Return of the Good Doctor

Expect the media to resume their mocking of Howard Dean -- a savaging that was suspended a few weeks after his withdrawal from the presidential primaries a year ago, and now will be ratcheted back up. In the following months, Dr. Dean's occasional email exhortations to stay true to the cause inspired a slight sheepishnes, and a sharp twinge of regret for what might have been.

But stay true Dean did -- and many in the rank and file of the party are absolutely thrilled to have the former Vermont governor re-emerge as the new Democratic National Committee chair.

The changing of the DNC guard should bring far more grassroots energy and broader-based outreach to a party which had become too hidebound in its tactics and too calculated in its positions. Those who fear that Dean will make the Party "too radical" or "too left-wing" should keep in two things in mind:

(1) Dean's actual record in Vermont was far more centrist than he has been portrayed in the media -- not the "Republican Lite" version of centrism practiced by the Democratic Leadership Council, but a principled and open-minded ideology that looks at the facts and decides that, "hey, maybe we should have both gay rights and gun rights." It was this willingness to genuinely listen to his constituents, to embrace the internet, to speak his mind, and to rely on smaller donations, that the faux centrists of the DLC fear, and which is at the root of their antipathy to him.

(And when Republicans screeched, "please nominate this man," the Union heard a ring of insincerity and even nervousness... For who knows how Dean might have capitalized on the unraveling of the war and its bogus rationale, or what he might have said to Bush in a debate to get him to come unglued. Kerry was nothing if easy to predict.)

(2) As far as Dean leading the Democrats too far in one direction or another, let's remember that in truth, Republicans are completely out of step with America on most issues. It is their willingness to be forceful and bold in advocating unpopular positions that has driven their ascendancy over the past decade.

After all, most Americans are pro-choice, pro-environment, pro-liberties, and pro-worker. Yet under McAuliffe, Democrats ceded these winning issues out of an excess of caution and deference to big donors. Dean can reverse that by reinvigorating a disaffected base, and encouraging franker expression of what Dems really stand for.

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Posted on February 12, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack