A roundup of fundraising for the Dems, the Howie Kurtz piece on Dean's problems with reporters, and ABC News discussion of Dean's official announcement, and a nice Mullfoto.

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