Democrats, Republicans both agree that

[Guest TheMikeSC]

1) When a candidate gets desperate, he will get hammered. And he will be hammered on other issues. Don't think Sharpton won't annihilate him at some point on this issue. He has the problem of A LOT of absolute joke candidates in the field who will do anything for attention.

 

Fortunately for Dean, all of the candidates (sans Lieberman) support civil unions to some extent.

 

2) North Korea has nukes and an insane leader. Might not be a bad idea to be diplomatic. As for Iran, if Bush sent troops there, he'd be ripped to shreds for doing so. Bush is dealing with a lot of issues presently.

 

I was referring to Dean, and both of them share a relatively hard line stance on both of those countries.

 

3) Reagan had the benefit of running against a man who is, easily, amongst the 5 worst Presidents in US history and who had the raw charisma of linoleum. You can't afford to play to the activists in the primaries and THEN go mainstream afterwards as you will get destroyed for being "inconsistent"

 

Not necessarily. Rhetoric is far different from what is actual fact; Bush did it in 2000, Reagan did it in 1980, and Clinton did it in 1992. It's simply how this election game goes; you have to energize the activists in the primaries, and relate to the mainstream voters in the general election. It's not inconsistent, it's surprisingly normal.

 

4) I found my job rather easily and we're hiring left and right still. The economy is in recovery and, unlike with Bush Sr., the press won't be able to gloss over that fact.

 

That's not the case in many other areas.

1) Few of the candidates mention it and make no bones about it --- if one other thinks he has a shot at winning the nomination, he WILL attack Dean.

 

After all, Lieberman was fervently PRO-school choice --- until he became Gore's running mate.

 

The potential for power is enticing.

 

2) Dean TALKS a good game --- but how many BUY his crap? Honestly?

 

3) You play far-left or far-right in the primaries and you have a HUGE problem in the main election. Bush NEVER played far right in 2000 and Clinton worked hard to appear centrist in 1992 (he, fortunately for him, had Jerry Brown to look like a REAL nut)

 

4) It's not the case --- possibly --- in YOUR area. Not all areas.

-=Mike

[Guest JMA]

Dean is a left-wing guy. Sorry, but he is. And left-wing candidates CANNOT win elections. They never have and they never will.

That's not true at all. There have been many Presidents who were liberal Democrats.

[Guest TheMikeSC]

Dean is a left-wing guy. Sorry, but he is. And left-wing candidates CANNOT win elections. They never have and they never will.

That's not true at all. There have been many Presidents who were liberal Democrats.

None RAN as left-wing Democrats. FDR didn't run as one. LBJ didn't. Truman didn't. JFK certainly didn't. They ended up being liberal "after the fact"

 

The only 2 guys who ran far-left were McGovern and Mondale and both were soundly trounced.

-=Mike

[Guest Cerebus]

Yeah Johnson who was so far behind in the polls he didn't even run for the nomination for the Democratic party for a2nd term and Carter who got trounced horribly. The last real liberal (I guess) would be FDR but that was a different era. You only have to look at Dukakis and Mondale to see what a left wing canidate will do for the Dems.

[Guest TheMikeSC]

Yeah Johnson who was so far behind in the polls he didn't even run for the nomination for the Democratic party for a2nd term and Carter who got trounced horribly. The last real liberal (I guess) would be FDR but that was a different era. You only have to look at Dukakis and Mondale to see what a left wing canidate will do for the Dems.

BUT, if you actually study the campaign of 1932, FDR hardly ran as a far-left candidate. He attempted to position himself as a centrist. Then the GOP proceeded to run inept candidate-of-the-day against him in 1936. The problems in Europe kept him in 1940 and WW II kept him in office in 1944 (though he should have had the class to NOT run)

-=Mike

[Guest Cancer Marney]

As the thunderstorm disrupts C-SPAN's Illinois signal in the middle of Representative Dennis Kucinich's closing remarks, here are my thoughts.

