Today, from Garry Trudeau:

(Ed: Of course, this is further evidence that we've all jumped the shark.)

Metzenbaum has endorsed Dean; read more in this Yahoo / AP article.

I have to admit, I am intrigued by the decision of Governor Howard Dean to use a weblog to further his campaign for the Presidency, and I applaud him for doing so. I can think of no better way to bring blogging fully into the mainstream, and I hope that we will see more candidates blogging about their campaigns.

I am also quite intrigued by the decision Governor Dean made to guest-blog over at Larry Lessig's weblog. I have no idea what the relationship was/is between Dean and Lessig (the latter was one of my professors for a class I took as a graduate student at the University of Chicago), or how Dean decided to blog at Lessig's site, but I think that this will also further the blogging phenomenon.

I wish, however, that Dean would spend his time writing serious posts, and not posts like this one, which looks for all the world like the kind of thing that a staffer would write for a standard stump speech. I understand the need for candidates to have a stump speech and stick with it, but the attractive nature of blogs are that they get us past the kind of standard pablum that we read and hear from Big Media outlets. Unfortunately, Dean appears determined to treat blogging as yet another forum where we are treated to more of the same in terms of serious thought. There is no originality to his writing, nothing that makes a person take note and say "Aha! There is a candidate with a mind of his own!" What was the purpose for this exercise again?

My thoughts are summarized by the comments of "Factotum," who said the following in the comment section to the post I linked to above:

Increasingly, Dr. Dean, you are sounding like the nicely packaged candidate - “listening” - and repeating your “message” over and over again here and elsewhere. Is this what we are to come to expect from your campaign?

What made your campaign exciting and interesting was that you took a stand on many issues, not just the war - did intellectual property JUST appear on your desk? Haven’t you had at least several months to do more than “listen?” What is your position on labor, not just disjointed remarks - but a policy position people can point to? Give us something as concrete on THESE issues as you do on health insurance policy.

Blogging may seem cool in the press - but blog without substance and I begin to yawn. I feel like you are falling right back into that famililar old political models - even far before you might normally feel the pull (after the primaries.) Ugghh.

Indeed. I'm not going to vote for a candidate based on the blog that candidate might keep. But if a candidate is going to blog, would it be too much to ask that the message be as original and vibrant as the medium? Originality, originality. My kingdom for originality.

(This post can also be found on my blog.)

Howard Dean is guest blogging at Lessig's Blog; you may read the first post here. Link via Glenn Reynolds.

More on the Latino vote: News 8 Austin offers this report of the annual convention for the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic organization in the nation. Summary: the Republican's were MIA (with the exception of Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-TX), and Dean lit em' up.

In a fiery speech, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean hit right to the heart of the crowd.

"Immigrants built this country. We ought to respect them and stop racial profiling them and keeping them out of our universities and making it harder for them to get by," Dean said.

Now the Boston Globe has dean in the NH finals:

With the nation's leadoff primary a litttle more than six months away, Kerry and Dean have emerged as the leading choices among likely Democratic voters in New Hampshire, with the two New Englanders consistently outpolling the seven other candidates for the party's 2004 presidential nomination.

Kerry has led by as many as 12 percentage points, but Dean's recent success in outraising the field, with $7.5 million in the quarter that ended June 30, the Internet and grass-roots effort that propelled it, and the media attention it has attracted, have raised the stakes for Kerry. A near-favorite son candidate in New Hampshire, Kerry could be severely wounded by a loss -- or merely a close victory -- in the Jan. 27 primary, especially if Dean surpasses him eight days earlier in the kickoff Iowa caucuses.

The Stamford Advocate (CT) has picked up this AP story about the complications that arise from Dean's challenge ... some of the same we've been reading, but also some new insights.

Raising $7.5 million for his Internet-fueled campaign was the easy part. Now Democrat Howard Dean says he must urgently expand his presidential bid, broaden his message and soften the rough edges of his personality.

Newsweek has an analysis here of how the other Dems may - or may not - be accounting for the Dean campaign.

You'd think that Howard Dean's rivals would start attacking him-”big time”-now that his Internet-based fund-raising prowess has elevated him to what amounts to front-runner status in the Democratic presidential race. But each leading contender has his own strategic reason for laying off, at least until the fall, if not beyond - a scenario that could backfire by allowing Dean a free ride until it's too late to stop him.

From Yahoo / AP:

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean is looking to expand his campaign operations into several early primary states, an opportunity created by his successful fund raising.

Joe Trippi, campaign manager for Dean, said Tuesday that the campaign may establish a more formal presence in Arizona, New Mexico, Washington and possibly Oklahoma as early as Aug. 1 or Sept. 1. Initial plans had called for the Dean campaign to open offices in those states no earlier than October.

Pundits have made much of Dean's "firey" presentation style. To put some meat on the rhetorical bones, Park University Professor and former journalist Andrew Cline offers detailed rehtorical analyses of candidate speeches at his Presidential Campaign Rehtoric site. Find an analysis of Dean's June 23 Presidential Announcement Speech here. An example:

Our President and too many in Washington are giving away our future so that we pass to our children not a flickering flame of freedom but the chain of insurmountable debt. [Alliteration of the letter "f" should be avoided for positive references. It is much more effective for negative references in which the "f-word" is implied.]

