Forget the inflammatory remarks, the controversial statements or “The Scream.” A political pundit close to AfterW.org recently developed the theory that Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign for the White House was doomed from the start. Why?

He’s short.

Not freakishly short, but certainly not tall. At 5′8″, Dean is still in the ballpark as far as American men his age are concerned. But, according to our analyst, that’s not exactly presidential. AfterW.org founder, M. Levi Bluefield, concurred, stating:

“You can’t be president if you’re 5′8″.”

Can you?

Dean lost the nomination to John Kerry, who towered over him at 6′4″. Coincidence? Probably not. Howard didn’t exactly help himself by remarking that the capture of Saddam Hussein didn’t make the U.S. safer (correct as he was) or numerous other gaffes in the days before the Iowa caucuses.

But the Presidential Height Index suggests there’s something to this hypothesis. Since the rise of television in American homes, the tallest candidate has won the popular vote in every election but three: the 1972 defeat of 6′1″ Sen. George McGovern by 5′11″ Richard Nixon, the 1976 loss by Gerald Ford, a six-footer with two inches on Jimmy Carter, and Kerry by George W. Bush, who’s also an even six.

If you consider 1960 the dawn of televised politics - as our expert does, claiming the tube almost single-handedly delivered the election to John F. Kennedy - the taller candidates are 9-3. Not a shabby record. What does the theory hold for 2008, when only the strongest of the contenders in this marathon campaign are left standing (pun intended)?

Currently, the candidates with the biggest height disadvantages are, interestingly, the early frontrunners in both parties. The Dems’ early leader in the polls, Hillary Clinton, is listed at 5′6″ or 5′7″, depending on what you read, while Republican John McCain is only 5′7″.

Not sure if these Senate heavyweights would relish a debate against the other, but at least height would be a non-factor. Interestingly, if either wins the White House, they’ll be the shortest chief executive in an even 100 years (Teddy Roosevelt, who served from 1904-1908, was 5′8″).

As for Dean, the former Vermont governor and current DNC chairman, he says he never had a complex about his average stature. He actually mentioned his height on the campaign trail in 2003:

“I’m 5′8″ … almost 5′9″ … actually 5′8″ and three quarters. But the reason I don’t tell anybody about the three-quarters is that it sounds like I’m very sensitive about my height. And I’m not!”

Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, who has fought against sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, has officially joined the crowded field of Democratic contenders seeking to win the 2008 White House race.

“I respectfully suggest to you that the Democrats out there understand I am the only person out there with a plan that can get us out of Iraq,” he told reporters Wednesday.

“There is no possibility of a solution in Iraq that is military,” added Biden, pictured (left) with colleague and fellow 2008 candidate Christopher Dodd.

“There is no need to have a long-term stationing of troops in Iraq.”

According to Reuters, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged that the international community be tapped to help bring an end to violence.

Biden sponsored a non-binding resolution approved last week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, opposing President George W. Bush’s wildly unpopular plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.

Biden, 64, and a six-term senator, is the eighth Democrat to enter the 2008 White House race, often polling in the low single digits behind Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, and 2004 V.P. nominee John Edwards.

Biden plans to campaign on Monday in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary-style election in the nominating process. His trip will follow Clinton’s planned travel in the state over the weekend.

Biden acknowledged he would quit the race if he did not place well after the first four states - Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

“It’s clear that not all of us are going to be standing after South Carolina. If I’m not in it at that point, I’m out,” he said.

It’s interesting that despite the overwhelming Obama-Clinton-mania gripping the party, Senators such as Dodd and Biden aren’t willing to turn this into a coronation just yet. Is there resentment among these Senate icons that they are being shoved to the side? Are they hoping to tout their foreign policy credentials and position themselves for the V.P. spot on the Democratic ticket? It’ll be interesting to watch.

Below is a funny e-cartoon we found by the outstanding Bill Mitchell, a former newspaper cartoonist who’s long since abandoned print media for the online world, and who frequently shares his efforts with CNN.com.

Here’s his take on John Kerry’s recent decision NOT to run for president. The ecstatic donkeys pretty much exemplify the feelings among Democrats, who are thankful for Kerry’s decades of good service but grateful, at the same time, that they’ll have a new candidate in the 2008 election.

