Posted on 02/28/2005 6:45:18 AM PST by crushkerry
The talking heads' leitmotif of the moment is the admonition that Republicans should not "misunderestimate" newly crowned DNC Chairman Howard Dean. "Say what you want about the former governor of Vermont, but there really is nobody on the liberal landscape that approaches his effectiveness in rousing the rabble," writes Noel Sheppard in ChronWatch. "Say what you want about Gov. Dean, he's an organizer," added Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
Leave aside for a moment the fact that "say what you want about …" is political speak for, "look, I know the guy is a jackass, but …" "Misunderestimating" Dean would be impossible. He is a clown. Less than one month in office, he has already provided a lifetime worth of copy for right-of-center bloggers and interested journalists.
Take, for example, Dean's remarks at a DNC event with members of the party's African-American caucus. Dean, who wanted to be the presidential candidate for "guys with Confederate flags in their pickups," looked around the room and asked whether anyone thought the Republican National Committee could get so many minorities together in one place. "Only if they had the hotel staff in there," Dr. Dean said, answering his own question.
The new chairman then engaged in a foreign policy debate with neo-con Richard Perle in Portland, Oregon. At first Dean requested a media blackout. "DNC Chair Howard Dean has declared a news blackout of his appearance and requested the media not quote, record, and/or paraphrase his remarks," event coordinator Gabrielle Williams wrote in an e-mail sent to news agencies that morning. "We apologize for the late notice, but we were just informed of this request." Minutes later (minutes!) the erratic Dean opened the event up to the press. He was right the first time. Seconds into the debate, a spectator (presumably a Dean supporter) was hauled away by security screaming, "Liar! Liar! Liar!" Powerless against the neo-con conspiracy, the protester eventually through his shoe at Mr. Perle.
And over a year later, we're still talking about the notorious scream. Last week Washington and Lee University professor Edward Wasserman wrote an op-ed in the Miami Herald in which he attempts to argue the "Dean Scream" clip was a media "fraud."
Last year, a young cable news producer attended one of our twice-yearly Ethics Institutes at Washington and Lee University, in which students and journalists gather to discuss newsroom wrongdoing. He brought two clips.
The first was the familiar pool footage of Dean in Iowa. The candidate filled the screen, no supporters were visible. Crowd noise was silenced by the microphone he held, which deadened ambient sounds. You saw only him and heard only his inexplicable screaming.
The second clip was the same speech taped by a supporter on the floor of the hall. The difference was stunning. The place was packed. The noise was deafening. Dean was on the podium, but you couldn't hear him. The roar from his supporters was drowning him out.
Dean was no longer scary, unhinged, volcanic, over the top. He was like the coach of a would-be championship NCAA football team at a pre-game rally, trying to be heard over a gym full of determined, wildly enthusiastic fans. I saw energy, not lunacy.
Um, yes … It requires a red-faced, spittle-spewing recitation of all fifty states to declare over an angry throng, "we came in third, we'll try to do better in New Hampshire." What Wasserman and, for that matter, everyone neglects to point out when flagellating the media for the "Dean scream" is that the Dean campaign melted down before the scream; specifically when the angry little man from Vermont shouted down a poor dirt farmer in Iowa and declared, "George Bush is not my neighbor!"
WE ARE, OF COURSE, reminded daily that Howard Dean was once endorsed by the NRA. But did you know he's also a "fiscal conservative"? Well okay, not really. But that's the talking point du jour, and the mainstream press has been rather uncritical in reporting it. Unfortunately, for Dr. Dean the facts get in the way.
The town of Killington, Vermont, has actually voted to secede from the Green Mountain State and has asked New Hampshire to annex them. Why? Because of a wildly liberal property tax scheme called Act 60, which was principally implemented by Howard Dean. Act 60 is a "rob Peter to pay Paul's property taxes" Robin Hood scheme that got socialist novelist John Irving to deride Dean's plan as "socialist."
Let's consider some real fiscally conservative Governors. Arnold? Rick Perry? Jeb Bush? Even Bill Richardson? Not one of these guys -- Republican or Democrat -- has a town in his state that is trying to secede because of a confiscatory tax structure.
Let me say this again: a town in Vermont is trying to secede because the tax structure implemented chiefly by Howard Dean is "socialist" and unfair.
When Dean ran for President of the United States, he took his economic liberalism to the national stage. Dean proposed repealing President Bush's tax cuts. All of them. Dean, in effect, ran under the promise to raise taxes on every living man, woman and child (and even dead men, women and children.) I don't care if your name is Lynndie England, you cannot torture the definition of "fiscal conservative" enough to include higher taxes on everyone in America.
On the spending side of the ledger, Dean again fails any serious test of "fiscal conservatism." According to the National Taxpayers Union, candidate Dean's economic plan would have increased annual federal outlays by $222.9 billion. Dean's not a spending cutter, either.
Ah, but occasionally pundits will confuse "fiscally conservative" with that overused, utterly meaningless phrase "fiscally responsible." "Fiscally responsible" is that modifier which is generally applied to various deficit-reduction packages that successfully hike taxes on people, but never seem to erase deficits. Anywho, is Dean "fiscally responsible"? No. The same NTU study says Dean's plan would have ballooned the budget deficit, primarily on the back of his ill-conceived socialized healthcare scheme.
The strategy now appears to be to distance Howard Dean from the press. David Freddoso pointed out in National Review Online last week that Howard Dean was behaving like a "stealth chairman."
