WAG - Will this make the wire?
During the conversation with my friend yesterday - see yesterday's post - we discussed the fact that Dean is still in the race despite the fact he's yet to land one 1st place win.
Why was he still around, was the question discussed. With the bulk of the Democratic delegates still up for grabs, his strategery isn't too bad. Dean still is second in the overall delegate race and will benefit as more people drop out of the race (see Clark’s departure).
The other general reason why one stays in the race is that one never knows when a scandal can kill or at least hamstring a frontrunner. For those of you who don’t remember, or haven’t studied this era, the 1988 Democratic nomination race is a perfect example.
Sen. Gary Hart, who had nearly clinched the nomination in 1984, was the new “It guy” 3-years later when he challenged the press to tail him. Note: If you’re going to taunt the press like this, don’t be surprised when it comes back to bite you in the tail.
Rumors of extramarital affairs lingered beneath the surface until a Miami Herald reporter broke the story of Hart’s relations with 29-year-old model Donna Rice. The piece-de-resistance of the story was the picture of Rice sitting on Hart’s lap while they sailed on the good ship “Monkey Business.”
On May 8, 1987, Hart dropped out of the race and Michael Dukakis got his chance to run.
Of course, as we learned in 1992 with the Gennifer Flowers affair, sometimes these things can be re-spun, redirected, discounted, and buried.
Anyway, there was an early morning announcement on The Drudge Report this morning that promised big news that could shake up the Democratic race.
Checking back up this afternoon, it detailed long-stewing allegations that Kerry has been trying to hush up an affair.
It is said that several news outlets have been investigating this story, and we’ll see if that is true.
Drudge also claims other Democratic candidates have been aware of these rumors and that General Clark has even made the off-the-record comment, “Kerry will implode over an intern issue.”
This is being floated as a reason why Dean made the announcement he wouldn’t drop out if he still failed to carry Wisconsin.
Note: Drudge has before made the statement that 80 percent of his FLASH scoops are accurate. That means another 20 percent are questionable. It will be interesting to see which category this story ends up in.
Meanwhile, I don’t know how far this may spread, but now foreign presses (and a handful of US publications) are starting to pick this issue up.
Here are some links culled from a Google news search:
Editor and Publisher
World Net Daily
The Scotsman
Coming soon a media machine near you?
One final thing to keep in mind. In 1998, when Clinton had another round of "lady trouble" and Drudge was the one credited with breaking the story (after Newsweek spiked (journalism definition: killed) the item), it took 4 days for the mainstream American press to pick it up.
Start the stopwatch and we’ll see…
'Film_at_Eleven_Maybe'