 

Kucinich: up (energetic, sharp, pointed, wasn't afraid to play nasty, but came off as factual nevertheless. Good staff work)

Sharpton: up (spoke better than expected; didn't play the race card. So little is expected from him that any even vaguely respectable showing can do nothing but help)

Kerry: up (indispensible sense of inevitability. Clever attacks, few slips)

Edwards: up (nowhere else to go)

Mosely-Braun: down (shouldn't have tried to say women's shit doesn't stink)

Lieberman: down (too nuanced for a union forum)

Graham: down (slapped around on record)

Gephardt: down (too much personalisation, also record)

Dean: stays where he is, but the lead is narrowed (Kucinich made a strong effort to get out of his shadow, and it worked. Kerry distinguished himself as well)

Edited August 6, 2003 by Cancer Marney

[Guest Vyce]

I can't help but disagree. There are quite a few examples of Dean's classic centrism (i.e. state's rights and fiscal responsibility, to name two), and just because he supports affordable healthcare doesn't mean he's a far-left liberal. He's following the Reagan plan of speaking to the activists in the primaries, and then running on his record in the general. I am confident it will work.

"C'mon, kids!" shouted Peter Pan. "If you all clap your hands really loud, we can bring Tinkerbell back to life!"

 

Keep trying to sell him as a centrist, Tyler. Your hard work and devotion is endearing.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

I can't help but disagree. There are quite a few examples of Dean's classic centrism (i.e. state's rights and fiscal responsibility, to name two), and just because he supports affordable healthcare doesn't mean he's a far-left liberal. He's following the Reagan plan of speaking to the activists in the primaries, and then running on his record in the general. I am confident it will work.

"C'mon, kids!" shouted Peter Pan. "If you all clap your hands really loud, we can bring Tinkerbell back to life!"

 

Keep trying to sell him as a centrist, Tyler. Your hard work and devotion is endearing.

"IF I PUT MY FINGERS IN MY EARS AND SING REALLY LOUD, I CAN BELIEVE ANYTHING I WANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" -- Vyce

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

In the primaries, and in the election (if he makes it that far), the centrepieces of debate will be his absolute opposition to war in Iraq

Sorry, but the war is going to be so unimportant by the time the election hype comes around. As we've seen in the past, once a war has been going on for a couple years, the media stops paying attention to it on a daily basis and people just pack up the mental baggage (relatives of servicemen aside, of course) and get back on with their lives.

 

I just don't see the war on terror being an important issue come the election. Even if pushed on it, I can see a Dean response of "Sure, we may not agree on the war, but do we agree on ________ ?"

 

And although the country's businesses may be making more money, unemployment is stacking up higher and higher. Our big product of the past five years was technology, and that industry could still be profitable in the future although probably not at the highs of the Clinton years. Yet the only people benefitting will be the rich people at the top if the jobs for middle-class Americans keep running off to India, Mexico, Malaysia, etc.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

Given the timeline, this will serve to hinder Dean's criticisms of the war, whatever their validity.

These criticisms have served a purpose of getting him attention. If the war is over and done with, he'll talk about something else. I guess Mr. Rove can paint Dean as some kind of guy who was going to keep Saddam as a risk to Americans, but Dean never said he wanted to keep Saddam alive. Just that he didn't buy the WMD bit, and neither do more and more Americans.

 

Dean's comments on gay rights amount to an endorsement of gay marriage, no matter how carefully he chooses his words. Giving gays equal benefits under federal law is something that most Americans are not prepared to do.

 

Well tough luck, they'll have to get used to it. Whether or not the word marriage comes along with it, gays deserve the tax breaks and rights that come with hetero marriages. To deny such benefits to one group of people is unconstitutional. Unless, of course, your man Gee-Dub finds a way to outlaw any offical recognition of gay couples, those old little bits of paper be damned. I know you and I actually agree on this issue (that marriage should be privatized) so don't take this as a flame, I'm just speaking the truth here. The way things currently are structured, gay couples deserve those benefits.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

Dean is a left-wing guy. Sorry, but he is. And left-wing candidates CANNOT win elections. They never have and they never will.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

No, the argument for Iraq was that Saddam was trying to GET nukes.

 

He did not have them YET. N. Korea HAS them.

The Brits were saying that Saddam could fire WMDs within 45 minutes of giving the order.