Dean's handlers have done everything humanly possible to keep him away from reporters' questions. At the DNC winter meeting where he was elected chairman, Dean was shuttled out the back door from a "meet the candidates" session ten minutes before reporters were to be allowed entry. He disappeared from his own victory party that Saturday night at Capitol City Brewing Co. after his brief speech, in the first 15 minutes.
Based on a review of transcripts, his last television interview appears to have been a full month ago -- with George Stephanopoulos on January 23 -- before his victory as chairman had become inevitable. At the same time as RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman is interviewing with Judy Woodruff almost every week on CNN, Dean tried to block media coverage of his Portland, Ore. debate on Iraq against Pentagon adviser Richard Perle. Dean's DNC seems intent on outdoing the Bush White House in media discipline.
Instead of working the media, Dean kicked off his much-ballyhooed tour of "Red America." But the tour got off to an unfortunate start for the chairman. In Kansas, Democrat Governor Kathleen Sebelius made sure she was all booked up and unable to meet with him. Dean was reduced to begging yokels to do more to help the cause. "I'm asking you to run for the school board, I'm asking you to run for the city council, I'm asking you to run for library trustee." Pity the poor rural Kansan when the Dean-inspired Democrat candidate for dog catcher busts out into a chimerical conspiracy theory about the neo-cons at the next community candidate forum.
I remind you. Dean has been the Chairman of the Democrat National Committee for two weeks. It's going to be a fun four years.
Patrick Hynes is a Republican consultant and a freelance writer. He is the proprietor of the website AnkleBitingPundits.com.
Ping
Interesting.
Though I'm sure it passed Mr.Hynes spell check, I wonder, is that is like going through a mind altering experience?
I'm in the camp of those who think too many around here and elsewhere are prematurely writing off Dean as a disaster. Yeah, he's a whacko, but no worse than McAuliffe. And McAuliffe lasted about four years. (??) And managed to help John F'in Kerry get the second largest collection of votes in Presidential history.
I'm glad I persevered though.
Howard Dean will eventually collapse on stage, slipping into a permanent comatose state, only rivaled by McMurphy in 'One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.'
-Defeating her in 2006 Senate race
-Getting behind a good conservative charismatic Presidential candidate early.
-Help push the Democrats further to the left.
-Promoting a good liberal third-party candidate to get the liberal vote while Hillary impersonates a moderate.
It doesn't matter who is in uniform for the Democrats, the playbook is what is beating them.
I have a couple of questions though. What has Dean won? Really, what did he contribute? He did not win one primary outside his home state and failed to get the young pot smoking college students to vote.
Dean will be amusing for a while, but he will get his sea legs and then could be a bit more dangerous.
McAuliffe, though a liar through and through, was an affable fellow.
As far as McAuliffe getting Kerry the "second largest collection of votes in Presidential history" goes, the alphabet media, together with the fact that one half of the voters are trough feeders were the ones responsible for that. Also bear in mind that the voting population is increasing, as is the fraudulent voter turnout.
Dean? The Deaniac is stark raving mad, and as such attracts the madhatters.
No, the Dimocratic Party is imploding. Liberal Democrats are even fleeing the Party, or otherwise being awol when Deaniac comes near.
It is not that Dean is a disaster, rather it is the Dimocrat Party that is a disaster.
Just my humble opinion. ;)
And those factors will remain in place for Dean.
McAwful was a terrible DNC head.
1. Scheduling the DNC convention so early meant that the DNC had to spent its limited funding over a greater length of time than the Republicans.
2. He did nothing to discourage Kerry from being the nominee. Kerry was a horrible candidate. Lieberman, or even Gephardt, may have beaten Bush, but the liberal wing of the DNC was allowed to take control. Notice Hillary's recent move toward the center on Iraq and immigration (she's not the smartest woman in the world, but she's not stupid either).
3. He did nothing to reign in (or even coordinate) the 527s and the MSM. I believe the non-stop, and largely inaccurate, Bush bashing hurt the Dems. It often seemed desperate (Rathergate) or foolish (F 9/11).
I'm not sure if Dean could do worse.
I know what you mean
It takes the wind out of my sails when I am being so serious in contemplating the writers points, and then I read "through" for "threw" and go off on a "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" jaunt. ;)
Did it go right threw him?
True, to a point.
Much, however, will be determined by future events, as we all know. Dean has his hands full. In one, he has himself, and in the other he has a rather vociferous mob.
The Repubs are already back in the trenches, getting ready for 2006.
Me? I'm hoping for some SCOTUS openings soon to kick off the festivities. ;)
McAuliffe was a crook who made $18 million in WorldCom stock with a $100K investment, just before the company went bankrupt. The MSM never noticed because they are also Democrats living off inside connections, trust funds, and protected jobs.
Dean is a highly emotional and highly partisan figure who turns a lot of people off, except for the Michael Moore types. He demands to be noticed, even in the MSM.
The real issue is not how much of a fool Dean makes himself out to be. It is Hillary and Bill TRIANGULATING and (with MSM assistance) getting people to see her as middle-of-the-road rather than a socialist.
We need a clear eye to beat Hillary in 2008. As the 2004 elections showed, anger and frustration do not win presidential races. Let's treat her with kindness as we try to beat the pants off her fat butt.
Fact check. I think it was Global Crossing that he made his millions.
I remind you. Dean has been the Chairman of the Democrat National Committee for two weeks. It's going to be a fun four years.
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