Results of Online Democratic Primary

Thanks for the post, MM. Dean is the only Democrat (at this point) that I support, but it's surprising how far ahead he was.

By the way, can you imagine a debate between Dr. Dean and Tardo Bush? I'd give my left nut for that one.

 

Madmax, at least you aren't telling how this is horrible and that the Democrats only chance of winning is to hav Republican Lite Lieberman who makes Bush loolk like a peacemaker when it comes to Middle East politics.

 

How non-PC of you!

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I can't believe that Kucinich outpolled Kerry by that margin or that Dean left them all behind the way he did.

 

Dean is a loose cannon- he can't keep his mouth shut and stupid statements come forth regularly.

He is going to be a disaster for the Democrats in my opinion. I can't wait for him to debate Bush, because Bush won't defeat Dean, Dean will defeat himself.

Of course, Dean is the sacrificial lamb for 2004 anyway, let the slaughter begin.

 

heath is right. Dean might be bright, but he shows too much fang. At the end of a series of Bush-Dean debates, people will agree

a) Dean's more intelligent than Bush and
b) Dean's an *******.

Whatever the arguments are, Dean's a liberal... Dean's a moderate... who cares? Dean is an attack dog. I'd like to see somebody inspire people.

Here's to hoping that Lieberman drops out, Edwards finds a voice and Clark finds some money. Kerry will be fine if he fosters the humor that Will reported a few weeks ago.

 

My two favorites are Dean and Kerry, of course the worst thing about those guys is they got into petty little beef early on which was very annoying. I used to like Kerry a lot more, but recently some things on his voting record don't sit well with me.

 

Here's our little Will's column on Howard Dean
http://slate.msn.com/id/2084868/

Absolute Howard
Dean's national security problem.
By William Saletan
Posted Wednesday, June 25, 2003, at 12:30 PM PT

For months, I've been scratching my head over the Howard Dean problem. On domestic issues, Dean beats the rest of the presidential field hands down. He knows the nooks and crannies of all the policy debates. He's been an executive. He's principled where he ought to be principled and pragmatic where he ought to be pragmatic. He hurls fire and brimstone with the best of them. He isn't one of those wishy-washy liberals who inspire contempt on both the left and the right. And he states his views in a way that everyone can understand and most people can support.

The problem is national security. It isn't just Dean's opposition to the war in Iraq, which is eminently defensible. It's subtler and broader. Every time Dean talks about foreign affairs, he gives off a whiff of hostility or indifference to American military power.

Wednesday morning, I went to see him discuss this subject before the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. One advantage of being there was seeing things the cameras don't catch, such as the pair of shorts that Dean's media consultant, Steve McMahon, was wearing below his suit jacket. (McMahon had a knee injury, but the rest of us would gladly have shed our pants in the heat of the room.) The other advantage was clarifying that whiff Dean gives off. I think I now understand his national security problem. It isn't weakness. It's arrogance.

Dean made a few elementary mistakes during the Q and A, such as calling Bush's isolation of North Korea "isolationism." He also espoused several liberal fallacies: that an alliance of democratic ideals "defeated world communism without firing a shot," that President Clinton bequeathed President Bush "momentum" toward Middle East peace, and that al-Qaida "used our loss of focus to rebuild their terrorist networks, as recent deadly attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco demonstrate." But again, what stung most was his tone.

Dean complained, as he has done before, that "instead of the humility we were promised, this administration has acted with unparalleled arrogance and disregard for the concerns of others." It's an odd critique, coming from the most headstrong Democrat in the race. Dean's backbone is his greatest asset. The last question he took Wednesday was from Jim Zogby, the president of the Arab-American Institute, who asked what Dean would do if his supporters demonized Muslims, as some of Bush's conservative Christian supporters have done. Dean said he would repudiate such remarks. But he added: "It should not have to be a white Christian president of the United States whose burden that is. We have got to ensure that moderate Muslims everywhere stand up to the extremists and terrorists in their ranks." That's as close as Dean has come to a Sister Souljah moment.

