Dean and the McGovern Thing

[MysticMind]

This would hardly be the first time backers of an antiwar candidate have convinced themselves that the truth contains more nuance than it actually does. Arguing that McGovern himself was no McGovernite, his campaign biographer, Robert Sam Anson, insisted that the candidate could "sound almost hawkish" and touted "an almost conservative philosophy."



Dean and the McGovern Thing

By Lawrence F. Kaplan
Sunday, January 4, 2004; Page B07


Will commentators never stop comparing Howard Dean to George McGovern? Will they never acknowledge that, far from being a single-issue "peace" candidate, Dean is a sensible moderate who boasts a fairly conservative record?



That's the repeated complaint from a chorus of opinion-makers who, having uncovered in Dean's antiwar harangues evidence of "nuance" and "moderation," argue that comparisons to the hapless 1972 candidate mislead more than they clarify. Neatly summarizing the revised wisdom, American Prospect editor Robert Kuttner instructs, "Dean is fundamentally a moderate. He was a fiscal conservative, rather centrist governor," while the National Journal's Jonathan Rauch warns that "Republicans chortling that Dean would be the next McGovern had better watch out: He may be the next Clinton." Taking the argument a step further, the Dean 2004 Web site trumpeted the rollout of the governor's ostensibly tough-minded foreign policy team with the admonition, "McGovernize This!" -- a request, alas, that anyone who bears the slightest familiarity with the writings of its members could all too easily oblige. Which is the burden those who reject the McGovern caricature must bear: In Dean's case, the caricature happens to be substantially true.

This would hardly be the first time backers of an antiwar candidate have convinced themselves that the truth contains more nuance than it actually does. Arguing that McGovern himself was no McGovernite, his campaign biographer, Robert Sam Anson, insisted that the candidate could "sound almost hawkish" and touted "an almost conservative philosophy." New York Post columnist Pete Hamill assured his readers that McGovern, who "comes at you like one of those big Irish heavyweights in the 1930s," stood a very real chance of winning the election, while peace activist Allard Lowenstein enthused that McGovern was "in a very real way almost too good to be true. He was a centrist . . . He was a bomber pilot."

The election, of course, revealed that Lowenstein's center was located several degrees to the left of the rest of the country's. Nonetheless, claims that obviously left-leaning candidates amount to something other than the sum of their words and positions were to become a staple of subsequent Democratic presidential runs, including the present one. But the subordination of fact to wish only gets you so far, and simply asserting that a candidate is a centrist does not -- at least as far as a public arguably better attuned to the substance of centrism than those advancing the claim -- actually make him one.

This has done nothing to dissuade the Dean-is-no-McGovern chorus from adducing evidence to bolster their case in, among other places, Dean's fiscal record, his past opposition to gun control, and other domestic positions that could fairly be characterized as conservative. Never mind that McGovern himself had opposed gun control, had voted against cuts in defense spending, had earned poor ratings from liberal groups, and boasted a fairly moderate domestic record. The essence of McGovernism was not its namesake's domestic positions but his vituperative condemnation of America's conduct in Vietnam and on the international scene more broadly.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50821-2004Jan2.html

[reprehensor]

1. On the other hand...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1203/p11s01-coop.html

Dean is probably not the McGovern of Democratic establishment fears


By Suzanne Nossel
NEW YORK – It's an open secret that most establishment Democrats and liberals in the news media are waiting for someone - anyone - to dethrone former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean as the party's presidential frontrunner.

Dr. Dean may or may not be the answer to the party's prayers. But well-connected and well-heeled Democrats should take another look at him, at least for long enough to see what his candidacy says about the electorate and the coming election.

Establishment phobia of Dean originates in the post-9/11 Democratic realization that to unseat President Bush, the party must win back public trust on national security issues. Hence the powerful appeal of candidates like Sen. John Kerry and Gen. Wesley Clark, with their military backgrounds and foreign-policy accomplishments. Dean, by contrast, with his staunch opposition to the Iraq war and shaky medical deferment during the Vietnam War, is portrayed as another George McGovern - a darling of the elite left who'll never appeal to all-important middle-of-the-road voters. Further, the insiders worry about Dean's "anger," concerned that what plays well with party diehards turns off ordinary voters.

But this view misreads both Dean and the electorate. It is precisely because of Dean's combative temperament that, despite opposing the war, he isn't seen as soft on Saddam Hussein, or on much of anything. Democrats are right that the 2001 attacks put a premium on leaders who will stand up to threats. But, rightly or wrongly, policy prescriptions and past military service may ultimately matter less to voters than intangible perceptions of who seems tough.

[pinto]

2. a tenuous, yet valiant try from the New Republic to portray Dean

as a marginal candidate.
I remember a few comparisons out of the NR of "McCain as Goldwater" in the last Rep. primary contest....