USA Today – Dean's campaign like no other

[pruner]

DES MOINES — Howard Dean rose from long shot to front-runner in the Democratic presidential race by outworking his rivals at conventional politics and at the same time taking risks that would be unthinkable to most politicians.

Dean is best known for going with his gut — notably by opposing the Iraq war when hardly anyone else was — and for harnessing the power of the Internet to raise money and build a national organization.

But political professionals say none of it would have worked had he not laid a traditional foundation.

"He's beating establishment candidates at their own game and breaking new ground with new techniques," says Doug Hattaway, a Democratic strategist who was Al Gore's spokesman in the 2000 presidential campaign.

…

The Dean campaign hallmark is its embrace of unusual ideas and techniques. When fun ideas come up, Iowa director Jeani Murray says, the usual response is, "Let's go for it."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/2003-12-11-dean-campaign-analysis_x.htm

[LuminousX]

1. Fantastic article!

[slinkerwink]

2. that's a fabulous article!

:-)

[mikehiggins]

3. Reminds me of the glory days (well, glory minutes) of the Perot campaign

Not that I'm comparing Dean to Perot, of course.

Well....

[eileen_d]

4. You're shitting me.

Dean has an innovative campaign? Using the INTERNET? I had no idea.

[loyalsister]

5. One huge advantage

"He also has had no job this year other than running for president"
He's one of the best positioned to call Bush out for being derelict of his duties. If Gep, Kerry or Edwards tries it, Bush will trot out missed votes. Clark and Kucunich may be current exceptions. But, it could change easily in the GE for Kucinich.
Not only that, IMO the congressional Dems are in a terrible position for pukes to purposefully put them at risk of alienating their own supporters by shady manipulations of vote scheduling, etc.