Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Too Much Dick
Reason ^ | Jan 20, 2004 | Tim Cavanaugh

Posted on 01/20/2004 9:46:12 PM PST by neverdem

Even a bad primary weeds out the losers

It took the voters of Iowa to make me realize what a heroic figure Richard Gephardt truly is. Until last night I had considered the beetle-browed congressman from the Show Me State a distillation of the many vices career politicians are heir to. It was only after his crushing, humiliating defeat in what supporters and commentators with expansive definitions of the Midwestern mindset had described as his home country that Gephardt began to receive the praise he apparently deserves. Erstwhile rivals and televised talking heads joined in singing his fundamental decency, his commitment to principle, his dedication to a strong national defense, his iron constitution, and his exquisite series of duets with Peabo Bryson in the 1980s. Hearing all the encomia, you might have wondered why Gephardt did so poorly in the vote.

Performing such obsequies is, of course, part of the normal coping process after you've seen a political hack eviscerated in front of your eyes. The real Gephardt was well past his shelf life, and his bold ideas for America could only please those who regard with less than unmingled horror such skylarks as a nationwide gravy train for public school teachers, federal policing of "hate crimes," an international minimum wage enforced by UN Blue Helmets, and tariffs on everything from your radio to your underpants. It's hard, if not impossible, to think of a single time in his career that Gephardt stood up boldly for principle, or for anything. He's uninspiring in person, uncharismatic in the field, scrupulously dull in speech. Even the unprepossessing Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD), who had the discretion to sit this presidential race out, looked more courageous back in 2001, when the Senate (but not the House) braved anthrax in order to stay in session and pass hastily assembled, largely unread legislation with far-reaching consequences. In the end, Gephardt didn't even suffer the most memorable defeat in Iowa: That honor is reserved for former Vermont governor Howard Dean, whose febrile concession speech is already being edited and clipped by opponents and radio wags into a campaign version of the Hitler jig.

I come not to bury Gephardt (tempting as that is) but to praise the Iowa voters, and to admit that there may be some value yet in an arcane primary system that lets secondary states set the course for the nation. Any system that performs early triage on a Gephardt can't be all bad. The Iowa Caucus is a famously unreliable indicator of future success—Gephardt himself took the Hawkeye State in 1988, before going on to lose to the presidential candidate now known as "Kakdukis." It's frequently objected that the baroque caucus/primary patchwork points up the crabbed idiosyncrasies of the political system, rather than smoothing them over. This is in fact the best feature of the primary system. By courting chaos, the primaries provide little guidance about who the strong candidates or potential winners will be. But they're ruthlessly efficient when it comes to weeding out the jokers.

Thus, yesterday's results may not bode so well for the Democrats. Spokespeople for all the campaigns gushed about the day's high turnout and bustling activity among the Democratic faithful, but this tells only half the story. Democratic loyalists hate President George W. Bush like poison, and can be expected to turn out on that basis alone. On the surface, a more or less guaranteed turnout is good news, because it allows the party to eschew a compelling but divisive firebrand like Dean in favor of more acceptable mainstream picks like retired General Wesley Clark or Senator John Kerry (D-MA). Less hopeful is what the defeat says about the Democratic alternatives. Gephardt's (and Dean's) main distinguishing characteristic was a promise to repeal President Bush's tax cuts. Even in Iowa, a recipient in good standing of federal welfare, the idea of getting rid of the only improvement most Americans have seen in their lives over the past three years has been rejected; we search in vain for recent historical examples of candidates who won promising higher taxes for everybody.

The problem is where we go from there. On the other major issue of the day—the war in Iraq—Dean alone has the credibility of a consistent stand, and it's not at all clear that that stand will prove popular in November. The rest of the candidates (and with the end of Gephardt, we are now back to the magic number of Seven Dwarfs) rise in electability the more they resemble George W. Bush. But nobody (with the possible exception of underutilized actor Timothy Bottoms) resembles Bush more than Bush himself, so why not just vote for him?

In the weeks and months to come, the dwindling fellowship of Democratic hopefuls will go on to other states (or, as Howard Dean would bellow, to "South Carolina! And Oklahoma! And Arizona! And North Dakota! And New Mexico!"), where their other grand differences with the President will be whittled down to a nub. By the time of the Democratic convention, the resulting candidate will most likely look so much like Bush that we may be tempted just to suspend the election (a prospect the Bush White House has no doubt been considering for some time anyway).

As for Gephardt, it's not clear he had the support of even his own campaign workers. If he stood out for anything, it was for his ability to combine the worst aspects of both parties: an endlessly-expanding welfare state, a homeland security database bloated with ever more intrusive information on the citizenry, a perpetual state of war, and expanded handouts for idle farmers, union leaders, teachers, and other assorted layabouts. Good riddance.

