No place all red on Dean's map

Excerpt:
"According to "The Thumpin'," an upcoming book by Naftali Bendavid on the 2006 contest, the attack on Dean was instigated by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, and executed by a former Clinton White House aide, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the Democrat from Chicago who led the congressional campaign committee.

"They're not phone banking, they're not doing anything. ... They've burned cash," Emanuel griped to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader, the book recounts. "They couldn't find their ass with both hands tied behind their back."

When the campaign was over, two Clinton intimates - consultant James Carville and pollster Stan Greenberg - went public with more complaints, with Carville declaring that Dean should be fired.

"Howard Dean's leadership is Rumsfeld-ian in its incompetence," Carville said.

Yet Dean won the skirmish because he had broad support among the party rank and file, and an army of vocal defenders in the Internet-based community of liberal activists known as the "netroots." The coup died aborning when the Democratic state chairs passed a resolution backing the chairman. Things are quiet now, but Democratic insiders wonder if the dispute will flare again in 2008."

http://www.currentargus.com/ci_5618688

Alex

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