Sources: Vilsack Dropped Out Because Of Inability To Raise Money
The Des Moines Register is reporting that Tom Vilsack is dropping out of the Presidential race because of money:
However, sources said the deciding factor was that Vilsack's challenge to raise the estimated $20 million to compete through the early nominating contests, including the Iowa caucuses, was becoming too difficult.He reported raising $1 million from Nov. 9 to Jan. 31. However, his rivals were expected to have raised far more in the early part of 2007.
We have to think that the Vilsack camp also realized that there was simply no breaking the stranglehold that Hillary, Obama and Edwards have on the national media -- which of course was one of the causes of the fundraising travails in the first place.
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Well, that was quick. Vilsack should have run in 2004. He's a good guy but he decided to run at the wrong time. I agree that the Clinton, Obama, Edwards juggernaut is too powerful. The donors are flocking to these three.
I expect Biden and Dodd to follow suit.
February 23, 2007 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh well. He was sensible, articulate and entertaining on the Daily Show.
February 23, 2007 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
He killed himself the other day calling for Social Security reform. He's the former head of the DLC and that was a typical Republican lite position. Any Dem who wants to win ought to stay as far away from any Republican supported postiion as possible.
That's not a kneejerk reaction either. It's based on two facts
1. Their ideas are ALL bad for America.
2. By November 2008 most voters are going to want
to try and convict (or maybe even lynch)
Republicans instead of compromise with them. Let
alone elect them.
February 23, 2007 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a suprise.
Who's next? Biden or Dodd?
February 23, 2007 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's hold off the hand-wringing on how the money stakes drives out worthy unknowns, etc, etc. (Especially by people whose knowledge of Vilsack seems to be limited to the fact that he seemed like a decent guy on the Daily Show -- I am thinking more of the commentators on the Times website than TPM posters, fwiw.) Vilsack major selling point was that he was well-known in Iowa ... and even in Iowa he's been showing lack-luster poll numbers. He didn't get the money because those who know him the best (Iowa democrats) were uninspired. Money, here, is a symptom of a larger problem with Vilsack's candidacy -- not an independent cause of that candidacy's failure. This hardly strikes me as a great failure of the electoral process.
February 23, 2007 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Coming off the high of the 2006 election, the presidential race is sooo disappointing. I'm still hoping for better candidates to get in the race.
February 23, 2007 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
For example?
It's not a rhetorical question. Personally, the only person I'd like to see in there who isn't, is the guy who's not ALLOWED to run...because he's already been elected twice!
February 23, 2007 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good question. I dunno. Gen. Odom? He would definitely get us out of Iraq. I could put full confidence in Gen. Odom getting us the hell out of Iraq and not keeping huge numbers of troups "deployed" around Iraq for the next 50 years.
I wouldn't be for Clinton again; I think his keeping sanctions on Iraq and bombing that country for 8 years and the Regime Change resolution were part of the picture of how this disaster happened. "Where there is no vision," etc. What was Clinton's vision of where we were heading with his Iraq policy? It didn't just spring up like Topsy that Bush & Co. were "obsessed" with Iraq and nobody knows how that came to be even though they went along with invading Iraq for reasons that made no sense.
February 23, 2007 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
The presence in the Dem field of a retired career military man with no political experience would excite your interest? Gosh, how about George Clooney? I bet he'd end the war, too.
The problem with your theory is that anybody who will end the war in Iraq will require not just the power to order the troops home, but the political skills to prevent the action from being a domestic and international political disaster.
While I agree that maintaining the sanctions in Iraq may not have been Clinton's happiest course of action, it's obvious now that there were far worse ones, and better ones were far more complicated and entailed much more risk to the stability of the region--not to mention more money and more domestic opposition. And he was expending his nation-building chits on Bosnia and Kosovo. Remember, please, that not one American serviceman was killed in combat ordered by Clinton... and you blame him for this?!!
And to suggest the sanctions had anything to do with the neocon bloodlust is ridiculous. That's analogous to blaming Roman Polanski for the murder of Sharon Tate, because he rented a house previously inhabited by an enemy of Charlie Manson.
The neocons had Iraq in their sites ever since Bush the Elder failed to unseat Saddam in 1991. They love war and would have fomented one somewhere else if Iraq were not such a convenient target. Their ideology is founded on permanent warfare and a permanently militarized population. I'm not making this up. PNAC position papers from 1997 on make their plans very clear. After Iraq came Iran, Syria, and, ultimately, everybody, until the Pax Americana made all world governments basically colonial administrations.
February 25, 2007 2:37 AM | Reply | Permalink