Dean's bid for White House alarms Blair allies

[cprise]

Alliance could be strained by anti-war stance

Patrick Wintour
Tuesday January 13, 2004
The Guardian

New Labour allies of Tony Blair are becoming alarmed at the prospect of a Howard Dean US presidential candidacy, fearing it will create formidable tensions in the traditional transatlantic Democrat-Labour alliance.

Amid concerns that a Dean presidential campaign would be dominated by attacks on the Bush-Blair invasion of Iraq, one ally of the prime minister has suggested that he would prefer anyone but Mr Dean as president, although in public Mr Blair will be careful to ensure Labour and Downing Street are seen as neutral in the Democrat race.

Downing Street's leading advisers have long-standing links with Clintonite Democrats on the Democratic leadership council (DLC).

<More!>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1121816,00.html

[Sean Reynolds]

1. Fuck Blair.

He kissed Bush's ass, well I can tell you President Dean won't kiss Tony Blair's ass.

[dkf]

2. Blair is Bush's enabler. He needs to go. n/t

[cprise]

3. The proper name for that role is "neoliberal"

It's about time Americans learned about this international profiteering conspiracy and dispensed with it (nicely).

[T_i_B]

4. The grass roots campaign

as has been used very successfully by Howard Dean is the exact sort of thing that Tony Blair became leader of the Labour party to crush.

The result of Blair's power mad brand of politics is that the british people are very much alienated from the politicians they elected to serve them, and voter turnout is plummeting over here as people are increasingly fed up with having to choose between a parties whose policies they abhore and parties who stand very little chance of obtaining power. The thing that British politics could really do with at the moment IMHO is a Dean style challenge to the madmen in authority. THAT is what Blair is wetting his pants at the prospect of.

I cannot see Blair wanting a strong democrat in the whitehouse when he is so much closer ideologically to the PNAC.

[truthspeaker]

13. that's gotta be it, because Dean is not the only candidate critical of GW2

Clark has been making the same criticisms Dean has.

[cprise]

16. This implicates the Clintons, too

The difference being that the Clintons gave a universal healthcare song-and-dance show while pushing NAFTA and privatization; and Tony has been trying to dismantle Britain's existing universal healthcare (and pushing privatization) while putting on a pro-EU sideshow. There is a symmetry here: NAFTA was conceived as a sort of neoliberal response to the social-democratic EU (only with all notion of individual, union or worker rights removed).

An unspoken rule of this game is that neoliberals (DLC) aren't allowed to conspire with neocons. Unfortunately, the former gave the latter way too much credit for intelligence, and the neocons simply did not get the wink-wink-nod-nod vibes coming at them - hence the Democrats were routed. Bad cop shoots "good" cop.

Tony's response? Conspire with the neocons.

[The Mighty Boot]

5. OH WELL

Whatever respect I had for Blair is long gone.
I hope they send him packing.

[POed_Ex_Repub]

6. Last I checked, the war was unpopular in Britian..

I think Blair is more concerned about his own political career here than any spoiling of ties with the US.

[T_i_B]

7. Howard Dean beyond the ballot box

Maybe this is why Phoney B:liar is running scared?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1120733,00.html

Dean's bid for the Democratic nomination is more than just an electoral campaign. It has all the attributes of a movement - a bottom-up surge of like-minded, motivated people who have discovered they all have something in common and are now mobilising in order to act on it. Around the country strangers are meeting in towns and cities in their tens and twenties, donating money in $10 and $20 bills and coming away with not just posters and badges but "to do" lists. "Participation in politics is increasingly based on the chequebook, as money replaces time," argued Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone. Dean has managed to get people giving time and money.

The fact that Dean has become the focal point for this energy matters. His winning the nomination would be roughly the equivalent of Ken Livingstone taking over the Labour party. Not that Dean has the same politics as Livingstone. But, broadly speaking, they stand a similar distance to the left of their party establishments and - recent reconciliations notwithstanding - are equally loathed by their party bosses.

His insurgent candidacy marks the first electoral awakening of the growing ranks of the disaffected and disenfranchised - a group not confined to America but spread over most of the western world. Over the past decade, they have protested, petitioned or just grumbled in each other's company. But the one thing they have not managed, until now, is to make a decisive difference at the ballot box. Instead, they have chosen between voting for parties they no longer believe in, or parties they know cannot win, or just not voting at all.

In the Dean campaign we are gaining a glimpse of the organisational methods that could bond the disparate and disenchanted at a local and a national level, whether in Germany against Schröder's economic reforms or in Britain against Blair's foreign policy and tuition fees. It does not answer the question as to whether activists should stay in those parties, form new ones or join others. But it does indicate how, wherever they end up, they might mobilise large numbers of people effectively at the polls.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=29655

[PATRICK]

14. an overlooked obvious point

Actual donations, even mammoth corporate floods, are small compared to what might happen if masses more became involved in that way alone. Actual activists, organizations and people who exercise influence simply by getting involved are likewise small in number and limited by particularism from including a large gamut of normal people. The giant parties feebly tent the masses with no participation and choice into the voting booth and pound them with sterile sound bites in the truncated infotainment media.

