January 07, 2004
From the desk of Jane Galt:Ooops
Dean's staffers inadvertently invited reporters to listen into a strategy conference call, instead of a PR call scheduled for later in the day:
"Tomorrow, (Tuesday) we're going to start by having Bradley do sort of a subtle thing, if we can, by saying that Dean is a real Democrat, and then follow that up the next day with an in-state person that's probably a little more direct," one unidentified staffer said.The "in-state" appeared to be a reference to New Hampshire, where Bradley, Al Gore's opponent for the 2000 Democratic presidential nomination, was to appear this morning at a previously unscheduled breakfast.
Another staffer indicated that in a survey of voters Monday by telephone, people expressed concern that "this guy (Dean) is indecisive" and Bradley, a former Hall of Fame player in the National Basketball Association and a three-term senator from New Jersey, could help counter that.
"The Bradley message could be, like, (Dean) knew where he stood on the war, is still a Democrat, takes . . . positions, blah, blah, blah," the staffer said.
The next day, the speaker said, "surrogates" for Dean, both local and national, could "then hit Clark on the flip side of the argument: that he's indecisive, didn't know what party he's with, doesn't know his position on the war," she said.
The strategists ended their conversation when another reporter joined the conference, telling him, "I think you may have the wrong call-in number. This isn't a press call."
It certainly isn't as bad as it could have been . . . remember when the California Democrats inadvertently left the squawkbox open as they discussed ways to worsen the budget crisis to make Schwarzenegger look bad? Still . . . that's got to hurt. No staffer wants to go on record as saying "blah, blah, blah". Posted by Jane Galt at January 7, 2004 10:47 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links
I dislike Dean and root for him to get the Democrat nomination as much as anybody, but come on. As gaffes go this is pretty minor. What are these folks guilty of? Conspiring to commit politics?
It's not as if they were trying to figure out a deniable way for Dean to imply that GWB had inside knowledge of 9/11, or for him to pander to religious voters in the South, or .......
Posted by: Chris on January 7, 2004 12:37 PMIt could have been worse. The staffer could have said, "and yadda, yadda, yadda..."
Posted by: Gary Anderson on January 7, 2004 05:39 PMRe: Chris
Or they could've made the same kind of blunder that California Democratic state legislators made during the last session, whereby they discuss plan to drag the budget crisis out as long as possible to make the Republican look bad. Unfortunately, their microphone was wired to the public PA system.
Posted by: BigFire on January 7, 2004 05:57 PMOr they could have called one of the reporters a "major league a$$hole." "Bigtime!" on a live mike.
We can go on and on with these stories... Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda, as they say.
Posted by: Brittain33 on January 7, 2004 09:50 PMQuestion: When did this California live mike scandal happen? In the last few weeks? And can anyone provide a link or reference about it? Thanks.
Posted by: Tom on January 8, 2004 07:34 AMComments are Closed.