I used to wonder why Dean's confidence deserted him when it came to defense and foreign policy. Two months ago, at a forum hosted by the Children's Defense Fund, Dean said of Saddam Hussein, "We've gotten rid of him, and I suppose that's a good thing, but there's going to be a long period where the United States is going to need to be maintained in Iraq, and that's going to cost American taxpayers a lot of money that could be spent on schools and kids." I was one of many viewers who choked on the words I suppose. How exactly was getting rid of Saddam not a good thing? Why the need for supposition?

Wednesday, Dean again laced his remarks with caveats. "Increasing numbers of people in Europe, Asia, and in our own hemisphere cite America not as the strongest pillar of freedom and democracy but, somewhat unfairly, as a threat to peace," he said. Of Iraq, he added, "Although we may have won the war, we are failing to win the peace." Somewhat? May have? Why the uncertainty?

What dawned on me as I stood in the room with Dean, watching his stony expression, is that these comments don't reflect uncertainty. They reflect overconfidence. Long before the Iraq war, Dean made up his mind that it would be a failure and would rightly alarm other countries. In fact, the war was a swift success (even if the peace isn't), and foreign depictions of the United States as a bloodthirsty empire are lies. The reason Dean inserts qualifiers such as "somewhat," "may have," and "I suppose" is that he hates to concede anything. That's his story, and he's stickin' to it.

"Some in the Democratic Party claim that a candidate who questioned the war cannot lead the party in the great national debate that lies ahead," Dean noted. Yet "four of the major candidates for the Democratic nomination supported the president's pre-emptive strike resolution five months before we went to war, without, as it turned out, knowing the facts. I stood up against what this administration was doing, even when 70 percent of the American people supported the war, because I believed that the evidence was not there. I refused to change my view, and as it turned out, I was right. … A president must be tough, patient, and willing to take a course of action based on evidence and not based on ideology."

That's Howard Dean. He claims to have questioned the war, when in fact he answered it pre-emptively with a categorical no. He faults his opponents for supporting the war without knowing the whole truth, though he opposed the war in equal ignorance. He says the facts proved him right, though he didn't have them beforehand. He rejects ideology but brags that he never equivocated. He's as certain as any hawk, and just as dangerous.

 

In my humble opinion, that is Saleton's best article (I have read around 10 of his articles).

 

Here's another one he wrote about Dean just 2 days before that one. Will's running out of things to write about

http://slate.msn.com/id/2084735/

What Liberal Messiah?
Howard Dean, left-wing impostor.
By William Saletan
Posted Monday, June 23, 2003, at 3:47 PM PT

Monday afternoon, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean announced that he was running for president to promote health care, child development, and fiscal responsibility. "But most importantly, I wanted my party to stand up for what we believe again!" shouted Dean. To his legions of supporters, he pleaded, "You have the power to take back the Democratic Party!" Those are good lines, and they got the applause he wanted. But they're for show. Dean isn't nearly the left-winger his fans or critics imagine.

For months, Dean has accused his Democratic rivals of caving to the right. He scolds them for supporting the Iraq war resolution, accepting $350 billion in additional deficit-era tax cuts, and voting for President Bush's underfunded education bill. Dean claims to stand for "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," unlike Bob Graham, who purports to represent "the electable wing of the Democratic Party." But how exactly do Dean and Graham differ on the war resolution, the tax cuts, and funding the education bill? Not at all.

In his speech, Dean warned of Americans' growing distrust of their government. He accused Bush of forcing localities to "raise property taxes so that income taxes may be cut for those who ran Enron." He derided "a self-described conservative Republican president who creates the greatest deficits in history of America." Good lines again. But if they sound familiar, perhaps that's because they've been said before by Graham, Al Sharpton, and John Kerry. When Dean rebuked politicians who "have slavishly spewed sound bites, copying each other," he could have been talking about himself.

