Morris: Lehane Behind Dean's 'Political Assassination'

NewsMax ^ | 1/17/04 | Limbacher

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Acting at the behest of Bill and Hillary Clinton, a senior campaign aide to Gen. Wesley Clark has carried out the "political assassination" of Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean, former top Clinton advisor Dick Morris contended late Friday.

"I believe we have witnessed a political assassination of Howard Dean by the Clintons," Morris told Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" - hours after polls showed that Dean's once formidable lead in Iowa had evaporated.

Morris named Clark communications director Chris Lehane, a former Gore campaign spokesman who cut his teeth as a key operative in the Clinton White House's attack machine.

"Chris Lehane has been the source of a lot of these negative stories [about Dean]," he explained. "He's a vehicle for Clinton feeds."

Morris said that other candidates don't have the resources for the kind of opposition research that Lehane has been carrying out for Gen. Clark, whose campaign is staffed wall-to-wall with Clinton White House veterans.

"The places that have the money for negative research are the Democratic National Committee and the Clintons," said Morris.

On Friday the New York Times detailed Lehane's role in the current campaign, calling him "such a shrewd practitioner of what one admiring strategist called 'the political black arts' that lately, when a negative story appears, rivals point to him."

The Times referred to Lehane as Gen. Clark's "secret weapon" in his campaign's war against Dean and other rivals.

In 2000, it was then-Gore aide Lehane who took an innocuous Republican campaign ad that flashed the word "De-moc-rats" across the screen and turned it into a major scandal.

After Lehane told reporters that the word "rats" was an attempt to use subliminal advertising to smear his party, the story turned up on the front page of the Times and dominated the news cycle for days.

"Chris understands the essential dynamic of politics, which is punch or be punched," Jim Jordan, Sen. John Kerry's former campaign manager, told the paper.

But some say Lehane's tactics against Howard Dean go further than that.

"Like criminals, most good political operatives have certain M.O.'s," one unidentified Lehane "friend" told the Times. "He's very aggressive and he's very thorough and very good at getting reporters what they need to do a hatchet job on your opponent."

[oceanview]

that's not saying much, since the clintons cannot have a Dem win in 2004.

[oceanview]

the point to be made here: we are really running two presidential elections at once right now, both 2004 and 2008 are being run right now.

[Lancey Howard]

I always call them DEMOCRAT not democratic.

ABSOLUTELY!!
I remember reading here a couple of years ago where some Democrats were complaining about a Republican candidate who kept saying "Democrat Party" instead of "Democratic Party", and now I will ONLY refer to the scumbags as the "Democrat Party". In fact, I cringe whenever I see or hear the phrase "Democratic Party".

Regards,
LH

[Azbushgal]

What about Mark Fabiani? Isn't he just as bad? I wonder where he is in all this. I have Dick Morris's book, I will check it out. Chris seems like kind of a weenie, front man for Don Bubba Clintione. I wish someone would bring all this out.....

[Owen]

The Clintons fear Dean as nominee because he will remove McAullife. McAullife will be the source of disproportionate funding from the DNC to Hillary when she faces . . . probably Rudy . . . in 2006 when she runs for Senator in NY to maintain a seat from which to go for the WH in 2008. She can't run in 2008 if she's out of office. It's too hard to maintain the network.

So the Clintons must not allow Dean to gut their funding source. And he will.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Gee.

I'm surprised.

Wait until 2007-2008.

[Robert A Cook PE]

This time.

She's really running for 2008.

Doesn't care about 2004.

[cmsgop]

I thought Chris LeHanes sister leaked it out to that Portland Maine Dweeb, what was his name????

[cmsgop]

McAullife said he was already Outa There as DNC Chief. The Question is who is next in line as far as the Clinton's are concerned?

[Dan from Michigan]

Of these three the most formidable candidate is clearly Kerry;

I disagee. I think Howard the Duck and Clark are both MUCH more formidable candidates. Gephardt as well. Kerry is the one I wanted to face from the state.

he has the war record to match Clark

Kerry is also the guy who tossed his medals away and sided with the Sandinistas.

, and gravitas to beat Clark's weirdness.
I don't think so. This guy is the epidomy of being out of touch with Middle America.

