Mark Halperin, ABC News's political director and the genius behind The Note, has some interesting things to say in the Post today about how and why the networks cover formal declaration announcements from candidates who've effectively been running for months.

Here's the Halperin pars from Mark Leibovich's story :

" The implicit pact we have with the campaigns is, if you say this is [your] announcement, we will cover it," says Mark Halperin, ABC News political director. This pact is akin to the willingness of the networks to broadcast the prime-time speeches at political conventions even though the identities of the nominee and (most likely) the running mates have been revealed beforehand, and it's unlikely that any real "news" will take place.

Halperin, who plans to be in Burlington today, says announcement events can foretell the essential themes and fortunes of a campaign. "If you look at the announcement speeches for Bush and Clinton," he says, "they contained the same elements in language, topics and attitude that propelled them to the White House." As such, Halperin says political insiders will focus intently on Dean's speech today, "even if he gets up there and performs a ritual sacrifice of a Ben and Jerry's cow."

As Leibovich says: "Every candidate gets his or her special day, like every 8-year-old gets a birthday party."

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