Burnt Orange Report

That Post article couldn't have been further off target. The author claimed Dean was ahead of, or tied with Gephardt in Iowa. There has NEVER been any poll that showed Dean ahead, and the one that showed a statistical tie was with a tiny sample size and a margin of error of like 6%.
As far as your question about Gephardt's 3rd quarter fundraising abilities, I think you'll see that as these union endorsements roll in, the cash will free up a bit. A lot of union members and officials have been waiting to give until their union had endorsed. Also, the basis of Gephardt's support, where so many things can be based on volunteer work from union members, changes the important cash number to watch from the incoming to the overall cash on hand. If volunteers will do more of the work, less cash doesn't necessarily mean less support. Each candidate will have their own important factors, but now that the unions are hopping on board the way to gauge Gephardt's support isn't so much by his cash intake but his overall ability to rally working Americans.
That said, I think he'll do much better this quarter in fundraising anyway. The 3rd quarter is his. It's that simple.

"The 3rd quarter is his. It's that simple."

Alright Kris, I'll take your word for it... for now, but if October rolls around and Q3 is another disappointment, I'll remind you of what you said.

Give me a candidate with passion. Give me one who excites people.

In a ven diagram, there would be no overlap between those circles and Gephardt's. :)

Besides, Dean looks a lot like Dennis Franchione, and that's a good thing. You know, there might be something there to get the Aggie vote.

I appreciate the track back. I understand that a lot of Dean supporters feel Dean is the only candidate who excites people, but respectfully, I must say, thats not true. I'm from Fenton Missouri and Gephardt is a common name in my community because of his long standing leadership to our district and state. I've seen Gephardt speak twice, I've seen how he runs against a tough challenger, and I've seen the way he gets back up and fights better than any politician when things begin to look bad.

I promise you Gephardt is exciting and by far the best chance we have of winning the White House in 2004! He has a great plan for universal health care coverage, has stood by his daughter when other fathers would abbandon there children for being gay/lesbian (Cheney I'm talking to you), and has an Apollo plan to fix the energy crisis and dependence we have here in America.

The thing that impresses me the most about Dick Gephardt though is his following. If you were just to read the press, you'd think that sometimes Dick Gephardt's campaign has had as much traction as Edwards. Still, Gephardt is leading in Iowa and tied in many national polls. There really is a main reason for this. People trust Dick Gephardt, both here in my home state, and the many union workers who have seen this man fight for them SO MANY times during the last two decades. I can't say enough about the number of people in America who have there own Gephardt story, about how he took the time to listen to them, and cared about there life. I honestly can tell you I've never seen anything like it before from a politician.

Dean is doing a great job this election cycle, and I take nothing away from that. Still, I hope all of you Dean supporters out there will take the time to learn about Dick Gephardt, and work hard to fight for him and support his cause if he wins the democratic nomination. Were all fighting for the same BIG goal in the end. We all have our reasons for supporting one candidate versus the other. I'll continue to respect yours, and I hope you'll continue to respect mine.

Nick,
Thanks for your comments. I support Dean, but I'm a Democrat first and I'll vote for Lieberman or Sharpton over Bush, even if I have to hold my nose. I appreciate all the work that Gephardt has done over his career. My main beef with him is that I see him, and I think that most Democrats see him as a failure as a leader. He failed running for President in 1988, then he failed as minority leader to take back the House in 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2002. And, I'm very upset (not as much about his Iraq vote), but about Gephardt's complete failure to build an agenda for Democrats to run on in 2002. Articles like this show that Democrats seem much more united by Pelosi, a liberal from San Francisco, than when under Gephardt, a relative moderate from middle America. While Pelosi won't criticize Gephardt, this is very telling to me:

Pelosi won't criticize Gephardt, a presidential candidate who angered many Democrats in October when he stood beside Bush to support military action in Iraq. But she says she's a different Democratic leader. "I am more, shall we say, inclined to put our differences with Republicans right out there in front of the American people," she says.

Pelosi says disarray among Democrats on the war and other issues led to their defeat in November. She is determined to meld and maintain a unified party message for next year's elections. "Never again will Democrats go into a campaign where the public doesn't know who we are and what we stand for," she says.

