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Democrats are wasting time
Denver Post ^ | 12/15/03 | Walter Cronkite

Posted on 12/15/2003 8:07:51 AM PST by Valin

Wesley Clark had some pointed comments recently about his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination. As reported by The Associated Press, the former general said, "They're just carving each other up," and he added, "I've never seen anything more effective \[in destroying the Democrats' election hopes\] than when they go at each other about who did what 10 or 15 years ago." Indeed, they do slash and stab at one another, and this suicidal fratricide seems to intensify as the voting comes closer.

Most of the attacks are focused on front-runner Howard Dean. At a meeting in Detroit of African-American ministers, an audience where he might do the most damage, Richard Gephardt accused Dean, Joe Lieberman and John Kerry of making comments critical of affirmative action during the 1990s.

Gephardt and Kerry also savaged Dean for remarks made and actions taken 10 years ago, while he was governor of Vermont. In their recent Iowa debate, Kerry actually baited the former governor, asking repeatedly if Dean would try to slow the growth of Medicare, as he proposed some years ago. Such attacks question the target candidate's candor and trustworthiness.

Clark himself has not escaped unmarked in this alley fight.

He has been attacked by most of the other candidates for comments made praising Bush and Co. for the prosecution of the war in Iraq, and about when and why he became a Democrat.

When Dean (followed by Kerry) decided to abandon the campaign- finance system he had indicated he would live by, Gephardt pounced on him, calling Dean "Mr. Change-Your-Opinion-for-Expediency" and noting that Dean was hoping to outspend his rivals; accusing him, in other words, of trying to buy the nomination.

That charge of buying the election is likely to be made against President Bush by whomever the Democrats nominate. The Republicans expect to have almost a quarter of a billion dollars to spend on the Bush campaign. The party out of power, namely the Democrats, is unlikely to raise anything like that amount.

Beyond that huge financial advantage, the Republicans will enjoy watching the Democrats further disadvantage themselves as their candidates continue disparaging each other, thus writing the Republicans' playbook for them. You can almost hear Karl Rove, Bush's top political strategist, saying, "Thanks, guys." Bush has an effectively united party behind him. Republican energies - and money - will be focused on grass-roots organization that can get out the vote next November, while much of the Democrats' energy will have to be devoted to overcoming the political fratricide of the party's primary battles.

Instead of waiting until its platform committee meets next year, the Democrats could be using these primary months to define their basic philosophy. As it is, time and money are being wasted as the primary candidates emphasize a serious split in the party. There are those Democrats who believe the party's strength is its appeal to the farmer-labor vote. These, whom we might call the Old Democrats, include Gephardt and Dennis Kucinich.

Others believe the party's strength is the vast middle class to whom Bill Clinton so successfully appealed, or the New Democrats. They include Joe Lieberman, John Kerry and John Edwards.

So the issue is: Do the Democrats maintain the Clinton focus on middle-class voters or go back to the farmer-labor-oriented policies of FDR and Truman? Whatever path the party chooses, its hopes for next November are definitely diminished unless its primary candidates sheath those carving knives of which Clark warned.


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2004; 91dwarves; electionpresident
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1 posted on 12/15/2003 8:07:51 AM PST by Valin
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To: Valin
Winning is the only thing and at all costs is Clinton's real legacy to his party.
2 posted on 12/15/2003 8:11:01 AM PST by Semper Paratus
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To: Valin
Joe Lieberman will prevail over the "vile eight" when all is proved in Irac.
3 posted on 12/15/2003 8:11:10 AM PST by Uncle George
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To: Valin
-"Others believe the party's strength is the vast middle class to whom Bill Clinton so successfully appealed,"

You mean the middle class that he successfully 'lied-to', and then 'seduced' (eff'd) them...

4 posted on 12/15/2003 8:14:26 AM PST by LibFreeUSA
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To: Valin
Walter is upset, which of course, makes the rest of us happy.
5 posted on 12/15/2003 8:19:45 AM PST by international american
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To: Valin
Democrats believe in their bones that central planning of the message is the best way to reach the voters. In reality, the rough-and-tumble of the primary campaign is the very best way to identify the themes that resonate with the voters and determine who will be able to exploit them. The Democrats whine about fratricide, but it is the very best thing for their chances.

