"Dean: Left of Center is Right"

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode LXVII

I haven't taken to fisking the items in the Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode series. But this one cries out. It, too, is from Friday's Concord Monitor; why it hasn't received as much attention as the other, I don't understand.

For a model political strategist, Howard Dean is looking less to Bill Clinton these days than he is to Karl Rove.

Clinton knew how to build a "broad bridge" from the center to the left of the American electorate, Dean told Monitor editors earlier this week. But the 2002 elections proved Democrats can't win by pitching down the middle and taking the party's base for granted, he said. Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, has taken the opposite approach to great effect, he said.

"We live in a polarized country," Dean said. "We've got to get our side out."

Huh? If the country is polarized, doesn't that mean that you have already gotten your "side out"? If the man had denied that the country is polarized — if he had claimed that the country is a political monolith — then it would make sense to say, "We've got to get our side out".

Here's a clue for ya, Howie: "your side" does get out, and the country doesn't like it any more.

Dean's Rovian strategy for the left looks something like this: "Really get people excited about being Democrats again. Reach out to the people who quit voting because they don't think there's a difference (between the two parties). Bring third-party people back to the Democratic Party. And crank up the base turnout."

Dean said that his rivals - who include three senators, two congressmen and a four-star general - could easily hold 40 to 45 percent of the vote next November. He said he would "cheerfully support" the party's nominee if one of them wins. But his rivals "are going to look like conventional politicians who are going to say whatever it takes to win." The former governor of tiny Vermont presented himself as a bit more of a gamble - but an enticing one for primary voters.

You may, Faithful Reader, see the previous blog for a good idea of what a politician looks like who is "going to say whatever it takes to win". Gee. He looks just like Howard Dean.

"I think with me, sure there's a risk, but there's also a chance you could win," he said. "We're going to be attractive to the swing voters not because we position ourselves well, but because we believe what we are talking about. And because I'm not afraid to tell people things I know they disagree with, and I get points for that."

There's a chance you could win: I think that's a great deal more inspiring to the Republicans, Howie, than it is to the Democrats you're courting. As to your telling people things you "know they disagree with" — let me just say that I disagree with that.

At the same time, though, Dean describes his platform as "a reasonable, centrist program." He is less inclined toward stricter federal gun control than some of his rivals. And he is a balanced-budget fiend - the enormous growth of the federal deficit under Bush, he said, would figure prominently in a Dean general election campaign.

Dean said he has been mislabeled a liberal for two reasons: his opposition to the Iraq war and his signing of the country's first law recognizing gay civil unions in Vermont.

This could have been a serious mis-step for Dean if any of his most ardent supporters showed any signs of cognition: he is appealing to them as a radical left-winger, but here he is denying that he's liberal, let alone a radical left-winger.

Dean shrugged at a recent New York Times poll showing strong support for outlawing gay marriage - and estimable support for outlawing gay relationships entirely.

Shrugged? That's good news for the Republicans.

"In the South . . . (Republicans) will say 'race,' we're going to say 'jobs,' " he said. "They're going to say 'guns,' we're going to say 'education.' They're going to say 'gay marriage,' we're going to say 'health care for everybody.' The Republicans will try to run on as divisive issues as possible; that's what they've been doing since Nixon's Southern strategy. We're going to have to be really disciplined about running on the issues that we all have in common."

For forty years and more, the Democrats have written the playbook on dividing the nation into groups and pitting them against one another: either (1) Dean honestly believes it's the Republicans who have been doing that, in which case he is psychotic, or (2) he knows the truth and is lying about it, thereby attempting himself to be divisive.

Yes, Howie, the Republicans may very well say all that. And you may very well say all that. And then the Southern voters will say "four more years".

As evidence of his durability, Dean argues that of all the Democrats, he has withstood the harshest attacks best over the last year. "For reasons that I can't explain," he said, his credibility with his supporters has only grown stronger.

I can explain it: his supporters are nuts.

Asked why he thinks the country is so polarized, Dean said that after the 2000 election Democrats simply "collapsed" for some "impossible-to-determine reason."

I think the reason could be that they keep walking further and further out onto a long limb, which is starting to crack.

"The president said, 'I want $1.2 trillion worth of tax cuts' when he first got there," Dean said. "The Democratic leaders' reaction to it was, 'Oh, no, it should only be $900 billion.' You know, you cede the debate to them. Now . . . it's like Winston Churchill: 'We've already established what you are, madam, now we're just talking about the price.' It's ridiculous."

If he's the nominee, Dean believes he can win by reversing that dynamic. "You don't work with ideologues, you stand right up to them. I'm going to point out what George Bush is doing to this country. . . . And I'll do it with just the same amount of self-confidence the president has when he makes statements like, 'We had to go to war because Iraq was an imminent danger,' or 'They were buying uranium from Africa.'"

Dean lies. Bush neither said nor implied either of these statements. But, boy howdy, those wacko Dean supporters just love it when he says crap like that.

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The editor at the Monitor thought he was being clever with his play on words: Dean: Left of Center is Right. He was a lot more right than he knew: this article plays up just how little sense of direction Dean has. I don't know if the Monitor is aware of it, but I'm pretty sure Dean isn't. :-)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 12/28/03 07:29:19 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.