Howard Dean; updated January 10
I join a lot of people, probably indeed the famous Conventional Wisdom, in thinking Dean will win the Democratic nomination. I will just add that the campaign "season" has obviously become much too long. With more and more individual races--mainly primaries--gaining in importance, what matters most is "momentum." It's not so much whether you win a particular race, as whether you did "better than expected." For Kerry to lose New Hampshire, or Gephart Iowa, is to do much worse than expected. Dean has done better than expected in becoming the front runner, and even some early losses need not be fatal.
But all of this seems to have been decided before a single vote is cast. Vice-President Humphrey became the Democratic nominee in 1968 without running in a single primary. Granted, that was unusual even at that time; President Johnson had delayed his decision as to whether to run, and had even had a "stalking horse" in the race. Nevertheless, HHH put together the nomination largely at the famous convention in Chicago, working the phones and shaking hands. (My favourite story: the busy Humphrey looked down from a hotel room at the demonstrations, later to lead to the "Chicago Seven" trial, and asked what the hell was going on. The true answer would have been: you are being defeated by Nixon, thanks to the hippies).
JFK ran in only a few strategic primaries--mostly to prove he could win away from his home base--in 1960.
But I digress. I mostly want to question the idea that Dean cannot possibly win against Bush. I grant that he is going to have problems in the South. There is no indication that he is attracting any black vote to speak of--Zell Miller says this vote can go to Sharpton, and this will cause lingering problems for the party. (I'm linking to The Corner, which links to WSJ--requires registration). Mickey Kaus says Dean is "cluelessly pre-Clinton on race." (Scroll down to "Dealing with race". Dean is also not appealing to southern whites--his sudden religiosity is suspect, and when he refers to southern whites, he does so in a patronizing manner. (William Saletan has fun here and here with the fact that in the Iowa debate, Dean referred to the "milieu" of the South). He is hoping that being basically pro-gun and pro-death penalty will go a long way.
On the other hand, he is kind of an unpredictable, angry guy, and this may go some way toward being different from Gore or Dukakis.
(William Burton: "The Republicans will attempt to paint Dean as a McGovern/Mondale/Dukakis lilly-livered liberal. Oddly enough, Dean's noted irritability will partially inoculate him against this. Stereotypical liberals are mild and apologetic, not irritable and possibly violent (as Matthew Yglesias has observed, it's easy to imagine Dean wanting to blow lots of shit up if need be)."
This can come across as really caring. Obviously his first priority was to build a base of voters for the Democratic primaries--even, to some extent, new voters--and to forestall a Nader campaign, such as the one that harmed Gore in 2000. This, Dean has achieved. I have referred before to Dean's flexibility, and he is now speaking of moving to Bush's right on foreign policy--specifically on homeland security, weapons of mass destruction, and the Saudis. (See summary of article in New York Times magazine, in Slate).
Richard Perle and David Frum are apparently recommending tough action against the Saudis, among others, in order to continue the momentum of the exciting victories for democracy we have already seen. What if Dean is the only presidential candidate to say he is willing to act on this (neo-con) advice?
Update:
Mickey Kaus has been working on "why Dean is so much less promising than Clinton." As Glenn Reynolds says, this is "must-read" stuff. Clinton persuaded the general voter, or the undecided voter, from early in the 1992 race, that he was prepared to seriously disappoint some major "special interests" associated with the Democratic Party. ("End welfare as we know it," cut taxes especially for middle-class families, ensure government benefits flow to those who work, more death penalty, and even "abortion should be safe, legal, and rare"). That is, he wasn't blindly or narrowly partisan. Bush did the same vis-a-vis his Republican identity with talk about compassionate conservativism, "no child left behind," prescription drugs for seniors, and yes, amnesty for illegal aliens. Dean has not managed anything like this yet. In a way it is a race between him and Clark as to which can be flexible enough to come up with a solid policy initiative that is not (quite) blindly Democratic.
Kaus has also suggested, even before last week, that Dean move to the right of Bush not on foreign policy, but on illegal immigration. Now that seems very "ahead of the curve."
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