North Conway, NH

I DON'T GET IT. Zogby shows Kerry and Dean in a statistical dead-heat at 31% to 29%, with only 3% undecided. The Arg poll has Kerry with a double-digit lead over the Governor. Our neck of the woods is a lot like Zogby's poll, and we've found that Kerry voters are pretty easy to flip. Many of them were Dean supporters before Iowa anyway. Anyone care to explain the discrepancy in the polling results?

ABOUT THE SCREAM, or the "I Have a Scream" speech: the snowballing reminds me of the reaction to Paul Wellstone's memorial. Some of the volunteers here were among the 3,500 volunteers that Dean spoke to that night. They had worked their butts off for a week in horrible weather and were nearly crushed by the election results. Gov. Dean tried to console them, to rejuvenate them, to lead them to the next contest. His cheerleading reached its crescendo with the now infamous scream. At the time, no one thought it was extraordinary--it was in context. They left the rally knowing that the Governor understood them, appreciated them, and they were ready to campaign again.

Then they saw the clip of the scream all over the tv networks and heard it on the radio. Everyone was saying that Dean had "imploded." Removed from its context, that minute or so of a much longer rally confirmed what the rightwingers have been saying for several months: Dean was "unstable."

If you read Al Franken's "Lies..." you know how one moment of Paul Wellstone's memorial was removed from its context, making it appear that Republicans were booed out of the arena. Franken followed up every accusation of partisanship in the major media and learned that no one had actually watched the entire ceremony, which was a bipartisan, filled-to-the-rafters outpouring of sadness. They had only seen the clip. See, you can sum up rightwing disinformation in three words: repetition, repetition, repetition. Oh, and "ridicule," too. Hmm. And "Karl Rove is Evil" too.

Next time maybe I'll tell you about my new Dean Volunteer Upper Body Workout plan. All you need is two yard signs and a brisk wind. For now, I'm off to bed. I have to be in the office by 6:00 for Primary Day.