No parent would do this and America must not do this. [Americans understand government in terms of the conceptual metaphors "a nation is a family" and "a government is head of the family." Liberals and conservatives have very different moral visions of family and, thus, very different moral visions of government. Re: Moral Politics by George Lakoff, U. of Chicago Press, ISBN# 0-226-46771-6.] ...

... American audiences usually react well to big-picture speeches that invoke cherished myths and cultural values. Dean skillfully uses both. This speech does not have the grandeur of the Kennedy inaugural address (from which Dean quotes), but it tugs just as surely at the emotions. This prose is remarkably free of obvious (and grand) tropes and schemes found in abundance in the Kennedy inaugural. Instead, Dean chooses to deliver the power of myth and cultural values in plain-talk to create the ethos and pathos of this speech.

CNN finally caught on to the "Howard Dean Uses The Web" story. They must have been reading Doonesbury ... every day last week. Read their take; there is this:

Then there is blogforamerica.com (blog is short for weblog), a candid daily journal updated by staffers from wherever Dean happens to be. Communications director Kate O'Connor was reluctant to file to the blog at first, but her entry writing — sprinkled with exclamation points ("we are driving in a hybrid vehicle!!")--has become a huge hit in the Dean community. "It's amazing," gushes O'Connor. "I have a following."

Is Howard Dean the new John McCain? From the Christian Science Monitor:

Early on it was presumed that Dean was a second-tier candidate, possible vice presidential timber. Now the political scribes are taking a second look. Suddenly, it seems, Howard Dean is the hot topic of much of the presidential coverage for the three or four of you who are actually reading about an election still 17 months out. But much of that coverage is missing the point about Dean, labeling him an Internet phenomenon, an experiment in "e-politics." ...

... In fact, when you look closely, Dean's campaign may not represent a new approach to "e-politics" as much as it represents a flashback to the 2000 campaign of Arizona Sen. John McCain. Mr. McCain and his rebellious straight-talk express went further than most imagined, pushing then-Gov. George W. Bush hard, and beating him in key states.

If that's Dean's map, it may be a smart choice. Insurgent candidacies are tolerated more readily in the Democratic Party than the GOP. And judging from last Wednesday, he's already got a small machine of invested volunteers in the wings.

From Yahoo / AP:

Despite a recent fund-raising surge, Howard Dean lags behind his top Democratic presidential rivals in a key category: Money in the bank.

The former Vermont governor cemented his standing as a top-tier candidate by raising $7.5 million between April and June, first among the nine Democratic candidates for the quarter. That gave him a total of $10.1 million raised since the beginning of the year.

Dean is the only candidate airing TV ads — $300,000 worth in Iowa — and he invested thousands of dollars to build an Internet-driven grass-roots operation. Those expenses and others, including a growing campaign staff in Burlington, Vt., leave Dean with more than $6 million cash on hand and fourth overall, aides said Monday.

From the Concord Monitor (NH):

Carol Knieriem sipped on a glass of lemonade as former Vermont governor Howard Dean told a crowd packed inside a Deerfield house that President Bush is "foolish" on foreign policy and that America is quickly becoming the next Argentina ...

... "I say Argentina and people laugh," Dean said. "When you have a Republican president who promises tax cuts and has middle class people pay for them, sooner or later we do get to be like Argentina. It isn't really that funny."

Bush, Dean said, is not a conservative, but a radical.

Borrow and spend, Dean said, is "exactly what happened in Argentina and the same kind of politics: Promise them everything."

[Drudge]

Presidential contender Howard Dean has confided to associates how he desires a fresh course for the Democratic National Committee, including a dramatic change in its leadership, specifically chairman Terry McAuliffe, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Sources close to the early-Democratic frontrunner reveal how Dean has bitterly complained about McAuliffe and the lackluster job he has done as chairmain and architect of the disastrous off-year elections.

Full story...

Garry Trudeau devoted much of last week's Doonesbury to Dean and the 2004 campaign. Catch up and read 'em all here.

CNN:

WASHINGTON, July 4 -- Howard Dean's prominence among the nine Democrats running for president is largely attributable to his campaign's early embrace of the Internet for organizing supporters and raising money.

Dr. Dean, a former governor of Vermont, has generated more money and attention online than any other candidate, through direct appeals and a growing base of supporters who are hooking up on a Web site called Meetup.com, which enables people with like interests to connect and meet.

The efforts have vaulted Dr. Dean into the top tier of candidates trying to build momentum for the first primaries, more than six months away.

But with the other leading Democrats turning to the Internet to seek contributions and some, including Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, gaining favor on Meetup.com, it is not certain that Dr. Dean's Internet advantage will continue.

