GEPHARDT REVIVAL
Howie Kurtz has some wry observations about the latest trend in campaign 2004 coverage:
Have the major media mind readers had a meeting about Dick Gephardt?
The last time I checked, the Missouri congressman had been relegated to also-ran status. He was old news, unexciting, and didn’t even have his own blog. If Howard Dean and Wesley Clark were hot, Gephardt was like lukewarm meat loaf — comforting, appealing to lunch-bucket types, but decidedly not nouvelle cuisine.
So how come a bunch of journalists are suddenly saying nice things about Dick?
Is it because Gephardt’s understated virtues are finally being recognized? Or because journalists are tired of the Dean-is-running-away-with-it story line and are hankering for a real contest?
Anyway, the Dick G mini-surge must be real, because several reporters have said so. And as we know, that’s enough to start a trend.
Indeed. This is rather inevitable when we have daily reportage on a campaign that’s barely on the public radar screen stretching out over nearly three years.
