Mark Steyn says that Howard Dean is just the flavor of the month and he’ll sink himself in the Southern primary states.
I’m not convinced. I think Dean will take Iowa or come a close second to Gephardt. He may well beat Kerry in New Hampshire. Once he gets that kind of momentum running, he’ll be tough to beat and the only way he can lose that momentum is if he does something massively stupid. Then again, with Dean, that is always a possibility.
In the meantime, Dean is causing the DNC to have a lot of sleepless antacid-filled nights. He’s already at the throat of DNC head Terry McAulliffe, he’s beating everyone in fundraising, and he wants to take the Democrats somewhere to the left of Ho Chi Minh. All in all, a Dean candidacy is a straight ticket to a 1972/1984-style whooping for the Democrats, but the true believers in the party want Dr. Dean like he was the Second Coming. If Dean’s momentum holds, there will be a lot of Republicans who will get a kick out of watching the ensuing destruction of the DNC.
As previously stated, I don’t think Dean will get the nomination. He’s probably more electable than Lieberman (even though neither would beat Bush), but will be too easily stigmatized as some lunatic lefty even though he’s not nearly as liberal as the media and his challengers from parties would like us to believe. Liberals don’t support the death penalty, Balanced Budget Amendments to the Constitution and raising the Social Security eligibility age. Dean does. For you to suggest he’s “to the left of Ho Chi Minh” speaks volumes about your immaturity, your inability to comprehend what the real “Marxists and Communists” of the political spectrum believe and your failure to see the world beyond a fringe right-wing perspective to detect that Dean is, at best, a center-left candidate whose leanings are much closer to the center than the left.
The Dems know that a Dean candidacy is likely to result in the 1972/1984 fiasco for their party so are gonna do everything they can to sabotage him in favor of one of the candidates who would at least have a chance of toppling Bush. Ultimately though, the weak Democratic candidates are less likely to be the deciding factor in Bush’s second term prospects than Bush himself. Here’s a guy who, out of complete ignorance to the real-world horrors of war, just reduced war to a video game with his monstrously noxious “Bring ’em on” comments related to murderous guerrillas who are putting bullets into the heads of our soldiers in Iraq. BUsh should ask Trent Lott and Rick Kahn just how weight a thoughtless or politically incorrect statement holds in early 21st century politics. The American public could probably tolerate at least one American death every day between now and November 2004 and still feel comfortable voting for Bush, but now that he’s said something moronic and insensitive, and rather than letting it die, forces his leading general to repeat the comments to lend it some sort of false validity, his popularity could easily go into freefall. Popularity in American politics is much less about what you do than what you say. Your actions can be stunningly incompetent day in and day out but few will notice if you give a good soundbyte. But once those soundbytes turn less flattering, your political fortune is in instant jeopardy. Franks’ actions today could very well put Bush’s political future down the same road as Trent Lott’s after Lott said something dumb.
Even if this goes away, the continued economic slump is not. Unemployment continues to rise and the stock market is not seeing any real growth. Couple that with Bush working to take away overtime benefits from the middle class and the fact that the 2004 budget deficit is likely to be no less than $800 billion right in the heart of the campaign and it’s a recipe for potential political meltdown for Bush. My guess is Bush’s popularity is likely to dwindle to below pre 9-11 numbers before November 2004. Whether or not one of the lackluster Democratic candidates will be able to beat him in this “right-wing-even-in-a-Democratic-year” country remains to be seen…..but if Bush keeps doing what he’s doing, he’ll most likely put himself in a brutally vulnerable place by next year at this time.
The Ho Chi Minh comment is a bit of sarcastic hyperbole. However, Dean can be accurately described as wanting the kind of European welfare statism that would bankrupt this country. His position on national security is reprehensible, and he is not fit to serve as Commander-in-Chief.
The fact is, the Democratic Party’s only hope is for disaster, predictions of which have been made almost constantly since Bush went into office. In almost every case, the critics of the President have been proven to be utterly wrong.
The 2004 elections, regardless of who runs, will be nothing more than a bunch of baseless, shrill attacks on the President regardless of what happens. When the economy picks up, which it is beginning to do, when WMDs and production facilities are located in Iraq, and when Saddam Hussein is dead or in the Hague, I’m sure the Democrats will have no shortage of other imaginary crises to complain about as well.
The Democrats have predicting disasters that haven’t come true? Let’s evaluate that a little closer. They predicted his large tax cut(s) would have little to no economic stimulus effect and would increase the deficit at an alarming clip. As unemployment hits a nine-year high and the deficit reaches an all-time high, the left had it right. They predicted our rush to war that in our rush to war with Iraq, there were things we were not fully considering, but in so doing, were met with an extended hand in their face to demand their silence in the name of “patriotism.” The result–we’re now three months into a war strategy that ended when Saddam’s Baghdad statue was toppled. The administration believed that the dancing in the streets would continue until the end of days after that event, not even considering looting and guerrilla warfare.
On major issues from our long-term role in Afghanistan to the deficit to the economy to Bush’s bloody assaults on the working class and the environment, the left has had it right. It’s gonna take more than your Pollyanna predictions about everything gonna turning out OK with the economy you’ve been telling us has been in full recovery mode since March 2001 is just one turn away from pre-Bush era growth, and non-existent WMD’s being found “any day now” along with the capture of Saddam Hussein, to convince voters that Bush deserves a second act. Such wishful thinking may help you sleep at night, but aren’t likely to be views that are shared by people who aren’t so brazenly partisan.
Well, obviously Saddam Husseign doesn’t exist because we haven’t found him yet. Right? Same goes for WMD.
The Bush administration just confessed today that it was wrong about uranium shipments from Africa to Iraq. Even if WMD’s are discovered at this point, it will be hard to say the mission was justified given the treasonous means the administration applied to justify the war. If this administration is willing to give repeated false information to justify starting a war, it’s not at all out of the question to suspect that any potential WMD’s that are discovered were planted by the administration to justify the corrupt cause. THere is clearly no limit to the basement doors in this administration’s ethical conduct. They keep going lower and lower and lower and end up closer to their maker every day.
If Bush’s means were treasonous, then the UN, President Clinton, and nearly every Democrat in Congress are also complicit as they all agreed that Saddam Hussein had unaccounted weapons of mass destruction. This argument is nothing more than a partisan political swipe.
A President must act on information that may threaten the national security of the United States even if that information isn’t 100% certain. Would you really care to set the precedent that the President has to say "well, every reasonable estimate says there’s a nuke in Grand Central Station set to go off at rush hour some day, but we can’t find it, so we’d better do nothing."
Even the more reasonable Democrats like Gephardt, Edwards, and Graham are staying away from the argument because they know it weakens national security. Unfortunately, the rest of the Democratic Party doesn’t seem to be able to realize the consequences of such a stand.
I have to correct myself, Graham is making the same claim. At least in Graham’s case he’s being consistent, as he voted against the war resolution in October of 2002.
Sweeping generalizations which indict a whole political party do not reflect well on the judgment of the person who makes the generalization. We should all try to edit out as much personal bias and unreasoning dogma as we can.