Most of what Dean said on Meet the Press Sunday morning could have been written by the Democratic Leadership Council. He accused Bush of forcing tax hikes and spending too much. He indicated that he'd limit the rate of spending growth and might raise the retirement age. He deferred to states and churches on gun control and gay marriage. At one point, host Tim Russert rapped Dean for calling Dick Gephardt's expensive health care proposal "pie in the sky." Some big spender. Dean's defense of the death penalty in extreme cases was even more eyebrow-raising:

"The problem with life without parole is that people get out for reasons that have nothing to do with justice. We had a case where a guy who was a rapist, a serial sex offender, was convicted, then was let out on what I would think and believe was a technicality, a new trial was ordered, and the victim wouldn't come back and go through the second trial. And so the guy basically got time served. … So life without parole doesn't work either"

Executing killers because they might get out on a "technicality"? That isn't just pro-death penalty. It's anti-due-process.

Even Dean's foreign policy views, which do set him apart from Gephardt, Kerry, John Edwards, and Joe Lieberman, aren't that radical. At Sunday's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition forum, Dean said of left-wing candidate Dennis Kucinich, "I don't agree with Dennis about cutting the Pentagon budget when we're in the middle of difficulty with terror attacks." On Meet the Press, Dean gave a perfectly presentable defense of his stated uncertainty that ousting Saddam Hussein was a good thing: "If we can't get our act together in Iraq, and if we can't build Iraq into a democracy, then the alternative is chaos or a fundamentalist regime. That is certainly not a safer situation for the United States." Russert ended up wondering whether Dean had a sufficient "sense of the military." I wonder, too. But mostly, I wonder what the hell that means, and whether it's enough of a basis to label somebody the next George McGovern.

 

The margin of Dean's lead is surprising 20 points is Don King running his election team?

 

It's not surprising at all, actually. Moveon.org's constituency is the liberal wing of the party and Dean's the current darling of the left. This sort of 'primary' gives people a chance to vote their conscience and sincere preference without worry it will meaningfully impact the race -- so electability doesn't factor into it. Dean followed by Kucinich followed by Kerry makes perfect sense coming from the left. I voted in this primary and I really am undecided right now. I voted Dean because I just like him and I like the spirited, populist voice especially in these dark times. I think he's a cinch to get clobbered by Bush if he was to get the nomination (which he definitely won't, by the way), but I like him in there, keeping the other Dems honest and forcing them to play to the base. One thing I really liked about the moveon poll was the second question in which they asked who moveon members could passionately support. I voted Dean, Kucinich and Kerry there, though I could be moved to support Edwards, Graham or Gephardt as well in a general election. I don't have any beef with Braun, but I don't even know what she thinks she's doing in there. She's got about as much a chance as Gary Bauer did or as I do. I deplore Sharpton and Lieberman for obviously different reasons, but were either of them to get the nomination (impossible for Sharpton, nigh impossible for Lieberman), they'd certainly get my vote over the worst president in the history of the United States. I'd just have to throw up after.

 

Seems like this article agrees..By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 27, 2003

Once dismissed as a hopeless case supported only by northeastern Democrats and Rob Reiner’s Hollywood coterie of limousine liberals, the presidential campaign of former Vermont Governor Howard Dean has accumulated “Big Mo” in recent weeks. Dean’s gravel-throated denunciations of George W. Bush and the war in Iraq have set his party’s grassroots afire in speech-after-speech. However, most commentators have missed the importance of the Dean phenomenon: his popularity sounds the death knell of the Democratic Party.

In the nearly two months since the fall of Baghdad, candidate Dean has steadfastly refused to admit the obvious: the Iraqi people are better off without Saddam Hussein in power. During last Sunday’s disastrous appearance on “Meet the Press,” Tim Russert asked Dean to expound upon the following comment: “We’ve gotten rid of (Saddam). I suppose that’s a good thing.”1

Given the chance to clarify his views, Dean stubbornly surmised, “We don’t know whether in the long run the Iraqi people are better off.”2

If Dean represented only an aberration within the Democratic Party, one might overlook the matter. However, recently elected House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (who endorsed Dick Gephardt) recently echoed Dean’s sentiments. On CNN’s Inside Politics, Judy Woodruff asked Pelosi if “the people of Iraq are much better off today without Saddam Hussein than they were before?”“Certainly!” Pelosi beamed, hoping to get a toehold on right side of history. Suddenly realizing she had just repudiated her own position on the war, she hastily justified herself: “Wuh-well, it remains to be seen how we will conduct the peace.”3

How do these esteemed Democratic leaders suggest America might “conduct the peace” to create a worse Iraq than Saddam’s Ba’athist nightmare? What do they think we’re going to do, bring back rape rooms? Rev up the Black-and-Deckers and start torturing children in front of their parents again? It apparently eludes them that even if U.S. forces stooped to such unthinkable atrocities, they would but equal the inhumanity of the very regime Dean, Pelosi, et. al., refused to topple.

