From: Robert David Steele <bear@oss.net>
Subject: Posted comment to Greater Democracy
To: Michael Cudahy <strtfocus@earthlink.net>

Michael Cudahy represents the margin of victory, he does not just write about it. I also am a former Republican and continuing conservative and person of faith (I believe in a balanced budget, in making America strong through education and public health to plant seeds for the future, and in a strong *smart* national defense that is actually appropriate to the global threat, and in moral capitalism).

Dean is the best of the lot but he has a ninth draft staff and too small a staff a that. I am very concerned that Dean's staff has too many interns and not enough adults. I am very concerned that Dean's staff is too closely tied to those who served Clinton, and too eager to see in them the voice of experience. Clinton was a passive President on foreign policy and national security, the opposite extreme of Cheney-Bush, who are neo-Nazi aggressives that are doing very bad things in our name. Dean has to take the middle
course.

On domestic policy Dean has to come out strong on the specific harm the rising deficit is going to cause every single generation for the next seven generations, and he has to focus on the basics, as Matt Miller does in 2% solution: universal education and universal public health are what *enable* productivity that will in turn provide for our retirees!!!!

My bottom line: I think the Dean team desperately needs three things: a) a senior ombsbudsman to whom the Republicans and conservatives and cultural creatives (55 million strong) can turn to to get in front of Dean; 2) an immediate pumping of up an outreach staff with no fewer than 20 full-time people led by a full-time wizard with total access to the great authors and associational leaders across America; and 3) a 24/7 "watch team" organized by White House staff function, perhaps staffed by retired Marine officers and Staff Non-Commissioned Officers, and led by a Colonel that knows how to manage an administrative and operational staff.

Dark horse time is over. Dean is facing the ultimate challenge in the next 90 days, and I fear that if people like Michael Cudahy, Paul Ray (cultural creatives), Matt Miller (2% Solution) and I are not fully integrated--with all of you--into the campaign, then it is lost.