Look at the crowd go wild!

Source: Click here. Bill Mitchell archive: Click here.

Remember when a presidential race was a one-year event?

John F. Kennedy announced his candidacy on January 2, 1960, and was elected that November. Earlier this month, would-be candidates still mulling a run in 2008 were being accused of reckless delay.

According to the New York Times, presidential campaign pundits were saying that if Hillary Rodham Clinton waited another minute to announce her run, rival Barack Obama would officially lock up every influential committee member and deep-pocketed donor.

This is an election on speed.

Part of this is due to the peculiarities of the race. President Bush is so unpopular that a power vacuum is opening, and both parties’ nominations are wide open for the first time in ages. The Internet is also fueling the insanity, as we saw signs of in 2004.

The biggest factors, though, are money and an ever-compressed schedule. The California primary may be moved to early February, and Illinois, Florida and New Jersey may attempt the same. Candidates are in a rush to lock up big donors, bypassing the public finance system in the process.

Clinton has already made clear that she is opting out for both the primary and the general election. Even John McCain, a major supporter of campaign finance reform no longer sponsoring a major reform bill that once bore his name, seems likely to do the same.

But the problem with the 23-month campaign is not just the fatigue it will inspire, but the effect on democracy. Bundlers — the fundraisers who package individual contributions into big ones — have even more power.

There is no way to stop candidates from hurling their hats into the ring so early. But there are things that can, and should, be done:

• The national parties should step in and halt every state’s mad dash to have first-in-the-nation primaries, and adopt the schedule that some have been proposing for years - regional primaries that rotate, so all voters eventually have a turn to be among the first.
• Congress should fix the broken public financing system, which has not been significantly updated since it was adopted in 1974. Experts now say a run for the presidency requires a $100 million entry fee. Public funding caps limit candidates to less than half that. Spending limits need to be raised.
• More cash and flexibility need to be available to help those who accept public funds compete with candidates who opt out.

If Hillary vs. Obama vs. Rudy Giuliani vs. McCain is already starting to feel old, hey, at least there are more than 600 days to go.

It will never be like the old days when the presidential campaign unfolded by the handshake in New Hampshire and Iowa. But Congress and the parties can set a more reasonable, 21st-century pace.

You’d certainly think so. At least based on some of the media coverage he gets.

Don’t get us wrong, he’s a cool guy, and an accomplished one at that. He’s a best-selling author, a former editor of the Harvard Law Review and cover boy of every periodical in America. Oh, and the junior U.S. senator from Illinois, and presidential candidate.

But His press coverage of late suggests it may not stop there. You heard it here, folks. Barack Obama may actually be the second coming. The Messiah. The King of Kings.

That said, Slate.com has instituted the Obama Messiah Watch, periodically highlighting gratuitously adoring biographical details about the candidate in newspaper, TV, and magazine coverage.

Yesterday, a Los Angeles Times profile by Larry Gordon about “Barry” Obama’s two years at Occidental College (he transferred to Columbia), included the following anecdote:

In [political science professor Roger] Boesche’s European politics class, [classmate Ken] Sulzer said he was impressed at how few notes [italics mine] Obama took.

“Where I had five pages, Barry had probably a paragraph of the pithiest, tightest prose you’d ever see. It was very short, very sweet. Obviously somebody almost Clintonesque in being able to sum a whole lot of concepts and place them into a succinct written style.”

Of course he did. Readers are hereby invited to submit similar details about Obama walking on water, turning water into wine and so on and so forth.

California is reportedly talking about moving its primary to its earliest-ever date next year, and that raises three questions”

• Are state legislators going to just talk about it or actually pass a bill moving the primary from June 3 to February 5? So far nothing has happened.
• Because of California’s immense size, would crowding-in near the front of the primary line be disastrous for the national nominating process?
• Which candidates would benefit?

As for whether legislative leaders and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are serious, they say they are but aren’t treating it as an urgent matter.

You’d think they would - and quick. Force the candidates to spend some money out there and get talking about big California issues: Illegal immigration, global warming, getting shortchanged by the feds, etc.

