Winning a close race is more than a matter of feet and inches. Just ask Howard Dean, who, during a question-and-answer session at a Spokane, Wash., rally, endorsed pushing Americans to embrace the metric system.
More Top Picks Best Pillows For Back Pain Relief
“We are attached to feet and so forth,” Dean said. “I’m a doctor. I was trained and we do our calculations in meters. We don’t use feet and inches and cubic inches and things like that.”
Dean said he doubted Congress would present him a bill to mandate use of the metric system, given the American failure to adopt it during Jimmy Carter’s administration.
Still, he said, “We should have converted already. We should do it. I think there’s going to be a lot of resistance, but it would be nice to have somebody explain to the American people why it would be easier and better for our businesses.”
–Rick Pearson
YESTERDAY’S NEWS?
Part of a deft presidential campaign’s job is to avoid scheduling events that will draw unfortunate comparisons to the candidate’s perceived weaknesses.
Like the time in 1996 when Bob Dole’s staff had him go to the Nutfield Brewing Co. in Derry, N.H., makers of Old Man Ale–named for the Granite State’s since-collapsed Old Man of the Mountain, not the 72-year-old presidential candidate.
Dole, who was facing questions about whether he was too old to run the country, gamely sampled a glass of the ale. “I tried it,” he said. “It’s young and fresh.”
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, the one-time front-runner who now is struggling, can only hope that his campaign’s South Carolina volunteers didn’t prophesy the fate of his candidacy with their selection of a place to watch Tuesday night’s returns.
On Devine Street in Columbia, it’s called Yesterday’s.
–Flynn McRoberts
CLARK JR. LAUNCHES OFFENSIVE
The son of retired Gen. Wesley Clark took swipes Tuesday at the media coverage of the race, his father’s strategy and the process of how America chooses its presidents.
Wesley Clark Jr., a 34-year-old screenwriter, told reporters in Oklahoma City: “It’s been a really disillusioning experience. We sacrificed a hell of a lot for this country over 34 years. We lived in a damn trailer when I was a freshman in high school.”
Referring to politics, Clark said, “It’s a dirty business filled with a lot of people pretending to be a lot of things they are not.”
Clark said his father erred in not competing in the Iowa caucuses. “If you miss Iowa, you miss the momentum of the horse race,” he said.
The “horse race”–and especially the media’s coverage of it–also came in for criticism. Journalists, he said, ignore the issues in favor of such silly subjects as his father’s choice of sweaters and the campaign caravan getting speeding tickets.
He also said Howard Dean was the victim of “unfair coverage.”
“It’s a hell of a way to pick a president,” he said.
–The Washington Post