[Guest NoCalMike]

Dean's comments on gay rights amount to an endorsement of gay marriage, no matter how carefully he chooses his words. Giving gays equal benefits under federal law is something that most Americans are not prepared to do.

 

Well tough luck, they'll have to get used to it. Whether or not the word marriage comes along with it, gays deserve the tax breaks and rights that come with hetero marriages. To deny such benefits to one group of people is unconstitutional. Unless, of course, your man Gee-Dub finds a way to outlaw any offical recognition of gay couples, those old little bits of paper be damned. I know you and I actually agree on this issue (that marriage should be privatized) so don't take this as a flame, I'm just speaking the truth here. The way things currently are structured, gay couples deserve those benefits.

Well I don't think the majority of americans wanted the civil rights act passed either, but I'd venture to say everyone here is very pleased it passed. Sometimes ideas that seem radical at first notice, turn out not to be so radical when looked at over time.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

In the primaries, and in the election (if he makes it that far), the centrepieces of debate will be his absolute opposition to war in Iraq

Sorry, but the war is going to be so unimportant by the time the election hype comes around.

This will not be the case. In the past, wars have been limited in scope and in duration. The war on terror is a completely different animal, and it will be seen to be as important in November 2004 as it was in September 2001.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Dean is a left-wing guy. Sorry, but he is. And left-wing candidates CANNOT win elections. They never have and they never will.

You flaming idiot. JFK was anything but a left-wing candidate. He was extremely tough on the Soviets and for over a decade he was one of Nixon's staunchest supporters. In 1959 he said he'd vote for him himself. 13 years before that he attacked the liberal factions of the Democratic Party in no uncertain terms, and he absolutely despised Wallace and his ilk. When he became President JFK kept a Republican as his Treasury Secretary and he personally called for a cut in the capital gains tax - which is a major Republican policy.

 

Christ, if you're so fucking ignorant of the history of your own country, at least have the decency to be ashamed of it instead of putting it on display.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Our big product of the past five years was technology

Service jobs account for over 72% of our GDP. This trend will continue in the future; it is the natural outcome of an increase in efficiency and working hours. Manufacturing jobs will continue to leave the country, and short of protectionism (which harms everyone in the country across all class lines in the long run) no President, Democrat or Republican, can do anything to reverse that.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Well tough luck, they'll have to get used to it. Whether or not the word marriage comes along with it, gays deserve the tax breaks and rights that come with hetero marriages. To deny such benefits to one group of people is unconstitutional. Unless, of course, your man Gee-Dub finds a way to outlaw any offical recognition of gay couples, those old little bits of paper be damned. I know you and I actually agree on this issue (that marriage should be privatized) so don't take this as a flame, I'm just speaking the truth here. The way things currently are structured, gay couples deserve those benefits.

Cheap shot, meaningless, smarmy, and preadolescent. As I have already stated, I am arguing neither for nor against the position. I assessed the POLITICAL VIABILITY of the stance, not its moral, practical, or constitutional validity. We do agree on this issue, and always have; you're arguing for a position no one is opposing. Once more: my comments concerned the effects Dean's position would have on his ELECTORAL CHANCES. I hope you were able to read my fucking typing this time.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

Service jobs account for over 72% of our GDP. This trend will continue in the future; it is the natural outcome of an increase in efficiency and working hours.

Services != Products

 

Manufacturing jobs will continue to leave the country, and short of protectionism (which harms everyone in the country across all class lines in the long run) no President, Democrat or Republican, can do anything to reverse that.

 

So, what physical goods shall we be exporting then?

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Services != Products

Exactly. That was my point; the imbalance between service and manufacturing jobs is an irreversible trend, and will only grow more lopsided over time. The fact that manufacturing jobs are leaving the country and migrating to Asia &c is perfectly natural, and we can't change it without harming ourselves in the long run. Nor should we try. Criticising the President for the evolution of our economy and the resultant pressures change inevitably places on our workforce is pointless.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

This will not be the case. In the past, wars have been limited in scope and in duration. The war on terror is a completely different animal, and it will be seen to be as important in November 2004 as it was in September 2001.

What's taking so long? Rebuilding Iraq, I guess. The bills from the war, especially the cost of putting Iraq back on it's feet, are quite high.

