Reply #37: What he could have done better is to use BOTH FDR and Reagan... [View All]

[cascadiance]

If he'd used Reagan to introduce the concept of the public being ready for fundamental change, and therefore putting him in office for two terms as a way that the current generations of voters could put in context the degree of change he's talking about. Then before anyone could confuse his reference to Reagan as any kind of endorsement, he could have then followed up with giving more of a "historical allegory" to current Dems that showed how the country was similarly ready for fundamental change when FDR took office, and then explained how when a Dem can come in to do that sort of change the results for many years after the fact show a positive effect on the economy, and that with America ready for change again, we need a campaign as "radical" as Reagan's was, but achieve the results that FDR did.

I think that would have been far more effective in not creating confusion of whether he endorsed Reagan or not, and put the Democrats in the role of being who should fix the country now in fundamentally different ways to reverse the damage that we've felt from Reagan's time onward.

But his reference to Reagan is nowhere near as wrong as Hillary's trying to rate McCain better than Obama. With those kind of comments, she helps her campaign little if at all, and damages the Democratic Party so much more. Why is Hillary pushing so hard? If it's not a selfish quest for power at all costs for herself, then she needs to explain to Americans why she's fundamentally the only person with the right mission to help us all that Obama isn't making his strategy or something like that. Otherwise, it's just about trying to push Hillary for Hillary's sake and f everyone else! That is NOT acceptable!

Howard Dean needs to take them both behind closed doors and give them a lecture on this campaign is totally destroying the party and do one of the following:

1) if there is a contest to be still had where the voters can change the outcome with pledged delegates, outline the rules of civility, and where the end game is so that both know when the proper time is to cede to the other.
2) if there isn't realistically a contest to be still had with pledged delegates, one should be asked to realize this and step down.
3) if they both want to continue to fight each other which gets as destructive as it is now, Dean perhaps could have a sizable majority of delegates lined up (along with the superdelegates) to tell them if they don't follow directions 1 or 2 here, that the DNC will orchestrate a third option instead, where the superdelegates will choose not to vote the first vote, and he has the commitment from a majority of pledged delegates and superdelegates to vote in Al Gore instead on the second vote, and he has Al Gore ready to jump in in this instance if needed.