Newsweek: Can Howard Dean Save the Democrats?

[question everything]

MSNBC.com

Can Howard Dean Save the Democrats?

The Vermont firebrand is essentially a centrist—with conviction and passion. He's an obvious choice to lead the fractured party
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek

Nov. 26 - The struggle to be Democratic National Committee chair is round one of the battle for the soul of the party. The obvious choice is Howard Dean, who has the clarity of conviction and the passion that voters hunger for even if they don’t always agree with him.

Party activists around the country are furious at the Washington Democrats for blowing the election. Wresting control away from the entrenched establishment is their goal. Dean would spark a Red State rebellion within the party, but the Heartland’s leading contender, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, withdrew his name from contention after being shown numbers suggesting Dean would win.

Dean is talking to a lot of people, and what he’s telling them is that if a consensus African-American or minority candidate emerged, he would not seek the job. Clinton Labor Secretary Alexis Herman’s name surfaced, but she said she wasn’t interested, and so far nobody else has assumed the mantle. A DraftHoward.com Web site has sprung up, and a Democratic source says Dean is planning a series of speeches “to position himself as a centrist.” A campaign aide with close ties to the governor protests that he “wouldn’t be positioning himself. Remember in Iowa, the nicks came from the left.” Rival campaigns attacked Dean for once agreeing with Newt Gingrich that Social Security’s growth rate should be slowed, and for winning the endorsement of the National Rifle Association as Vermont’s governor.

Dean is essentially a New Democrat who happened to be against the war. Signing legislation legalizing civil unions is the only outsized liberal thing he did, and he did it reluctantly in a compromise forced by court action. Only a few staffers were present at the signing ceremony, and photographers were banned. In the heyday of his campaign, when Internet contributions were rolling in and he was the front runner, he talked about broadening the party’s base and talking to voters with Confederate decals on their pickup trucks. He should have said gun racks because his message got lost in a debate over whether a politician invoking Confederate symbols is making a racist appeal.

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URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6589853/site/newsweek/

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. Dean was my 2nd choice -- after Dennis --

And I saw in him someone whose positions I could live with, but mostly someone who would go to the matresses against the BFEE.

That's what we need. We've been accommodating these bastards for twenty years, and every time we do, they win a little and we lose a little.

Why can't our party leaders get the concept of fighting?

[George_S]

2. Every time we compromise the bell curve moves to the right n/t

[Melodybe]

3. If democrats ever want to win another election there are two things we

have to deal with: 1 the media 2 the voting machines

Both are things that Dean is very concerned about, at least he is serious about them unlike some democrats who seem to think that both are the rantings of crazy far lefties.

I think I am about to start my own all about that.

Thanks for posting, glad to see that Dean is kind of being taken seriously for head of the DNC.

[ixion]

6. yep, and that's BECAUSE we compromise...

and then the repugs reframe the argument to the right.

It's a vicious cycle that will only result in tyranny. :grr:

[bklyncowgirl]

4. Good to see this article in MSM

I'm not sure whether I want to see Dean go for the DNC job or make another run for President. What I like about him is that he's a fighter. The Civil Unions bill wasn't his baby but sign it he did at considerable political and personal risk. We need someone with that sort of street cred running the party.

Perhaps the best choice would be Dean as DNC chair and some hard hitting populist minded midwestern or southwestern governor for President.

Are there any hard hitting midwestern or southwestern governors available?

[Demeter]

5. The Obvious Choice?

Where have I heard THAT before?

Dr. Dean cannot appeal to the hinky-kinky, everything-has-an-angle people who run the place. The concept of Democracy has no angles, no nuance, no compromise. It either is, or it isn't. And that's why it doesn't sell. Nothing that clean and straightforward sells, these days. We have been marketed out of our minds, literally.

Eggs are bad, no, good, no, bad until the public eats fake eggs in the belief that they avoid the whole controversy, while fake eggs have no history one way or the other. BUT the companies that push the fake substitutes do have histories: histories of fraud.

Same with politics. The DNC has no credibility left. They don't want any, either. They just want an angle. In other words, they are bent.