A real grass roots movement of big tent ordinary folk who make an effort(most Americans do not) would shatter this strange undemocratic paradigm and reduce the power of what all sides call "special interests" and bring other big tent like interests now ignored back into contention(labor, rainbow coalition) who are actual people, not causes or opportunists or top-down associations that exist only in newsletters and membership fees.

The impression that I feared this was only an accidental Dean strategy plus has dissipated. This is in effect what many Dems have despaired of since Truman, that the masses don't give any real support to them anymore and the relationship between party and non-contributing faithful has been spiraling down on both sides ever since. They have almost learned to live buy GOP rules and political system- where only the GOP can survive instead of the populist activism where the GOP cannot survive. Some even prefer yin/yang permanent gridlock as some sort of ideal stability- which it can never be, thriving as institutional bureaucrats with party flavors.

Thank heaven Bush has provided and broad base of horrors to counter lest only the war, liberalism or money tag and limit the grass roots.
This is a life and death struggle for everything against fundamentally anti-democratic and ultimately suicidal tyranny.

[caledesi]

8. Tough sh*t ! nt

[Spentastic]

9. Calling all Blair defenders....

i know it's against the rules to call out another poster but I'm sure AP would have something to add to this discussion.

My thoughts are as follows. This is totally unsurprising. Howard Dean is not as liberal as some here would wish to believe. However he is absolutely not a "third way" politician. It would appear that he can't be bought and is not overly bothered about ruffling corporate feathers. This is anathema to Tony Blair.

The worrying part of this is that so called left wing politicians in the U.K seem to prefer a Bush administration over a democratic one. This shows New Labours true colours. They are corporate whores and there's more money to pilfered.

As for the term "Blair democrat" it could be the very definition of oxymoron. Blair brooks no criticism, defies parliament, ignores his cabinet and has recently involved himself our very own Patriot Act (civil contingency bill). Blair doesn't like democracy much, it cramps his style. That's why he bottled Lords reform.

Tony Blair has now been shown to have demonstrated a fools loyalty. If O'Neill is right then Tony was led to war because Bush wanted one. He toed the line throughout and legitimised Bush's adventure. This appalling lack of judgement alone should count against him. A Dean election victory may uncover more skeletons and they could finish him. No wonder the cowardly third wayers are worried.

[T_i_B]

12. Good post Spentastic

You are right that Dean is not as liberal as a lot of people make him out to be. Who would you say is the best of the Dem candidates BTW Spen? Personally I think that both Clark and Dean look great.

I think it is also worringly safe to say that main worry of the Blairites is that Blair might not look so good next to the good doctor from Vermont and that the more success Dean has the greater chance there is of people organizing against Tony Blair.

[Spentastic]

15. Hmmm

At my most cynical I think most of the front runners are in it for themselves. Either career politicians or those tending to self glorification. I believe that the corporate influence on policy needs to be mitigated as soon as possible. I fear that all front runners basically fall easily within the "conventional wisdom" box. I fear that the powers arrayed against democracy are huge.

DK is my favourite but won't get elected when most people would rather speculate on whether someone has plastic tits or not.

[Yerta Bulti]

10. Funny game going on here

Tony Blair gives an interview with David Frost on the weekend in which he appears to begin to admit that he may have made a boo-boo in supporting the Iraq invasion. It's all humilty and moving on as Blair admits he "doesn't know" if WMD wil ever be found in Iraq.

Now we hear reports of supposedly nameless and faceless bueurocrat "Downing street advisers" getting alarmed about the possibility of a Dean White House for fear their errors may be pointed out, meanwhile the PM is in the very process of "showing his human, error prone side"...

Methinks some "faceless Downing Street advisers" will get the boot while Tony shape changes into a much more pallatable liberal who has seen the error of his ways. "I was acting according to the advice of my trusted advisers. Since my actions have proven to be wrong, I have made amends by sacking the advisers."

[xchrom]

11. shape changes is right

but he'll have to get permission from his pnac puppeteers for his next role.
britain is a great example of how corporatism is threatening economic and political stability in the west. it's not an american problem only and blair like bush is merely a symptom. just a better spoken one.

[Teaser]

17. Dammit, "Democrat" is not an adjective.

Now even the Brits have stopped using "Democratic"

[Hoosier Democrat]

18. Poor Tony Blair

Perhaps W's bitch is now getting nervous for his own job. Seems Little TOny may have trouble retaining leadership in his own Labour Party. Guess that's the price one pays for being a sell-out.

[Moderator]

19. Duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=311365