 

If all the money wasn't having to be spent right now just to pay the recurring bills, I bet that by 2005 when 9/11 is in the history books and the proverbial check arrives at the table, nobody is going to be pleased. The first time I heard the administration say this war was going to take an undeterminable but long number of years, I smelled bullshit. You mean he won't be able to finish what he started in one term? GEE GOLLY BILLY BOB I GUESS WE BETTER ELECT HIM AGAIN. Wouldn't want that war on tar'ror to go to waste!

 

While we need to be tough on terrorism, running around playing the world's policeman, sticking Marines off the coast of foreign countries to play their bodyguard and peacekeeper at our cost (we have only seven guys in Liberia, but many many more hanging around offshore), and just doing whatever the hell we want because we're the Big Dog and everybody else can just suck on it isn't the right way to do things. Doing it in that pinheaded method, however, WILL take a whole lot more time to stop international terror organizations so maybe I guess maybe Bush is right in that respect.

 

We also need to accept the inevitability that short putting some kind of futuristic mind control device on the world's population, that you can't stop terrorism. There's always someone somewhere with a bomb to set off and a wish to make a strike against the status quo. That cannot be helped. What can be done is focusing on Al-Qaeda and finding out where all this "chatter" is coming from, we're already well on our way to finding Saddam so I won't comment there (I bet he kills himself when found though), and most importantly working with as many of the other more important countries as we can to keep an eye on these madmen and hardline theocracies and make sure that they don't get any weapons that can harm us. By working with enough people and by cross-checking intelligence we won't get faulty information about people buying substances from countries they really aren't and WMDs that don't really exist.

 

Now, since you're an insider and I'm just playing armchair politician for fun on the internet, I'm sure you're going to have a number of come-backs here with a healthy dose of slams and insults. Go ahead and give it your best shot, because I've said all I have to say on this topic and as a guy who just reads the paper and the web every few days I'm not going to be in the know about this kind of thing. I've stated my opinion and wish to move back to our original topic here, which was Howard Dean and the Democratic Party. Feel free to deliver your usual jazz, I'll read it, but don't expect a reply.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

In an effort to return this thread to it's original discussion, here's the Dean article from Time.

 

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030811/story.html

 

Is Dean for Real?

He's got money, momentum, excitement. But is that enough to take him to the top? 

 

By KAREN TUMULTY/BURLINGTON

 

Look back at nearly every campaign trail to the White House, and you will find embedded in the asphalt the flattened form of a once captivating outsider. The story line plays out as follows: he seizes the imagination with a compelling message and personality; he upsets the dynamic of the race; the media lavish attention and praise on him (there is talk that he has created a phenomenon that will change politics); he makes a rookie mistake or two under the TV lights; the reporters turn on him; his fanatical legions realize he wasn't the guy they thought he was; and finally his demise becomes part of the winner's heroic backstory.

 

The most watched and feared candidate of the moment may be rewriting that plot. It is true that Dr. Howard Dean, the testy ex-Governor of a speck of a state, fits the profile of the doomed insurgent, the Eugene McCarthys and John McCains who have come before. He is not only running outside the Establishment; he is attacking it at every opportunity.

 

But at a time when money talks louder than it ever has in politics, he is raising cash in unprecedented ways and in impressive amounts for a Democrat at this early stage. In a large field of candidates that has yet to produce a front runner around whom the party can rally, he's the only real excitement that the Democrats have to offer. And come February, if he pulls off wins in both Iowa and New Hampshire—both of which appear increasingly possible—the fast-forward campaign calendar of early primaries could catapult him to the nomination.

 

DEAN'S LEGIONS

A little more than a month ago, insiders were saying the Dean movement had all the resonance of a temper tantrum. Even activist Democrats, the line went, would eventually come to their senses and realize that this antiwar one-noter from liberal Vermont was out of synch with the politics of a post-9/11 world. And what about the Internet-driven rabble that packs his events, those 68,000 who have signed up for yet another of Dean's "Meetup" events at 340 spots across the country this Wednesday? Too young, too alienated, too inchoate to matter.

