The Four Corner Offense

I just learned a new term today and I wish I hadn't. While reading the new ARG poll numbers from New Hampshire, I found a comment about some older undecided voters getting called and told they couldn’t vote in the primary, because they hadn’t registered. But when the voters said they were Dean supporters they were told they could vote. Obviously a dirty trick on somebody's part. The new term I learned was "push polling," used in one of the comments on the blog entry. Being a newcomer to politics, I was unfamiliar with the term; fortunately, one of the other partners in this weblog who happens to be very smart (a chip off the old block, as they say) explained to me what the term meant. It turns out that it’s just a variation of what Donald Segretti use to do for Nixon. For those few of our readers who don't know it is pretending to be a pollster to a voter and then dissing one of the candidates in the guise of doing polling. This appears to be occurring in N.H. in some form, and, based on what was posted on the web site it appears to be accruing to the benefit of Dean.

At this time it is premature to assume that Dean is doing it; another plausible explanation is that the Republicans are responsible, as they stand to gain the most from propping Dean up. It is clear to everyone that Clark is by far the biggest threat to a Bush victory; and Clark is clearly surging. It will be interesting to see where this leads -- if it leads to Dean, then I think it's the beginning of the end for him. If it can be traced to the Republicans, then it's just business as usual, as they have been messing with the Democratic campaign all along. [And the small-d democratic process in general, for years. -- Max] At least some of Dean's early funding came from Republicans trying to push Dean’s candidacy for obvious reasons discussed at length in this blog and elsewhere.

The other thing of interest today is the announcement that Dean may be thinking about a middle-class tax cut after all. Interesting, since he has been relentlessly bashing the other candidates who were in favor of this for the last several months. How are you going to sell this change of heart, Mr. Tell-it-like-it-is, straight-talking, never-flip-flopping Dean? We didn’t hear a word about this until Clark's plan came out and was widely hailed as a winner. It seems his campaign advisors won’t let him talk about taxes anymore until they make up their mind what he should say. If they had stifled him three weeks ago on all the issues they might have been better off. They should of gone into the four corner offense about a month ago. (Only those of you who are ACC basketball fans will know what I'm talking about. Dean Smith, the legendary basketball coach at North Carolina, years ago, used the four corner offense to run out the clock in games where they were ahead. It drove the rest of the ACC crazy but it was effective.) The average Democrats, it seems, are deserting Dean in droves because of his numerous gaffes, lousy temperament, and issues of electability, while the true believers continue to make excuses and threaten to abandon the party if he's not nominated. No votes have been counted, but if Dean loses, it was stolen from him by the establishment. {see Amy’s posting} Enough for today; my two fingers are getting tired.