The Post today publishes a Dean profile titled Short-Fused Populist, Breathing Fire at Bush. A snippet:

Although he first gained notice for opposing the war in Iraq, these days Dean likes to hammer the "radical right-wing wacko" Bush administration on nearly every issue. President Bush is all wrong, he says: wrong on the economy, wrong on the environment, wrong on health care and affirmative action and peace and justice for all.

Dean talks about this every chance he gets, gets worked up about it nearly as often and sweeps along his audience -- largely the party faithful -- every time.

A non-national perspective on the Dean "Meetup" wave, courtesy the Oakland Tribune:

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean's presidential campaign is using high technology and old-fashioned elbow grease to parlay his already-potent Bay Area support into strength in a key early primary state.

Hundreds of volunteers, mustered through Meetup.com, gathered Wednesday night in Berkeley, Walnut Creek, San Francisco and elsewhere to write personal letters to Iowa Democrats, whose names were furnished by the Dean campaign.

The "Dean prospers via the web" theme is getting more press than the hunt for Saddam Hussein. An interesting chain: press discovers blogs, candidate discovers blogs, press discovers candidate who discovers blogs. This chunk of "Wow, it works!" comes from the New York Times.

Howard Dean's prominence among the nine Democrats running for president is largely attributable to his campaign's early embrace of the Internet for organizing supporters and raising money.

Dr. Dean, a former governor of Vermont, has generated more money and attention online than any other candidate, through direct appeals and a growing base of supporters who are hooking up on a Web site called Meetup.com, which enables people with like interests to connect and meet.

Update: Here's a link to the post of this story at Dean's Blog For America.

AP:

AMHERST, N.H. - While people across the country celebrated Fourth of July with barbecues, baseball games and parades, residents of the first-in-the-nation primary state sized up possible presidents.

Four presidential hopefuls made their pitch to voters while marching with kids on bikes, Revolutionary War re-enactors, scouts, unicyclists and bands. New Hampshire's primary is scheduled for Jan. 27, 2004.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean had the most supporters — and noisemakers — while marching in Amherst and then Merrimack, both within 15 miles of the Massachusetts state line. Kerry has ranked first in New Hampshire's latest polls and Dean has come in second.

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and Florida Sen. Bob Graham had fewer supporters present, but both shook as many hands and kissed as many babies as the regional candidates.

Howard Dean has a weblog: Blog For America, and it's powered by Moveable Type.

From PCWorld:

No national political candidate would dare think of running a campaign today without using the Internet, but none of them is apparently using the Web as effectively right now as Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean of Vermont.

On Monday, Dean's campaign raised an amazing $802,083 online in one day, pushing his fund raising above $7 million for the quarter that began April 1 and putting him in the top tier of candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The amount of money his campaign brought in online, and its use of the Web to draw in supporters, keep them involved and organize them locally, is winning plaudits from analysts and others who say his is the first candidacy to put the Internet to full use.

From Newsday:

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean has tapped a lucrative vein of discontent in the American electorate in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, but now faces the challenge of converting grassroots energy into the kind of disciplined political force that can deliver victories in next year's primaries and caucuses.

Almost overnight, Dean has redrawn the contours of the Democratic race, vaulting from darkhorse candidate to top tier on the strength of an extraordinary, Internet-based fund-raising operation and the mobilization of party activists fed up with President George W. Bush's policies and, it appears, the lack of a vigorous Democratic opposition in Washington.

From Yahoo! news:

Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor making his first bid for national office, raised substantially more money this quarter than all his more established opponents in the Democratic presidential contest, according to figures released today.

The result forced Dr. Dean's rivals to reconsider how to deal with an opponent they had until now viewed as little more than an irritant.

From the Billings Gazette / Knight Ridder:

Ever since he bellowed from a Washington stage that he represents "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean has had activists swooning and opponents cringing.

In his bid for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, the smallish man (5 feet 8) from the smallish state (population 600,000) is polling big in the early-contest states of Iowa and New Hampshire. He is rousing audiences with roaring speeches. He is organizing grass-roots support online. And he is infuriating other Democratic candidates -especially his fellow New Englander, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts - with snippy asides about them.

As Dean officially launches his candidacy Monday in Burlington, Vt., he has vaulted unexpectedly into the top tier of Democratic contenders.

From the Chicago Sun Times:

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said Friday that his 17-year-old son and four other teenagers were cited in a burglary for attempting to steal liquor from a Vermont country club.

Dean, who canceled several campaign appearances, said his son, Paul, and teammates on the high school hockey team apparently were discovered early Friday morning at the Burlington Country Club by a police officer on routine patrol. Dean said it was his understanding that his son would be charged as an accessory.

''Children do stupid things and this is one of them,'' Dean said from a Minnesota airport where he was awaiting a flight to Vermont.

From WaPo:

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean has cultivated -- and developed -- an image of being a straight talker, someone who shoots from the proverbial hip without first running his thoughts by a focus group. But the former Vermont governor is finding that his outspokenness can get him in trouble.

Last week, Dean issued what was his third apology to a rival presidential candidate. After telling the Associated Press that he did not consider Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) a "top tier candidate," Dean recanted, telling the news service that he regretted the remark.