 

Then Dean's forces burst from their blogs (weblogs are the jungle drums of the Internet age) and made themselves heard in the old-fashioned language the political establishment understands: money. They deluged his campaign with $7.6 million in the second quarter (ended June 30), which was $1.7 million more than presumed front runner John Kerry, $2.5 million more than poll-topping Joe Lieberman, $3.1 million more than glamorous newcomer John Edwards, $3.8 million more than seasoned Dick Gephardt. As for the rest of the field—including a Senator, a Congressman, a former ambassador, a civil rights leader—not one raised even a third of what Dean had.

 

A year ago, Dean, 54, predicted he would come in "dead last in fund raising." Now he's ahead, and he has done it the hard way: $20, $50, $125 at a time. Half of it, he claims, came from people who had never before given to a politician. Small individual contributions have leverage because only the first $250 gets federal matching funds. And donors who haven't hit their $2,000 legal limit can be tapped again. So there's more where that came from.

 

Of course, what it takes to get the nomination is in many ways the reverse of what it takes to actually win the White House. Which is why Dean worries as many Democrats as he excites. However impressive his fund-raising abilities may look against a cast of untested rivals now, they would surely get him nowhere near the quarter-billion dollars that George Bush is likely to have for his campaign. Bush won't have to spend a penny of it until after the Democratic pick exhausts his bank account getting the nomination. Bush political strategist Karl Rove is making no secret of how he would relish using that money acquainting swing voters with a shrill Northeasterner who is antiwar and pro-gay union. And the Republican National Committee (R.N.C.) says it has only begun exploring Dean's record. "We'll be spending a lot of time in Vermont this August," says an official at the R.N.C.

 

The crowds at Dean's appearances are growing, and they are far more diverse than their "Deanie Baby" caricature. There are more retirees, more soccer moms and even an occasional wayward Republican mixed in with the twentysomethings and peaceniks. In Riverside County, Calif., Lou Stark, 86, is spending three hours a day distributing flyers for this week's Meetup and says, "You're never too old to be a Young Democrat." His newfound political activism has taken him from poring over the obits in the morning paper to surfing on the computer: "I want to see what's on the blog." Among Dean's supporters back in Vermont is businessman Bernard Rome, who raised money for George Bush's father in 1980—and hoped to unseat Dean in an unsuccessful bid for Vermont's G.O.P. gubernatorial nomination five years ago. Says Rome: "When he talked about health care, he was so damn articulate, I said, 'How can I run against him?'"

 

HOW HE COULD SHOOT THE MOON

The primary process is one reason that political insurgents almost always end up as roadkill. It is stacked against them, and more so in the 2004 race than in the past. After the Iowa contest on Jan. 19, the primaries and caucuses will come like machine-gun rounds, putting a premium on the fundamentals of organizing and endorsements, experience and money. Jimmy Carter was the last Democrat to come from nowhere and win. But he had nearly three months after Iowa to build momentum before he needed to lock up the nomination. Next year two-thirds of the convention delegates will be selected within the first six weeks after the Iowa caucuses. And the Establishment has bestowed upon itself disproportionate influence in the outcome. Democratic Party rules automatically award elected officials and other party leaders 800 delegate spots, more than a third of the 2,160 needed to win.

 

The Dean phenomenon is fueled in part by his special appeal in the first two states, Iowa and New Hampshire. Dean has challenged Massachusetts' Kerry for home-field advantage in New Hampshire, and his iconoclastic, antiwar message gives him traction in Iowa. Two public polls last week showed Dean nudging ahead of Kerry in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, Gephardt's stronghold of Iowa has become, in the words of an operative from another campaign, "a three-way dogfight between Dean, Kerry and Gephardt." If Dean runs the table in those early weeks, the political establishment may have to fall in line.

 

Thanks to his money machine, Dean has started building respectable-size campaign staffs in Iowa and New Hampshire. Over the weekend he moved paid workers into eight new states, from Washington to Maine. In a singularly cocky move, he is running television ads this week in Austin, Texas, as both a welcome-home present to vacationing President Bush and an indictment of other Democrats. "You know, when you think about it, in the past 2 1/2 years we have lost over 2.5 million jobs," Dean tells the camera. "And has anyone really stood up against George Bush and his policies? Don't you think it's time somebody did?"

