Following Presidential elections, there's usually a period of a couple of months, where the next Presidential election is talked about, and then the press follows something else for a while, ignoring who might run the next time. That was certainly the case during 2001. So when MyDD started blogging about the 2004 Presidential race on a regular basis in 2002, it became one of the only blogs on the web to do so. By the summer of 2002, when we began the initial netroots for Dean Presidential campaign here, the novelty began to have revolutionary implications.
The revolution has become the norm now, and there are too many unofficial 2008 blogs to count. Dean waited until January 2003 to go officially operational on the web, and DFA didn't launch BFA until March 2003. That's going to change for 2008, as the candidate that launches a mere 10 months from the first elections, is going to find themselves running to catchup. One other thing that will change, and from the vantage point of a netroots advocate it seems very favorable, is that electing Howard Dean as the DNC Chair opens up the netroots activists to engaging with others in the field potential Democratic candidates. I think we'll find that 3-4 candidates emerge on the Democratic side with early and strong netroots campaigns, and possibly even a Republican trying for their nomination.
I can't talk about '08 without talking about a new HRC-Bush poll or the ultra winger Tancredo hoping into the GOP race, so here ya go.
WH '08 Matchup
All GOP Ind Dem
Clinton 46% 11% 44% 80%
Bush 37 74 30 8
Undec/Oth 17 15 26 12
I find it tough to believe that bit about Jeb Bush having low name ID as the reason for his poor showing, he's a Bush! Does anyone besides me believe that Jeb is Dick's replacement in waiting?
Tom Tancredo is the Democratic dream candidate for the GOP to nominate. ProgressNow in Colorado is tracking Rep. Tom Tancredo's visits to New Hampshire and Iowa. Providence Phoenix covered Tancredo's visit to NH:
This Thursday and Friday, February 3 and 4, one of the most questionable people in American electoral office will travel to New Hampshire to check out what the anti-immigrant vote looks like. Testing the waters for a potential presidential run in 2008 will be Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado).
Purportedly, Tancredo is going to the "Live Free or Die" state to present an award to New Ipswich chief of police, W. Garrett Chamberlain on Thursday. On Friday he'll be holding public meetings in Manchester, Nashua, and New Bedford. and meeting with key Republicans.
Last July, Chamberlain became a hero to a certain segment of the radical right when he stopped and detained nine Ecuadorian immigrants, and then threw a very public fit when federal officials took no interest in his "find" and told him to let them go. Since then, Chamberlain has become the darling of anti-immigration groups (e.g., American Patrol). He has also boasted that he managed to deport 11 Mexicans from New Ipswich in October. The Mexicans had been working full-time for a cement company.
And where did Chamberlain make that boast? Why, on Congressman Tancredo's "Team America" Web site. Tancredo is among the leading anti-immigration voices in American politics today. We're not talking about reforming or refining immigration policy, but full-blown ranting and ethnic stereotyping. Tancredo is so intense that the eminently right-wing editorial page of the Wall Street Journal took him, among others, to task in 2002 for "exploiting the terror attacks [9/11] to advance [their] anti-immigration agenda."
Tancredo is the real thing. He's accused Bush of not being a real conservative, because the president does not embrace his reactionary immigration positions. So, check out the new face of homegrown fear mongering during his visit to our neck of the woods.
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