Thank you, Nancy. She has a plan, and I'm with her. What was Gephardt's plan in 2002? I have no clue. I love Gephardt's ideas with Health Care (although a little too expansive and too New Dealish for the 21st Century, but I'd support it) and Energy (That's one of my really big issues. We must become energy independent soon, and I'm pissed off Gore didn't push it in 2000). He has good ideas with teacher corps. In terms of new ideas, I have to admit, that Gephardt has some of the best, if not the best of the Democratic field. My question to the Gephardt folks out there though, is why didn't we hear about these ideas in the 2002 election? Or the 2000 election? Or in 1998 or 1996? We could have ran on these issues to regain a majority in Congress, but Gephardt never did. Why not? I'd love for one of the Gephardt people to answer that question for me.

Doesn't matter either way - Bush will take it in 2004 by a LANDSLIDE!!!

YEEEEEWE-HAAAAAWWWW!!!! Ride 'em cowboys!

Tee! He! He!

I was quasi-joking about Gephardt, but Byron hit it on the head about defining the agenda and defining what the party stood for.

Plus, let's remember that Gephardt couldn't defeat Dukakis. Dukakis.

The thing to learn from Bush^H^H^H^HRove is that you have to have a message, a clear, upbeat message. In his first run as governor, Bush took an issue that was not even among the top 10 issues among Texas voters (crime) and made it an issue. Crime was down in virtually every category at the time. Bush pounded on that issue, and by doing so, raised to the #1 or 2 issue among Texas voters, even though it was actually a non-issue. He got away with taking advantage of a stereotype (women can't deal with crime).

I'm not suggesting such manipulation, just pointing out that 1) a candidate has to repeat a good message that affects everyone and 2) a candidate can make an issue more of a priority among voters.

Let's remember something else: Across all elections in 2002, there was somewhere around 2000 votes difference. This country is split.

I agree about energy independence (from which we've regressed since Carter and early Reagan). Sadly, that can't be a major issue. Think of issues that hit the parents of small families, what's important to them. Right now, that's the economy. It's the loss of jobs overseas.

I'd like to see a basic theme about the value of families or American independence, centered on 2-3 core issues. I'm being simple here, but I think the idea of a clear theme is important, not a scattering of issues that voters have to work to connect. Present a basic value from which the stances on issues evolve.

Heck, I'd like to see even attempts at bipartisanship.

My question to the Gephardt folks out there though, is why didn't we hear about these ideas in the 2002 election? Or the 2000 election? Or in 1998 or 1996? We could have ran on these issues to regain a majority in Congress, but Gephardt never did. Why not? I'd love for one of the Gephardt people to answer that question for me.

To be honest, I don't know why people really blame Gephardt for this, but it is mostly coming from Dean and Kerry supporters. While I give no blame to Howard Dean on the 2002 election because he was not well known at the time, why is no one asking Senator Kerry why he decided not to campaign hard for Democratic candidates in 2002. Gephardt himself campaigned over 200 times running down to wire in 2002, while other prominent Democrats seemed more invisible on the national stage because they didn't want to be seen as going down with a sinking ship. Secondly look at the polling data before Paul Wellstone's funeural. Certainly we cannot blame Gephardt for that backlash, which helped energize conservatives around the country. Now, lets talk about 96, 98, and 2000. Gephardt was not even in charge during this time, the Democratic parties message was coming from Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Whenever the party holds the Executive office this is were the message comes from, so certainly Gephardt should not be blamed for this either. In short, I can understand why some may want to point fingers at Gephardt, but lets face it, Gephardt has been campaigning non stop since 96, and if it wasn't for him, we would probably be much worse off than we are right now. Also, if Democrats were truly not united in the House behind Gephardt in 2002 they would have asked him to step down as Speaker. That didn't happen, infact House and Senate leaders stood up and said we support Dick Gephardt, because they knew he ran his heart out for this party. The truth about 2002 is that Gephardt was out there campaigning more than anyone, while some Democrats from the Senate stayed silent. At the same time, the Democratic party, ran by Terry M. pushed millions of dollars into a loosing cause in Flordia instead of pumping that money into House and Senate races.

This is not as clear cut as some have tried to put it. Hopefully, that helps give you an idea of why Dick Gephardt is not to blame.

Thank you for letting me respond,
Nick Confer

P.S. Excuse the poor grammer, I'm not an English major ;)