 

Dean has plenty of doubters. "They've very deftly and cleverly caught a wave here, and they're surfing it pretty smart," says Kerry campaign manager Jim Jordan. As for the Internet-driven engine of the Dean insurgency: "It's like watching my 13-year-old daughter instant-messaging," Jordan says. "It's not particularly about politics and policy. It's almost like a reality show."

 

Nonetheless, Kerry and others have begun to copy Dean's high-tech moves. Kerry has signed a contract with Meetup.com, the commercial site Dean is using to arrange monthly meetings for supporters around the country. Kerry and Lieberman have also hired Convio Inc., which provides the software engine not only for the Dean campaign but also for the 1,100 Dean supporters who have set up their own websites to promote his candidacy.

 

There is a Dr. Dean-like edge creeping into his rivals' rhetoric. Kerry's economic speech last week jabbed Dean with references to "real Democrats"—evoking the Vermonter's signature tag line about representing "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." And in the most backhanded of acknowledgments, the R.N.C. issued a news release charting the leading Democrats' increasingly critical statements on whether President Bush misled the country about how dangerous Saddam Hussein really was. The gleeful R.N.C. headline: DEMS PLAY FOLLOW THE LEADER. FOR YEARS KEY DEMS RECOGNIZED WMD THREAT ... BUT NOW HOWARD DEAN HAS CHANGED THEIR MINDS.

 

WOOING THE ESTABLISHMENT

One of the forces working in dean's favor is the disarray and disenchantment within the Democratic Party. If he's angry, well, so are many committed rank-and-file Democrats, especially on the defining question of war with Iraq, on which all the other leading contenders voted with Bush. An insurgent has more room in a field as large as this one, in which no true front runner has yet emerged to marshal the party's institutional forces. Dean's outsider appeal has made all the other first-tier contenders blend into button-down sameness. Campaign manager Joe Trippi, 47, a veteran of six presidential races whose bare-knuckled style matches his candidate's, argues that the early focus on one upstart—which usually doesn't happen until January—has created "the strongest insurgency in the history of politics." Trippi also argues that the converse is true: "Whoever becomes the Washington establishment candidate will by default be the weakest in the history of the party."

 

Campaigns attract only boutique audiences at this early stage, and the entire field remains largely unknown, even to Democrats. So one question is how well Dean's message will resonate as more people start paying attention; so far, the best he has polled is 12%, compared with Lieberman's 25% and Kerry's 14%. Another is whether the Establishment will try to rally its forces early behind anyone. All nine Democratic candidates will face questions from rank-and-file workers at the AFL-CIO's executive-council meeting in Chicago this week. But the panel appears in no hurry to give its endorsement, which requires support from two-thirds of member unions. Gephardt's long-standing ties to labor give him an edge, and he has already won the support of 10 major unions, including the Teamsters, whose endorsement is expected later this week. But some labor officials suggest privately they could take their support elsewhere if Gephardt doesn't begin to show some momentum.

 

Dean is taking advantage of this moment, with all its possibilities, to reach out to the party's traditional constituencies. While the crowds at his events are getting more mainstream, they remain largely white. After criticism last week that his campaign was ignoring African Americans, Dean sent the Congressional Black Caucus a letter talking about his record, including his commitment to fighting aids in Africa. "As your nominee and as your President, I will never take the African-American vote for granted," Dean wrote. He is trying to demonstrate that now. His campaign has hired Maria Echaveste, who as Bill Clinton's deputy chief of staff was the highest-ranking Hispanic to serve in the White House, and Christopher Edley, the Harvard Law School professor who headed Clinton's affirmative-action task force.

 

The excitement factor alone could be enough to make minority Democrats take a look at the brusque New Englander. Dean shows no sign of peaking too early, says Donna Brazile, who was Al Gore's 2000 campaign manager and is one of her party's more effective minority organizers. "He's all that and a stick of gum. He's that hot. The flavor has not left him." She mentions a conversation with a prominent bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest African-American denomination. "I've seen all these cats, but I like Dean," the bishop told Brazile. "I've sent him money."

