Can you identify the real Susan Estrich?
Posted on 01/08/2004 7:41:06 AM PST by billorites
Happy New Year, Howard Dean.
From now on, no more loose lips.
No more looking for Terry McAuliffe to save you. (Ron Brown wouldn't have, either.)
No more attacking Bill Clinton and then saying you didn't and then you did.
You have no one to blame but yourself for the harm that's been done you. So, no whining.
You're still the luckiest man in politics. Twenty years ago, you were moving a bike path.
Get someone who can tell you to shut up to sit next to you.
Get someone who knows foreign policy to vet every word out of your mouth.
Do not talk to the press except on special occasions.
Howard Dean has just finished a terrible two weeks, in which he has done almost everything a candidate for president shouldn't do. He has talked strategy with the press, on the subject of God no less, announcing plans to go south to talk about his personal views of religion, thus appearing craven on the worst of all subjects at the worst time of year. He has attacked Bill Clinton not on his vulnerability but on his strength, the economy, then claimed he didn't attack Clinton, then attacked the DLC, the Democratic Leadership Council, which reflects Clinton's centrist politics.
He did not need to do any of these things and gained nothing by doing so. So, too, for his discussion with himself on the presumed innocence of Saddam Hussein, which ensures him the ACLU vote (what a relief that must be for Karl Rove) and brings back terrifying memories for me of campaigns best forgotten.
Perhaps silliest of all was his assault on party chair Terry McAuliffe for not protecting him from the criticism of his rivals, as his predecessor the late Ron Brown supposedly would have down, coupled with the vague and certainly unsportsmanlike threat that Dean's supporters might not shift their allegiance to another candidate.
Hold on there, Howard. The line about Ron Brown brought tears to my eyes, but not for the reason you think. I got my start in presidential politics with Ron Brown. We traveled the country together, getting delegates psyched up for convention floor fights against Jimmy Carter, who had the nomination locked up. What trouble we made! We tore the party apart. Harold Ickes was the rules guy. I had something like 66 minority reports. It did hurt him, and in the years afterward, Ron and I spent endless hours keeping conventions from falling apart the way that one did. But call off the dogs in December? You've got to be kidding? Before it begins?
The other lesson we learned, painfully, was that whatever you face in the primaries is nothing compared to what the Bush team can do to you. I called Ron in the summer of 1988. He was running Jackson's campaign. I was running Dukakis'. He wanted party chair when it was over. No problem, I said. But take my job now, I said to him. You run Dukakis. You run the campaign. He declined. I asked him to sit next to Dukakis on the plane. He needed him. Ron couldn't do it. Or maybe he knew better, I don't know.
Howard Dean is right about one thing. He does need someone like Ron by his side So did Michael Dukakis. History might have been different.
What's miraculous about Dean and his campaign is not the latest round of missteps but that he has come this far with so few until now. Running for president isn't easy-- as Messrs. Clark, Kerry, Gephardt, Lieberman, et al. can attest -- and the fact that Dr. Dean, who has so little experience on the national scene, has fared so well and so flawlessly, until recently, is a tribute to him, to the brilliant Joe Trippi (a fellow troublemaker from those old days) and the Dean team.
But they are moving into a new league, where knowing what you don't know is the ultimate wisdom.
Can you identify the real Susan Estrich?
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So, why did she want to kill Mike Dukakis?
Aside from the obvious, of course...
LOL... like dean needs more ghosts around.
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