A clue into their warped, anti-American viewpoint was provided this week by Edward Said, scholar, faux Palestinian refugee and rock-thrower extraordinaire. In an essay published Monday, he wrote of:

“the awful, the literally inexcusable situation for the people of Iraq that the U.S. has now single-handedly and irresponsibly created there. However else one blames Saddam Hussein as a vicious tyrant, which he was, he had provided the people of Iraq with the best infrastructure of services like water, electricity, health, and education of any Arab country. None of this is any longer in place.”4

In this claim, Said is neither alone nor original. While protesting the sanctions against Iraq, far-left activists constantly parroted the lie that Saddam spent massive sums of tax dollars buying food and medicine for the suffering people of Iraq. (Of course, we now know Saddam diverted much of the Oil-for-Food money into private palaces for himself, and, it seems occasionally, bribes for left-wing British politician George Galloway.)

At last, one sees how the Democratic Left can claim that Iraqis were “better off” before their enthusiastic liberation. For the Left, morality is best expressed in terms of government spending. Sure Hussein tortured women and filled mass graves with children still clutching their toys, but he proved his “compassion” by increasing federal handouts. Excusing Saddam became but the latest effort in the Left’s pathology of defending collectivist despots; they understand that the Supreme Leader “must” abuse human rights on occasion to safeguard the workers paradise. For Said and his fellow “Progressives,” Saddam has become hallowed through his socialism, sanctified through spending. A Bush-inspired democratic regime in Iraq will embrace capitalism, and that, for leftists, is the worst human rights abuse.

This viewpoint, held by the party’s extreme-left activists, is reflected only opaquely in Dean’s rhetoric. However, his studied ignorance of American defense mirrors their hatred of it. Dean publicly remarked that America “won’t always have the strongest military.” Although he backpedaled from the statement, previous candidates (McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis) made this their platform en route to successfully capturing the Democratic Party’s nomination. Although viewed as a major gaffe by the press, the party faithful are likely to reward his comment in the primaries. Dean is their kind of man, so focused on creating a leftist domestic order that he doesn’t even know the number of active duty military officers to the nearest million. On “Meet the Press,” he replied the number must be “somewheres (sic.) in the neighborhood of one to two million people.” (The official transcript cleaned up Dean’s awkward grammar; one wonders whether this courtesy would have been extended to George W. Bush.)

It is precisely this stance that inflames the Democratic Party’s activist base. The only campaign speeches inspiring a visceral reaction are those criticizing the war (Dean), insisting President Bush lied to/mislead Congress about WMDs (Kerry), or hinting that Bush had advance knowledge of 9/11 (Bob Graham’s only applause line). Dennis Kucinich had to publicly question the military’s heroic rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch to generate headlines.5

Dean captivates the party in a special way, though: He appears to be auditioning for John McCain’s understudy. He shoots from the hip and never looks back. He is charismatic, swaggering, and cocksure. His bellicose orations and unrepentant “liberalism” recall Michael Douglas’ character in The American President (perhaps accounting for Rob Reiner’s financial support). However, Americans were attracted to McCain for his biography, which alone lent credibility to his “straight talk.” Americans won’t buy a hard-boiled style chained to an anti-American agenda. At the end of the day, Howard Dean is a loud left-winger whose off-the-cuff remarks are knotting his own noose.

Moreover, Dean has electoral problems apart from the military issue. He has promised a tax increase upon election, still a surefire recipe for political disaster. He also happens to be the only governor to legalize homosexual “civil unions,” granting them the full civil protection of marriage. Although hardly a prejudiced or "homophobic" people, Americans will not endorse gay civil marriages in 2004. Neither will they vote for a candidate with seeming indifference for the military in the first election after 9/11.