Tim Cavanaugh is Reason's Web editor.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: District of Columbia; US: Iowa
KEYWORDS: 2004; electionpresident; georgebush; gephardt; howarddean; iowa; iowacaucuses; reason; richardgephardt
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-27 next last
What a title!
1 posted on 01/20/2004 9:46:12 PM PST by neverdem
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: neverdem
Don't worry, they'll boo the BSA at their convention this time too.
2 posted on 01/20/2004 9:54:39 PM PST by Waco
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Waco
Don't worry, they'll boo the BSA at their convention this time too.

Who will boo the Boy Scouts of America?

3 posted on 01/20/2004 9:59:40 PM PST by neverdem (Xin loi min oi)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
I saw too much Dick on tv last night but I thought his name was Howard.
4 posted on 01/20/2004 10:03:39 PM PST by cyborg (Howard Dean makes me look normal during PMS)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
The demos. The BSA was booed at their convention in 2000.
5 posted on 01/20/2004 10:04:08 PM PST by Waco
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: cyborg
Dick? Or Duck? As in Howard the Duck II, another big budget failure....?
6 posted on 01/20/2004 10:06:29 PM PST by Dan from Michigan ("And it's worth the sweat, and it's worth the pain, cause the chance may never come again" -)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: cyborg
ok no Ron Jeremy pictures please,,,,,,,,,,
7 posted on 01/20/2004 10:08:18 PM PST by Lib-Lickers 2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Lib-Lickers 2
hehehehe
8 posted on 01/20/2004 10:09:20 PM PST by cyborg (Howard Dean makes me look normal during PMS)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
Saw a bumper sticker the other day that said:

No Dick

No Bush

I wish those democrats would act on such advice: No sex between the dems means no more dems would be born.

9 posted on 01/20/2004 10:19:21 PM PST by Vision Thing
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: cyborg
I saw too much Dick on tv last night but I thought his name was Howard.

Indeed, what a specimen! Can you imagine what kind of bedside manner he had when he worked as a doc? Maybe that's why he got into politics. Maybe he couldn't build up a practice because the patients didn't return. IIRC, he was an internist, and his wife is a pediatrician.

10 posted on 01/20/2004 10:29:35 PM PST by neverdem (Xin loi min oi)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
Ironic that Mr. Gephardt as much as called President Bush a loser just a few days ago. Well, who is the loser now Mr. Gephardt? Daschel....you're next. And fat Teddy just sitting there shaking his head no.
11 posted on 01/20/2004 10:30:53 PM PST by fish hawk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
They're all a bunch of left behinds.
12 posted on 01/20/2004 10:32:55 PM PST by spunkets
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
Just glad he was never a gyno...
13 posted on 01/20/2004 10:35:00 PM PST by cyborg (Howard Dean makes me look normal during PMS)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Vision Thing
No sex between the dems means no more dems would be born.

Of the over 1.3 million abortions each year how many do you think were performed on conservative women?

14 posted on 01/20/2004 10:41:43 PM PST by TigersEye (Regime change in the courts. Impeach liberal judges!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: cyborg
LOL! Love your tagline, too!

Anybody else surprised that Dean came in third, like I was?
15 posted on 01/20/2004 10:51:02 PM PST by Theresawithanh (Four More Years!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Theresawithanh
I thought he was a shoe in
16 posted on 01/20/2004 10:51:54 PM PST by cyborg (Howard Dean makes me look normal during PMS)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Theresawithanh
When I see the title of this thread right over "Paltrow: I'll Never Leave Britain" it causes me to wonder.
17 posted on 01/20/2004 10:52:08 PM PST by CWOJackson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: neverdem


18 posted on 01/20/2004 10:56:45 PM PST by Ichneumon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Vision Thing
I wish those democrats would act on such advice: No sex between the dems means no more dems would be born.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. I came from a long line of rats. I never went through a liberal phase. I had an almost anarchist phase, and I still have strong libertarian sympathies. But I never could understand liberal notions about government in the current sense with their socialist and communist implications.

Look at the Bent One's spouse. She started as a Goldwater Republican. Look at the kids of so many hippies, who are now being noted in a number of polls as having a rightward tilt. Heredity has some weight, but people naturally incline to their self-interest. Why do the rats have so much trouble with white males? Who gets screwed by rat policies?

19 posted on 01/20/2004 11:23:54 PM PST by neverdem (Xin loi min oi)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: cyborg
Just glad he was never a gyno...

Pardon me for asking, but are you a female?

20 posted on 01/20/2004 11:35:57 PM PST by neverdem (Xin loi min oi)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-27 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson