Liberal Lion needs a tiger : Ted Kennedy & Howard Dean

[BrklynLiberal]

EILEEN MCNAMARA
Liberal Lion needs a tiger

By Eileen McNamara, Globe Columnist | January 16, 2005

If Senator Edward M. Kennedy is serious about rebuilding the Democratic Party, he should shelve the blueprints and hire a hammer.

Democrats clapped last week when the senior senator from Massachusetts made an impassioned plea for the party to return to its progressive roots. Democrats always clap for the Liberal Lion, before they revert to losing strategies designed to win the most votes by giving the least offense.

With the nation mired in a misguided war and a stagnant economy, the need for a bold opposition party is as pressing as it has been in the 43 years that Kennedy has served in the United States Senate. He ought to use his stature to pressure his party to appoint a chairman who actually articulates Democratic values.

Line for line, Kennedy's speech at the National Press Club could have been delivered by Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont who remains the bte noir of too many party insiders who do not know how much they need him.

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Who better to do that than Dean, who mobilized a grass-roots movement to mount a credible campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. ''It was Paul Wellstone who led the way on this, organizing and raising money," Kennedy said of the late senator from Minnesota, whose progressive ideals were never more revered than just after his death in a 2002 plane crash. ''It is true that that happens," Kennedy acknowledged.

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Maybe, but given the anemic rhetoric of most elected Democrats, Kennedy ought to welcome some spirited company on the front lines. ''The Democratic Party will not win elections or build a lasting majority solely by changing its rhetoric, nor will we win by adopting the other side's positions. . . . 'Values' has lately become a code word for appeasement of the right-wing fringe. But when political calculations make us soften our opposition to bigotry or sign on to policies that add to the burden of ordinary Americans, we have abandoned our true values."

Ted Kennedy didn't say that. Howard Dean did


http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/16/liberal_lion_needs_a_tiger/