All of which adds up to a major problem for the Democratic Party’s activist base: Howard Dean passionately espouses views popular within the party, which are repudiated by a broad majority of the general populace. The two successful Democratic presidential candidates of the last 30 years were both Southerners who campaigned as pro-military centrists. Dean is neither, and he has made that difference his calling card. Like Walter Mondale, he is “further left than America.” Short of an economic depression or another similar catastrophe, Dean would put his party on the McGovern track at precisely the moment the GOP is strategizing for permanent dominance of the political landscape. But if he makes a good show in Iowa and wins New Hampshire, the nomination could be his to lose. If the Democratic Party nominates Dean in 2004, like Narcissus, they will die contemplating their own reflection.

 

Will Saletan obviously doesn't support Howard Dean. Why is that a surprise? Will supported the War on Iraq and Dean didn't.

He starts of with a squirrely sort of personal attack which he tries to tie in to his dislike that Dean is not into military adventures as much as Will.

Steve McMahon, was wearing below his suit jacket. (McMahon had a knee injury, but the rest of us would gladly have shed our pants in the heat of the room.) The other advantage was clarifying that whiff Dean gives off. I think I now understand his national security problem. It isn't weakness. It's arrogance.

Next he accuses Dean.

He also espoused several liberal fallacies This may summarize Will's opposition, the L word.

But then back to: But again, what stung most was his tone. Dean complained, as he has done before, that "instead of the humility we were promised, this administration has acted with unparalleled arrogance and disregard for the concerns of others." It's an odd critique, coming from the most headstrong Democrat in the race

Finally we cut to the quick.

That's Howard Dean. He claims to have questioned the war, when in fact he answered it pre-emptively with a categorical no. He faults his opponents for supporting the war without knowing the whole truth, though he opposed the war in equal ignorance. He says the facts proved him right, though he didn't have them beforehand. He rejects ideology but brags that he never equivocated. He's as certain as any hawk, and just as dangerous


They claim we don't like those who are most like us. From my reading of Will Saletan, he claimed to have questioned the war when in fact like Rumsfeld and Bush he answered it premeptively with a "yes' and he still says "yes" to the failing aftermath.

 

Having defended Dean from the unfair attacks of a Dean basher, let me say that I am probably going to hope Kerry wins. I think that is is vital to defeat Bush and protect the lives of American soldiers and the poor and unfortunate in this country and elsewhere. We can't afford more falsifying of national security reports or global warming studies etc.

Though the Repubs savaged Max Mclelland who lost three limbs in Vietnam as soft on defense and would probably call Eisehower a Communist as their ideological forefather, McCarthy, insinuated, the fact that Kerry is a war hero who wasn't awol from his cushy domestic flying duties like Bush should help.

Hopefully we don't see a future article from Will Saletan attacking Kerry's aid's style of dress or claiming as the Republican spin meisters are doing that he is too serious or looks too French or whatever.

 

Madmax, you're not evil. Just a Republican type who is fairly conservative. I assume you don't equate that with being evil.

 

Did you guys know that Dick Gephardt's daughter Chrissy just came out as a lesbian? That would be so cool if she and Dick Cheney's daughter Mary started dating. It would be like the Montagues and the Capulets.

I think Dick being from Missouri, a crucial swing state in the electoral college with 11 votes, is an advantage he has over Kerry who is from a solidly Democratic state Massachussets.

Missouri has voted for the winning candidate all but once since 1900. In 2000 Bush got 1,189,924 votes (50%), Gore not far behind at 1,111,138 (47%), and Nader with 38,515 (2%).

Of course winning one's home state isn't guaranteed as Gore proved but I think Gephardt would do better in Missouri (and the Midwest and South) than Sen. Kerry.

with Gen. Wesley Clark as a running mate = The Dick Clark ticket!

 

Agree completely. Anyone recall the infamous *sigh* that Gore delivered during one of the debates. He was smarter, and he came across like an *******.

Maybe the dem. candidate will have to be a bit patronizing during the coming round of W debates. "Well, that's a mighty good answer, Mr. President, but let's review a few basic of geography and mathematics, okay?"

Yeah, that's the ticket.