How Long Until Everyone is Sick of Them?

Howard Fineman has an interesting piece on MSNBC: It's Early, But Democrats Are Active. One wonders if this hyper-early opening of the Democratic Primary season might not have an overall negative effect for the Democrats. Not only are they going to be seen as fighing one another for over half a year before the first vote is cast, they run the risk that the public will get tired of them well before the actual primaries start.

Fineman's observation of the importance of the net for the campaign is accurate, I think. However, I think he overestimates the likely impact of young voters.

And, interesting:

Winning campaigns usually, though not always, are led by candidates and managers who haven’t been around Washington and the upper echelons of electioneering. Recent examples include the Reaganites, who came out of California circles, and the Clinton campaign, which was led by a cadre of younger hands who hadn’t managed a presidential campaign before.

That’s not true this time. Each of the Big Five campaigns is being run by a member of the Washington Democratic management elite. That includes the “outsider” Dean, whose main man is Joe Trippi, a savvy veteran who began his career working on Walter Mondale’s campaign in 1984. At least Trippi has moved to Vermont, where Dean was governor for a decade. The rest of the Trippi family is about to follow him north. “I love it up here,” he says. He sounded like he meant it. But the rest of his consulting firm is still in Washington.

I think I will give Karl Rove the nod in this fight.