Dean is too far left, too angry and against the war so he is probably unelectable.

Being anti-war is almost a must for the dems since they need to keep their base. They also have to balance that without being seen as 'weak'. As for far left, I think the middle is the most overrated part of anything. If you get enough of your people to show up and vote, you don't need ;the middle'. Also, what is the middle? It's not just suburban soccer moms. They just get all the press. Another key 'middle' is an economic liberal and social conservative, or someone who has a union card, but an NRA card as well. I DO agree with the angry part, though. My ad right now against Howard the Duck would be simple. Him yelling at the Iowa resident, and then have a gruff man's voice say "Can you trust this man with the button?" But an 'outsider' approach can never be discounted, and Dean can't be pinned to the problems in Washington.

Back to Kerry, this guy is from Massachusetts(Dukakis), aloof, a Skull and Bones, loaded with money(could be a negative), goes out of his way to pretend that he's 'tough' and 'cool'(and looks out of place), has a voting record to the left of Duck's in Vermont, and most of all, spent 20 years in Washington as a Senator. When was the last senator elected to be president? It hasn't happened since JFK. I also just can't see John Kerry fitting in here in the Midwest, particular at a blue collar union hall, or a skeet shoot fundraiser.

Clark is scary since I don't know what to expect.

As for Gep, what makes him scary is the union ties, and the midwest ties. The upper Midwest is the real bellwether of the election. I think his anti-NAFTA stance will help bigtime, and Missouri is tougher with Gep than it would be with the rest. If he was a governor instead of a house member, I'd be even more scared.

[Eva]

No, the guy who turned in the story was found out and everyone was talking about making a billboard outside of the town with the guy's picture on it. I don't remember the whole story, but I know we knew who told Chris Lehane about the story.

[nathanbedford]

Many months ago I predicted on these threads that Kerry would be nominated and I am sticking to that prediction.

I base it on his television personna. Incidentally, the medals he threw over the fence were not actually his own. But, by the time the establishment media cranks up, his boat in Nam will be nothing less than PT-109. Anyway, I think his medal was at least earned which was not the case for LBJ and probably JFK.
If Kerry or Gebhardt get the nod, they will be more formidable than Dean because they have at least a chance with demographics other than their own base. National elections are won between the forty yard lines, not by energizing your own base.

But, if Bush does not take a care with immigration, and spending, he will find his base sleeping in again as did the evangelicals with pappa.

[LibertarianInExile]

Just curious what it takes to qualify. Figured you'd have a list of who's who, and I could see what's what.

[Verginius Rufus]

The idea with the DUI story was that we may know the last person or the last couple of people in the sequence, but that at an earlier stage someone may have been tipped off by Hillary or someone acting as Hillary's go-between.

[CyberAnt]

I sent my disgust to several media who did not get the point. I told them that if the name of the party was "democratic", then they should be called the "democratics" .. right ..?? But they're not .. they're still referred to as "democrats".

Soooo .. it's "the democrat party"!!!

And besides .. there's nothing democratic about the democrats.

[Gracey]

I always call them DEMOCRAT not democratic.

Agree... same here. I correct ANY Republican who used "democratic." I say... the Democrats are the most UNDemocratic group in our society.

Maybe DemoN Rats is more appropriate?

[Gracey]

...there's nothing democratic about the democrats.

LOL. Posted my 2 cents before seeing your post. LOL

[CyberAnt]

That's okay .. sometimes good stuff needs to be said more than once!!

[mhking]

With this much time until the election, if the President loses come November, the blame will fall squarely in his mirror.

The Bush team knows what kind of crap the Democratic party will come up with between now and then. Plus, with the Administration coming up with drek (i.e., the "guest worker program") that will alienate portions of the conservative base, where the heck do they think swing voters will come from to replace the disenfranchised faithful?

The President won by a hair's breadth last time. Don't you think that the Dems will continue to try to hammer away at that single hair this time?

[philosofy123]

The President had 85% approval rating before the Rats started their campaign, now it shrunk to 50%. Bush needs to start fighting back. Good thing that he sent Chaney out. He will, single handedly turn it around.