 

But the backlash has started. "It's kind of like the Mafia," says a strategist for another Democratic contender. "Everyone wants another family to hit him. You don't want to bring blood into your own house." The centrist Democratic Leadership Council (D.L.C.), which helped nurture Bill Clinton's political career, warned last week that the "far left" was taking over the party and pulling it over a cliff. No one had to ask whom the D.L.C.'s chairman, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, was referring to when he posited, "Do we want to vent, or do we want to govern?" Although Dean's record as Vermont Governor defies ideological labels (see following story), it's not that record that matters now, the D.L.C. argues; it's his opposition to the war, his proposal to repeal the Bush tax cut and how he stokes the anger within the party. In a May memo D.L.C. leaders Al From and Bruce Reed planted Dean in what they called the party's "McGovern-Mondale wing, defined principally by weakness abroad and elitist interest-group liberalism at home. That's the wing that lost 49 states in two elections."

 

THE DOCTOR AS GAMBLER

Dean has been running for more than a year, but his campaign did not crystallize into a full-blown phenomenon until the last 10 days of June. It's instructive to look at those days because it is possible to see both the perils and the potential that lie ahead. He repeatedly took risks—from publicly challenging his donors to ante up more money to putting up early ads in Iowa—and showed that what might kill another politician in the big leagues seems only to make him stronger. Even his rather mealy-mouthed performance with Tim Russert on Meet the Press seemed to galvanize his supporters. They bombarded his website with attacks on Russert—and $93,000 in contributions that same day.

 

For Dean to ultimately succeed, he must win the biggest bet of all: that he is right about Iraq and the economy. If Saddam is killed or caught or if America clearly wins the peace, the Dean case begins to sound badly off-key. And if last week's 2.4% jump in second-quarter growth is a glimmer of a real recovery, Americans may want to hang on to their tax cuts rather than give them up for Dean's health-care and recovery plan. The Dean message that Democrats find so enticing now could be the formula for a Bush landslide.

 

"You ask me what the pitfalls are, what do we have to do from now?" Dean says. "I think we just have to keep doing what we are doing." It's working, all right. But now that Dean has proved to Democrats that he can stir their passions, there's one more thing he must do: convince them that he can win.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Feel free to deliver your usual jazz, I'll read it, but don't expect a reply.

Imagine my despair.

[Guest TheMikeSC]

Dean is a left-wing guy. Sorry, but he is. And left-wing candidates CANNOT win elections. They never have and they never will.

JFK was MARGINALLY more liberal than Reagan. He was fervently anti-Communist, fervently pro-tax cut, etc.

-=Mike --- VERY marginally.

[Guest TheMikeSC]

No, the argument for Iraq was that Saddam was trying to GET nukes.

 

He did not have them YET. N. Korea HAS them.

The Brits were saying that Saddam could fire WMDs within 45 minutes of giving the order.

The WMD's were NOT nuclear missiles.

-=Mike

[Guest TheMikeSC]

This will not be the case. In the past, wars have been limited in scope and in duration. The war on terror is a completely different animal, and it will be seen to be as important in November 2004 as it was in September 2001.

What's taking so long? Rebuilding Iraq, I guess. The bills from the war, especially the cost of putting Iraq back on it's feet, are quite high.

 

If all the money wasn't having to be spent right now just to pay the recurring bills, I bet that by 2005 when 9/11 is in the history books and the proverbial check arrives at the table, nobody is going to be pleased. The first time I heard the administration say this war was going to take an undeterminable but long number of years, I smelled bullshit. You mean he won't be able to finish what he started in one term? GEE GOLLY BILLY BOB I GUESS WE BETTER ELECT HIM AGAIN. Wouldn't want that war on tar'ror to go to waste!

 

While we need to be tough on terrorism, running around playing the world's policeman, sticking Marines off the coast of foreign countries to play their bodyguard and peacekeeper at our cost (we have only seven guys in Liberia, but many many more hanging around offshore), and just doing whatever the hell we want because we're the Big Dog and everybody else can just suck on it isn't the right way to do things. Doing it in that pinheaded method, however, WILL take a whole lot more time to stop international terror organizations so maybe I guess maybe Bush is right in that respect.