Some important legislators say the bill is greased up and ready, while others sound like they’ve got only one foot on board or are waiting for others to decide.

There’s good reason to be skeptical. California has previously held March primaries in an attempt to influence presidential politics, but still wound up on the bench as the nominations were all but being decided in February by smaller states.

Critics also worry that too many big states will “front-load” the primary calendar and make it impossible for poor, underdog candidates to compete. Florida, Illinois and New Jersey also are talking about moving up to Feb. 5.

Nevertheless, the key to passage of the primary bill in the Golden State, experts say, is the California State Legislature negotiating term-limit flexibility and redistricting reform - a combination of initiatives that would go on the same ballot.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez is pushing that and it’s why he’s advocating an early primary. A term-limit measure, if approved by voters early next year, would allow him to remain as speaker after 2008.

Many other lawmakers also could keep their seats for a while, rather than running for the other house. It’s to soon to know, but Hillary Clinton, John McCain and the other White House aspirants might want to get their calendars and scribble “California primary” on February 5, 2008.

The Iowa caucuses that kick off the presidential campaign are nearly a year - and $100 million - away.

No one’s doubting that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), has the capacity to raise at least that much, and according to the San Jose Mercury-News, other contenders believe they do as well.

To wage a serious presidential campaign in 2008, the ante is $50 million by December 31, 2007, said an adviser to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

And that’s just a cover charge.

To reach that daunting sum, a candidate must bring in an average of nearly $2 million a week, or $274,000 a day, all raised in increments limited to no more than $2,100 per person.

Start late or fall behind and the burden increases.

Clinton and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson joined in the competition for campaign money this month, announcing the formation of their presidential exploratory committees less than a week after Obama entered the race.

In this election, candidates court well-heeled, well-connected supporters who can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy friends and business contacts.

They will commute back and forth among New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Palm Beach, Fla., and other money centers for mammoth events that in some cases may raise $1 million or more in an evening.

They will hone sophisticated marketing campaigns that use Internet sites, videos and e-mail to galvanize large followings of dedicated supporters whose modest individual contributions can add up to staggering sums.

Federal Election Commission member Michael Toner predicts an unprecedented fundraising sprint during the first six months of this year, with up to $50 or $60 million raised by the end of June and $100 million by the end of the year for the serious contenders.

Presidential election campaigns regularly set records for their cost, but this time, there is an extraordinary confluence of factors that will drive the costs of early primaries especially high:

• The highly front-loaded schedule. In the Democratic Party, contests are tentatively scheduled in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina within a 15-day span in January.
• Defections from public financing. Previously, there were strict limits on spending for primaries in exchange for federal matching funds. Now, the contenders almost universally will eschew it.
• No incumbents. The field of candidates is unusually crowded, with no sitting president or vice president running for the first time since 1952, creating a wide open field. A big war chest shows strength and helps generate attention from media and voters.

George W. Bush opted out of public financing system during the primaries in 2000. John Kerry and Howard Dean both declined public financing for the 2004 primaries and went on to lead the Democratic field.

Continue reading this article …

Scrambling to head off a potentially embarrassing congressional rebuke for President Bush’s troop buildup, the Los Angeles Times reports that Senate Republicans are working on alternative legislation that would attach specific “benchmarks” to the White House plan for Iraq.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the leading congressional advocate of deploying additional troops to quell the sectarian violence in Iraq, and the party’s leading presidential candidate despite being a supporter of Bush’s Iraq war policy since day one, said Thursday that he was interested in a resolution to ensure that effectiveness of the troop increase could be gauged.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), one of the president’s most loyal supporters on Capitol Hill, said he might introduce a similar resolution.

“It says we need to give it a chance,” Cornyn said, echoing the president’s State of the Union plea to lawmakers Tuesday to give his plan a chance to work. “We owe it to our servicemen and servicewomen to say what we’re for, not just what we’re against.”

The maneuvering comes after a rough two weeks for GOP lawmakers, who have been struggling to respond to Bush’s deeply unpopular proposal to increase the number of troops in Iraq by 21,500 in the coming months.

