Howard Dean: Delisted (but thanks for the help)
Finally, mercifully, it comes to an end.
The only reason Howard Dean had any impact on this race at all was because of the near-disastrous pre-campaign positioning of Sens. Kerry, Edwards, and Leiberman and Rep. Gephardt, who all set up their campaigns as though they were fighting the last war. As in 1992, a successful Democrat, they figured, would have to inoculate himself against the claim that he was weak on defense by supporting the war and base his campaign on economic issues.
It didn't work -- by this stage of the 1992 campaign, the first Gulf War was remembered as a military and diplomatic success, and more importantly, it was over. No sense in the Democrats getting plastered by Bush I for being weak on defense (although apparently John Kerry would have been had he run in 1992). This year, the unilateral war drags on, with no end in sight, its original rationale in tatters, costing us (and only us because of our failure to put together a coalition) billions per week, as casualties continue to mount.
Howard Dean literally salvaged this campaign for the Democrats when he forced the other candidates to take bolder positions against the war. It is entirely appropriate for the war to be a major issue in this campaign, but had the congressional Democratic candidates had their way, it would not have been.
To be sure, Dean was a less-than-perfect messenger, who freaked people out, especially the tastemakers in Washington, D.C., who really got alarmed when he raised so much money from outside the ranks of the political financier class. So for most of the fall of 2003 through the Iowa caucuses, we saw a concerted effort on the part of all the Democratic candidates and a good portion of the so-called liberal media to paint Howard Dean as some kind of extremist even though most of the field had largely adopted his anti-war position and several other themes, and even though Dean was certainly no more liberal, perhaps less so, on most issues than Kerry, Gephardt, or Edwards.
When Saddam was captured in mid-December, it sent a chill down the spine of many Democrats, who figured it would allow Bush to claim some measure of success in Iraq and therefore make the war issue go away, so this was used as an opening against Dean. Perhaps we were reverting to 1992 all over again; perhaps the war wouldn't be a key issue after all. Negative ads were hurled against Dean in Iowa by independent groups and by Dick Gephardt, who more or less sacrificed his candidacy in the process. A lot of the mud stuck on Dean and caucus-goers, blaming Gephardt, rushed into the waiting arms of the more-positive Kerry (and to a lesser extent, Edwards).
Dean was toast. He almost regained his footing the next week in New Hampshire, but the compressed schedule was too much for him. There was no Plan B, and so we've been treated to a rather pathetic three weeks of aimlessness that was painful to watch, and that actually helped John Kerry all but sew up the nomination by keeping the race a multi-candidate affair.
The only reason Howard Dean had any impact on this race at all was because of the near-disastrous pre-campaign positioning of Sens. Kerry, Edwards, and Leiberman and Rep. Gephardt, who all set up their campaigns as though they were fighting the last war. As in 1992, a successful Democrat, they figured, would have to inoculate himself against the claim that he was weak on defense by supporting the war and base his campaign on economic issues.
It didn't work -- by this stage of the 1992 campaign, the first Gulf War was remembered as a military and diplomatic success, and more importantly, it was over. No sense in the Democrats getting plastered by Bush I for being weak on defense (although apparently John Kerry would have been had he run in 1992). This year, the unilateral war drags on, with no end in sight, its original rationale in tatters, costing us (and only us because of our failure to put together a coalition) billions per week, as casualties continue to mount.
Howard Dean literally salvaged this campaign for the Democrats when he forced the other candidates to take bolder positions against the war. It is entirely appropriate for the war to be a major issue in this campaign, but had the congressional Democratic candidates had their way, it would not have been.
To be sure, Dean was a less-than-perfect messenger, who freaked people out, especially the tastemakers in Washington, D.C., who really got alarmed when he raised so much money from outside the ranks of the political financier class. So for most of the fall of 2003 through the Iowa caucuses, we saw a concerted effort on the part of all the Democratic candidates and a good portion of the so-called liberal media to paint Howard Dean as some kind of extremist even though most of the field had largely adopted his anti-war position and several other themes, and even though Dean was certainly no more liberal, perhaps less so, on most issues than Kerry, Gephardt, or Edwards.
When Saddam was captured in mid-December, it sent a chill down the spine of many Democrats, who figured it would allow Bush to claim some measure of success in Iraq and therefore make the war issue go away, so this was used as an opening against Dean. Perhaps we were reverting to 1992 all over again; perhaps the war wouldn't be a key issue after all. Negative ads were hurled against Dean in Iowa by independent groups and by Dick Gephardt, who more or less sacrificed his candidacy in the process. A lot of the mud stuck on Dean and caucus-goers, blaming Gephardt, rushed into the waiting arms of the more-positive Kerry (and to a lesser extent, Edwards).
Dean was toast. He almost regained his footing the next week in New Hampshire, but the compressed schedule was too much for him. There was no Plan B, and so we've been treated to a rather pathetic three weeks of aimlessness that was painful to watch, and that actually helped John Kerry all but sew up the nomination by keeping the race a multi-candidate affair.
posted by JFH @ 12:33 PM
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