Hunting The Muse

Dean's Campaign Stresses

There's a detailed Washington Post article that details a lot of the "bickering" that took place inside the Dean campaign. It's too bad.

The article is a bit slanted, particularly in its implication that Dean "did not really want to be president." The supporting points for that are weak.

But, Mathew Gross, the former lead blogger for the Dean campaign, says the article is pretty much accurate.

Mathew Gross is involved with Change For America. It strikes me as possible that we are seeing the beginnings of public "differences" between Change For America and Dean For America. It's obvious there is at least opportunity for bad blood between the two.

And, here's a response to the article from Howard Dean.

The quotes attributed to me by others in Howard Kurtz's gossipy rendition of the divisions in the Dean for America campaign are entirely false, as is the description of my reaction after losing the Iowa caucuses, before the famous speech.

The danger of using unattributed sources as Kurtz and so many others do, is that the veracity of the informants can not be evaluated. In this case Kurtz included a significant amount of material which was not true, and produced a story which was greatly exaggerated.

There have been many inquiries about the relationship between Dean For America and the Change for America website. The answer to the question is that there is no relationship. We intend to form a progressive grassroots organization based on the Dean for America campaign, and we will work with other organizations after we get set up. We will announce the set up on March 18.

In the meantime, my deepest thanks to all of you who worked so hard to change America. We are not giving up, and we have an outline about what we intend to do on the DFA website.

Many thanks,

Howard Dean

So, Mathew Gross, a public face of Change For America, is on record saying the article is accurate. Dean is on record saying it is not.

This is concerning to me. I want to see a public unity display between these two organizations pronto.

Update: Change for America addresses the situation.

Posted by Curt at February 29, 2004 04:03 PM