If McCain and Cornyn introduce resolutions, they could draw support away from other resolutions that directly oppose the buildup, and could cast Democratic opposition as needless impediments to progress in Iraq.

Six Republican senators have already expressed support for one of two resolutions that explicitly criticize the Bush plan, bringing Senate Democrats close to the GOP support needed to override any filibuster.

1. The more critical of the two — sponsored by Sens. Joe Biden (D-Del.), Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) — was approved Wednesday by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and sent to the Senate floor.
2. The second non-binding resolution — put together by Sens. John Warner (R-Va.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) — has the support of seven other senators, including two Republicans.

The White House has been working hard to derail both of the resolutions, which — although non-binding — would mark the first time Congress has challenged Bush’s leadership of the 4-year-old war.

Continue reading this article …

Courting the Republican rank and file in an important state, Rudy Giuliani sought to make the case that his vision for the future and performance in the past makes him a strong candidate for the GOP presidential nomination.

“The government’s got to work in order for the American people to have confidence in it,” the former New York City mayor said. “And I believe there is something I can do about that.”

“Leadership is about vision and performance.”

According to the Boston Globe, Giuliani told state GOP activists that they must hold each candidate to that standard when deciding where to throw their support.

“Who has the vision and who can perform? Because you need both. You can ultimately judge whatever I promise you and whatever vision that I have by the things that I’ve done,” Giuliani said.

In his first visit to the state since he formed a presidential exploratory committee late last year, Giuliani sounded and acted very much like a full-fledged White House candidate in 2008 even as he insists he has not made a final decision.

“Every day you get closer, but we don’t have a timetable yet,” he told reporters, adding that he has received a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and a lot of people signaling support. But he still has to decide if he will make “a unique contribution” to help strengthen the country.

In line with his campaign strategy, Giuliani emphasized his tenure as mayor of what was once a crime-ridden city in financial disrepair and his steady hand in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, when terrorists struck.

He hopes to convince voters that his record of leadership in difficult times trumps any political vulnerability that mays stem from moderate stances on social issues such as gun control, abortion and gay rights.

Those are potential liabilities in a GOP primary in which hard-line conservatives are a central voting group, as the stolen / leaked campaign memo from authored by his staff correctly surmised.

Many Democrats surely fear the thought of Hillary Clinton campaigning against a social moderate with Giuliani’s track record for leadership - but for Republicans, his background and positions are also a tough sell at times.

Continue reading this article …

Scrambling to compete with powerful rivals John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has assembled a team of Capitol Hill insiders - including former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), a key player on Capitol Hill - to lead his team of strategists.

According to the Boston Herald, Romney is stacking a presidential team with members of Congress and the Senate, strategically choosing his squad based on their influence, fund-raising ability, Capitol Hill clout and stance on social issues, taxes and the war in Iraq.

“What he’s trying to do is establish his conservative credentials,” said Bridgewater State College political professor Dr. George Serra. “It remains to be seen whether Republican primary voters will accept them.”

Rounding out Romney’s power circle are Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee who will serve as Romney’s top intelligence adviser, and Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.), the GOP’s ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Others who have already joined Romney’s team include Reps. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Joseph Knollenberg (R-Mich.) - which gives him tandem a leading social conservative in Blackburn and a top fiscal conservative in Feeney.

All will take an active role in appealing to conservatives via both fund raising and advising, focusing on their their areas of expertise, said Romney spokesman Kevin Madden.

“It’s part of a very detailed approach to outreach. We’ve had a lot of people come on board. It’s brought a lot of momentum to our campaign and momentum breeds momentum,” Madden said.

Romney will need the momentum, as the New Hampshire primary is less than a year away, on January 22, 2008. The former Mass. governor, who travels to New Hampshire next week, is trailing McCain, the popular Arizona senator and war hero, and Giuliani, the former New York City mayor whose 9/11 heroics made him a national figure, in the latest Zogby poll.

In the Granite State, John McCain leads at 26 percent, followed by Rudy Giuliani with 20 and Romney with 13. With 360 days until the primary, it’s full steam ahead for the Romney express, no doubt about it. But does he have even a slight chance in a three-way race against probably the two most famous, respected Republicans out there?