 

We also need to accept the inevitability that short putting some kind of futuristic mind control device on the world's population, that you can't stop terrorism. There's always someone somewhere with a bomb to set off and a wish to make a strike against the status quo. That cannot be helped. What can be done is focusing on Al-Qaeda and finding out where all this "chatter" is coming from, we're already well on our way to finding Saddam so I won't comment there (I bet he kills himself when found though), and most importantly working with as many of the other more important countries as we can to keep an eye on these madmen and hardline theocracies and make sure that they don't get any weapons that can harm us. By working with enough people and by cross-checking intelligence we won't get faulty information about people buying substances from countries they really aren't and WMDs that don't really exist.

 

Now, since you're an insider and I'm just playing armchair politician for fun on the internet, I'm sure you're going to have a number of come-backs here with a healthy dose of slams and insults. Go ahead and give it your best shot, because I've said all I have to say on this topic and as a guy who just reads the paper and the web every few days I'm not going to be in the know about this kind of thing. I've stated my opinion and wish to move back to our original topic here, which was Howard Dean and the Democratic Party. Feel free to deliver your usual jazz, I'll read it, but don't expect a reply.

What's taking so long?

 

US War History

 

Revolutionary War lasted about 4 - 5 years.

War of 1812 --- 3 years.

Civil War? about 4 years.

WWII took us about 3 years.

Korea? 4 or so, if memory serves.

Vietnam? Geez, shall we even mention it.

 

Wars, as a rule, take YEARS --- not MONTHS. Read up on even the tiniest smidgeon of military history and you'll quickly recognize that (odds are, Marney already pointed this out to you in considerably more blunt terms).

 

Man, I'm glad FDR didn't have to deal with psychotic conspiracy nuts like you back in 1941. By June 1942, he'd be hearing "Why are we still fighting Japan? Why are we in Europe? It isn't our job to be there"

 

You can't stop terrorism? You can --- it is not easy, but it is eminently doable. Listening to you, the civil rights movement was a bad idea, etc because you "can never rid _____ off of the Earth".

 

And the smartest thing the U.S could do is NOT publicize their search for Al Qaeda.

-=Mike

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

The WMD's were NOT nuclear missiles.

-=Mike

The WMDs so far don't exist although I guess you can be hopeful.

 

But reports from captured Iraqi dudes say otherwise.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

What's taking so long?

 

US War History

 

Revolutionary War lasted about 4 - 5 years.

War of 1812 --- 3 years.

Civil War? about 4 years.

WWII took us about 3 years.

Korea? 4 or so, if memory serves.

Vietnam? Geez, shall we even mention it.

Yes, but generally the media and the public find something else to talk about after 12-18 months. Maybe because war = $$$$ like never before now it's different, but eventually the war is just... There. Everyone just kind of ignores the gorilla in the room until it goes away, and it is never brought up again until electiontime.

 

Man, I'm glad FDR didn't have to deal with psychotic conspiracy nuts like you back in 1941. By June 1942, he'd be hearing "Why are we still fighting Japan? Why are we in Europe? It isn't our job to be there"

 

I don't know about that, but I do know there's people on both sides of the fence who wish we'd stop running around fighting others' battles and protect our own skin. Granted, those on the right are mostly isolationists, but anyway....

 

You can't stop terrorism? You can --- it is not easy, but it is eminently doable.

 

No, you can't. You can stop large terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, but you can't stop every Tim McVeigh, Columbine shooter, mailbomber, etc worldwide. To do so would require changes that would be too much of a burden overseas and darn near unconstitutional at home. The best you can do is get rid of those with the resources to pull off something really scary.

 

Listening to you, the civil rights movement was a bad idea, etc because you "can never rid _____ off of the Earth".

 

What the hell?

[Guest JMA]

Sigh. I wish we could get back to the original topic instead of just throwing partisan attacks.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

^Kiss off commie

 

The war on terror will be alot like the Cold War. It will take many years, with hot spots flaring up and alot of the war being fought without the majority knowing about it.

[Guest TheMikeSC]

The WMD's were NOT nuclear missiles.

          -=Mike

The WMDs so far don't exist although I guess you can be hopeful.

 

But reports from captured Iraqi dudes say otherwise.

Well, soldiers seem to be catching pneumonia a lot over there.

-=Mike