Of course, their chances are about as slim as can be, but that is not because of the primary process. Somehow Dubya, stupid as he is (said with a smile), seems to snooker them time and again through superior strategery.
6 posted on 12/15/2003 8:20:22 AM PST by gridlock (Friends don't let friends subscribe to AOL)
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To: LibFreeUSA
Walter Cronkite, democrat shill.
7 posted on 12/15/2003 8:21:24 AM PST by MamaLucci (Clinton met with a White House intern more than he did with his CIA director)
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To: Valin
Walter leaves out of the equation the mainstream media's support for the Democrats, which must be worth $100 million. The Republicans need twice as much money to level the playing field.
8 posted on 12/15/2003 8:24:36 AM PST by Verginius Rufus
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To: Valin
Do the Democrats maintain the Clinton focus on middle-class voters or go back to the farmer-labor-oriented policies of FDR and Truman?

Good advice Walter. Between the two "groups" you have about 15% of the the voting population, and the rats won't even get all of that.

9 posted on 12/15/2003 8:26:03 AM PST by Ditto ( No trees were killed in sending this message, but billions of electrons were inconvenienced.)
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To: Valin
The democrats can platform till the cows come home, but their only hope is that something terrible will happen that can easily be blamed on Bush.
10 posted on 12/15/2003 8:27:07 AM PST by js1138
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To: Valin
"Waste time", is what Dem's do best!
11 posted on 12/15/2003 8:28:35 AM PST by vladog
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To: international american
Confusion to the enemy!
12 posted on 12/15/2003 8:29:12 AM PST by Valin (We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.)
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To: Valin

13 posted on 12/15/2003 8:30:00 AM PST by metalboy (I`m still waiting for the mass protests against Al Qaida and Saddam)
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To: Uncle George
While I don't want him to win the election, and WON'T be supporting him, I do hope he wins the nomination(for the sake of the two party system). Some adults need to take back that party.
14 posted on 12/15/2003 8:35:02 AM PST by Valin (We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.)
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To: Valin
I don't understand why the biggest battles are fought over the smallest things.

The smallest thing, in this instance, is a Democrat's chance of being elected President
15 posted on 12/15/2003 8:47:16 AM PST by IncPen ( The Clintons are plotting even now to steal the '04 and '08 elections. Believe it.)
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To: Valin
The Democrats long ago abandoned the farm vote. Patrick Kennedy, when he headed up the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee in 2000, bluntly wrote off the rural vote by saying that the Democrats could win both the White House and Congress without them. When you look at the county by county map of the 2000 race, you can see that Gore carried almost nothing outside the metropolitan areas.

Long ago, what united farmers and labor was monetary policy. Both favored (and continue to favor) a weaker dollar. Clinton + Rubin put drove the dollar relentlessly higher, a zero-sum game that created a stock market bubble but devastated both manufacturing (see the steel industry and aluminum industries for examples of this collapse) and farm commodity producers.

Farmers now have little in common with a Democrat party that favors consumers over producers and exemplifies "city values" like gay marriage, partial-birth abortion, and gun control. The labor picture is more complex, because the labor leadership has largely abandoned looking out for their workers in favor of left-wing ideology. This is how we get the sickening picture of labor leaders promoting policies like the Kyoto protocols that would throw their own members (coal miners, for example) out of their jobs.

16 posted on 12/15/2003 8:53:01 AM PST by ImpeachandRemove (impeach and remove the shrillery:))
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To: Uncle George
Joe Lieberman will prevail over the "vile eight" when all is proved in Irac.

With all the trouble in the Middle East is this country stupid enough to elect a jew as president?

17 posted on 12/15/2003 8:54:02 AM PST by Snardius
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To: Snardius
Stupid enough yes. Just not this time.
18 posted on 12/15/2003 9:03:55 AM PST by playball0 (Fortune favors the bold)
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To: Valin
Good grief, primary campaigns are always about party fratricide. Cronkite knows this, of course, but wants his team to play nice and not give away the family secrets to the opposition.

Walter is one old coot that will make me smile when he ceases breathing.
19 posted on 12/15/2003 9:12:14 AM PST by Mr. Bird
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To: MamaLucci
"Walter Cronkite, democrat shill."

With every issue, Uncle Walter's weekly columns reveal how terribly shallow is the man's thinking.

The Man Who Molded American Opinion in the sixties and seventies stands revealed as a petty partisan intellectual milquetoast.

20 posted on 12/15/2003 9:25:30 AM PST by okie01 (www.ArmorforCongress.com...because Congress isn't for the morally halt and the mentally lame.)
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