http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1343717/posts
Posted on 02/15/2005 9:51:07 AM PST by NYer
Dean: Avoid Using Term “Pro-Choice” to Attract Potential Conservative Voters
WASHINGTON, February 14, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The new chairman of the US Democratic Party, Howard Dean, cautioned his party members to avoid using the term “pro-choice” when referring to themselves, in order not to alienate potential conservative voters.
Dean, making the comments Thursday at the Democratic National Committee meeting, said, “I don't think we should use ‘pro-choice’,” because it brands Democrats as too pro-abortion, according to a New York Post report. Republicans ridiculed Dean, saying Democrats wouldn’t fool anyone as long as they keep voting against bills like the partial-birth abortion ban and parental notification for a child’s abortion.
Dean also said he would be spending a “disproportionate” amount of time in Republican “red” states, trying to win support for the Democrats. “I'm going to spend a disproportionate part of my time in red states, because I think that's where we really need attention,” he said.
“That's great. We won't have to worry about firing up the Republican base if he comes to red states,” said Republican pollster John McLaughlin. “They'll be turning out to vote against whoever Dean supports.” Dean was installed as the new Democratic Party chairman Friday.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1343744/posts
Will Dean Scream Awaken the Democratic Party?
GOPUSA | 2-15-05 | Kevin Fobbs
In a scream that was heard around the nation in 2004 the voice behind the scream has re-emerged on top of the heap of the Democratic Party and he and his famous voice will be directing the party into the mid-term elections and Presidential Race of 2008.
Was his election or elevation from political purgatory a well engineered feat that was neatly packaged as a political gift for the GOP? Will Dean’s ability to talk his way into political drama and escalating miscues be the right stuff for the Democratic Party at the expense of Republican operatives around the nation? Personally I don’t think the Democratic Big Blue Scream Machine is going to topple any political mountains anytime soon.
I’m sure you’ve heard what His Highness Sir Screamer has remarked of his “hatred” for us conservative Republicans. Now is that any way for a serious leader of any political party to function? I mean take a look at the former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe. He was certainly as partisan as any head of the Democratic Party has been and then some. Yet, amidst his painfully dulling comments about What the President didn’t do, what our leadership in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate were doing, and then what us conservatives were saying in our effort to reclaim America for its true Judeo-Christian values…he never stated he hated us.
But Dean does... and he does harbor a certain adversion to conservatives which he hopes he can turn into a sure fire party builder to end the ten-year slide of the national Democratic Party. He sincerely believes that all of this negative energy can somehow be channeled to re-capture red states, strengthen blue states and broaden the base of the party, while moving steadily to the left of center.
It sounds like an impossibility. When you consider the centrist leaders like Senator Feinstein, Senator Lieberman, former Senator Zell Miller… Dr. Dean believes his Party should breath the rarified air that Senator Ted Kennedy breathes, and as inviting as that all may seem to some liberals who believe the best way to build a successful pathway to the future is to move toward the far left antics of the past…It is the wrong move for Democrats.
Sure…The Deaniacs have to be full of themselves right about now. I mean who wouldn’t? They saw their former leader’s Presidential hopes riddled to pieces by Vietnam gunboat hero Senator John Kerry. Dean saw his campaign literally evaporate after the Iowa Caucuses and he somehow managed to still keep himself relevant, afloat and viable on his political life raft during the Presidential Sweepstakes instead of slowly disappearing beneath the waves like so many former Democratic Presidential candidates had before.
Perhaps, Dean really had something else in mind. After all, this is the man who galvanized his legendary Internet Troops, and amassed an impressive monetary war chest that certainly rivaled if not surpassed all of the other Democrat contenders combined. Was Dean running for President in the beginning to truly run in truth for the opportunity to remake the Democratic Party in his own image? Was the run for President the ruse... only to go for the true gold in Dean’s mind? Was there a sense of creating a new type of Camelot?
Would he revisit and recapture those halcyon days of yore, when liberal meant liberal and not the version he had to deal with in the 2004 election? Think about it. Dean has a vision for America that is truly liberal and he believes that Senator John Kerry came awful close to capturing the gold, but he just was not liberal enough. John Kerry didn’t have the scream. the emotion. The feeling that Howard Dean has.
I mean really. Can you imagine Senator John Kerry trying to pull off a John Kerry Scream? Why it would be like listening to a polite exchange between to fencing partners; “Excuse me..I think you are really a trifle too loud.” “But good fellow…I’m about to say that we are going to go to California..to New York...to Nebraska..to Colorado….fine skiing there…to Florida…to Michigan…very cold there…to Florida…remind me to get the boat out…well...we are just going to win it all.”
Well you get the drift. In other words, it wouldn’t be the same. I think Dean knew that about his Democratic faithful. I think he really knew that the “Anyone but Bush” approach would not work in the end and he…Dean, the self anointed visionary of liberals would be right there to pick up the tattered pieces.
And my friends he has.
When outgoing DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe handed Dean the gavel, Dean immediately set out to tell his new party faithful that he would out do the Republicans and the conservatives by reaching out to Red-state evangelicals, by courting the Christians and be recapturing the Catholic base, because after all the national Catholic agenda is just like the Democratic agenda…but there is that little sticking point called protecting life.
Well, after all he is Howard Dean and if his scream can’t convert you..his ability to out maneuver the war hero of his party and land on top out and of reach of the Clintons…he might just have one more trick up his sleeve.
We’ll be waiting with ear mufflers on...just in case he wants to go back to that scream thing. _______________________________________________________
Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is also Second Vice Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party and daily host of The Kevin Fobbs Show on News Talk WDTK - 1400 AM in Detroit as well as co-founder of the Jackson, MI-based American Conservative Values Television Network. Listen to The Kevin Fobbs Show at www.wdtkam.com. # # # #