Montpelier, Vermont--Comrades at the "Dean for America" headquarters load up the latest campaign literature for delivery.
Posted on 12/13/2003 10:25:19 AM PST by dixie sass
Question: when is a presidential candidate, heartily endorsed by both ends of the political spectrum, not a presumptive landslide winner? When his name is Howard Dean.
Endorsements from the political right are ironic, of course. When National Review puts Dean on the cover under the words "PLEASE NOMINATE THIS MAN!" and White House political director Karl Rove joins a Fourth of July Parade in Northwest Washington shouting "We Want Howard Dean!" they really want someone George W. Bush can beat without breaking a sweat, and for that Dean is the man of the hour.
The left has their own reasons for Dean enthusiasm, and it looks like both sides might get their wish. Joshua Michael Marshall, author of talkingpointsmemo.com, wrote: "I had lunch today with someone who is not a politician but a fairly prominent Washington Democrat-certainly not someone from the party's liberal wing. And in the course of answering a question, I said 'If it [i.e., the nominee] ends up being Dean... 'At which point, with the rest of my sentence still on deck down in my throat, my friend shot back: 'It's Dean.' It was effortless. He wasn't happy or sad about it. He wasn't trying to convince me-more like letting me in on something I wasn't aware of yet."
Marshall is known for insider sources, but Dean has publicly known advantages as well.
Start with money. By September 30, Dean had raised $25.4 million, which puts him way out in front of a pack of nine candidates who have raised $93 million combined; Bush has raised $106 million. Dean has opted out of public financing and its limits, a decision only John F. Kerry has matched. Kerry has yet to tap the $600 million ketchup fortune he married into, and is 30 points behind Dean in New Hampshire in a recent poll.
In Iowa, the only other state primary that really matters, Dean trails Richard Gephardt by about seven points, but his celebrated endorsements from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Service Employees Union were supposed to go to Gephardt, who has long been a friend of organized labor. Perhaps labor has finally grown weary of asking why Gephardt could not win back the House of Representatives in nine years of being minority leader.
The six other Democrat presidential candidates, some with legitimate claims to the nomination, had planned a February 3 firewall, when seven states cast their primary votes, to stop Dean's momentum. But if they have not packed up their campaign offices yet, it is only because their egos keep them from facing reality.
The reality of Al Gore's endorsement.
Gore, we all remember, was last seen in a hot tub on Saturday Night Live, so the fact that his endorsement carries any gravitas is one more sign of how desperate the Democrats are for leadership. But that desperation may soon be on its way out.
Rank and file Democrats who vote in primaries, and believe Bush stole the Florida election, see Gore as the victim of the ultimate political dirty trick. His supposedly graceful exit left him with a halo that was meant to keep the 2004 nomination warm for his return.
His decision not to run left a party in chaos as candidates like Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich created so much noise that the circus, rather than the party message, became the dominant story.
Gore, who Dean introduced as "the elected President of the United States," cut through that noise, gave wounded Democrats permission to channel their anger through Dean, and, as a consequence, gave the party a leader.
Never mind that the new leader was once so unknown that he was often mistaken for the other Dean who shills sausage.
Dean's almost meteoritic rise to power had at least one leading conservative pundit, Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol, and several unnamed Bush campaign operatives, speculating that Dean was underestimated and he may actually have a chance of beating Bush in 2004.
There's always a chance.
If Team Bush decided to completely ignore Team Dean, by spending the entire campaign season quietly slashing brush in Crawford, Texas, for example, the Democrats could conceivably pull an upset.
But that's unlikely.
Bush proved in 2002 that he knows how to campaign effectively and move voters to the polls; in 2004, when he will not be campaigning by proxy, the effect will be much more dramatic.
Dean still has a long way to go toward universal public recognition. Regular readers of this column know that I use my wife as an unscientific gage for how normal Americans are responding to political events. On the night of Gore's endorsement, she asked if Gore was running for president again because she had seen him on television giving some speech where everyone was cheering. She has no idea who Dean is, and it is safe to say, in a country where the 2004 campaign has not yet begun for normal Americans, she is hardly alone.
That ambiguity could be Dean's greatest strength; the more people get to know him, the less they might like him.
Dean has said that the United States should be "evenhanded" on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but Americans side with Israel by a margin of 52 percent to 10 percent, with only 15 percent undecided. Israel's military response to terrorism is justified in the minds of 65 percent of Americans, even though 70 percent concede it will probably lead to more suicide attacks. American Jewish support for Bush has been as high as 80 percent. Dean's evenhanded policy will be a loser.
Not that the rest of his foreign policy platform is much better. He has said that Bush knew about September 11 prior to it happening, a statement he has refused to recant, and that Osama bin Laden might be tried by international courts, where the death penalty will not be an option.
Although he has vaulted to the front of the Democratic pack by not having to explain away previous support for the war in Iraq, Dean can not seem to come up with a rational reason for staying there even as he offers a seven point plan. Columnist Michael Kinsley, no friend of the Bush Administration, recently asked, "If it wasn't worth American lives to improve the situation then [when Hussein was in power] why is it worth more lives now?" Even Kinsley concedes, "the only presidential candidate with a truly coherent position on President Bush's Iraq policy is President Bush." Incoherence on major international issues is not a qualification to be commander in chief.
While governor of Vermont, Dean made civil unions a reality, and has said he would do the same nationally, although he stops short of endorsing gay marriage. However, 53 percent of Americans oppose civil unions, which makes it a successful campaign issue for Bush.
On the economy, Dean has said he wants to re-regulate major industries and roll back Bush's tax cuts. But 67 percent of Americans say they want to keep their tax cuts, and with the Dow topping 10,000, economic growth on the rise, and employment numbers headed in the right direction, Dean will have very little to talk about that will win voters.
A few months ago, he might have found a solid issue in health care based on both his expertise as a physician and his record as governor. But Bush took that issue as well when he signed Medicare reform two weeks ago.
Then there is the matter of religion. Bush is an unashamed, unfiltered, Evangelical Christian, a fact that solidifies his support among like-minded Christians, a major voting block, and nominal Christians who are the vast majority of the country.
Dean, on the other hand, was christened a Catholic and raised an Episcopalian, but left that church over a bike-path dispute, and converted to Congregationalism. Dean has said he hardly ever attends church, and does not think politicians should wear religion on their sleeves.
Americans disagree. In a recent Pew Research poll, 41 percent of Americans said, "there has been too little reference to religious faith and prayer by politicians," while only 21 percent say there has been too much. Bush constantly laces his speeches with scripture references and other religious themes, but only 14 percent of Americans say he mentions his faith too often.
It looks like the new leader of the Democrat Party is on the losing side of most issues. American public opinion is hardly cast in stone, but the odds of it turning in Dean's favor are long.
Not that the odds will keep Dean from trying. Like our current president, he is comfortable in his own skin. When his aids told him to stop wearing "Save the Children" ties because they looked bad on television, he refused. It's a small matter, but Gore was willing to change his whole wardrobe when he was told it meant political advantage.
In the end, the Dean v. Bush match may be a classic fight between two men whose beliefs are just that, not poll tested sound bites. We might have a spirited exchange of ideas that ignores the wishy washy swing voter, and forces each candidate to turn out as much of his base as possible. We could have a real debate about real issues, where our two party system becomes more than a one party masquerade.
If Dean can bring that about, the country will owe him a great deal, even as it ultimately denies him the Oval Office.
So, I find my self wondering if the Democrats are complaining about Dean because he's perhaps not sufficiently corrupt, and the Republicans complaining because perhaps he's the most electable(??)
Clinton was not underestimated in '92. Perot's role in the election WAS.
Unfortunately, unless the base turns out, we will have Dean, and there go the taxcuts. :(
It's easy to do, surely Kerry, Gephardt and Edwards have underestimated Dean. I think GWB and his team is too smart to do that, however. It's like fishing, surely on an objective basis, the fisherman is always more intelligent than the fish, but a significant number of times, the fish gets away. Bush will play Dean like a bass, then reel him in when its all over.
I hadn't wanted Dean to wrap this up quite as quickly, but it does give Karl Rove and the re-election team a sharp focus on who to target next year. There's still time for fun and games from Sharpton, and I expect there to be at least one knock-down, drag-out debate fight before Iowa, enough to leave a nasty taste in most Rat mouths. Right now, I'm enjoying the editorials over at Slate that bemoan the fact that Dean pretty much has the Rat nomination in the palm of his hand. It's a lot of fun to see establishment Rats so very sad!
You got something. Dean's forte is he is not owned [yet?] by Washington insiders and money tanks. The Democrats only chance of winning is a flop in Iraq, Israel or the jobs don't come back. He has the best Democrat credentials on these issues.
I'm expecting a horse-trading auction at the convention, with the wicked witch's finger in all the pies.
Rumor has it that Perot and Clinton met in Texarkana way back in 1991 to find a way to unseat Bush 41.
Come next November which candidate will have an easier time moving to the right W or Dean?
I'm hoping you're just being paranoid, although after eight years of the Clintons (eleven, if you count her Senate term served so far), I don't blame anybody for feeling that way!
Sure, you're right, the numbers are not firmly there, but can you really see the 40% of the superdelegates aligning with an anti-Dean candidate that has only a scant 11-20% percent of the delegates in his pocket by Convention Week, while Howie comes to Boston with 40-50% of his own? Just getting an anti-Dean to pile up 11% of the delegates will be a great challenge. Victories in Iowa and New Hampshire will keep Howard the Coward's momentum going, and if he somehow wins in South Carolina, its really over.
By February 3rd, a scant 80 days from now, the Rat nomination might be considered a done deal.
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