June
23rd, Burlington, VT. Gov.
Dean announces his
candidacy
for president. Photo: John Petitt,
DeanforAmerica.com)
They say that confession is good for the soul, so here's mine: Howard Dean
was not my first choice of candidates to face George W. Bush in the 2004
election. He is not as liberal as I am - and yes, conservative media
pundits, calling Dean a far-left liberal is far from an accurate portrayal
of the man's record - and as this is primary season, I was afforded the
opportunity to choose among a broad field of contenders. Had I been given
my druthers, I would have seen either Dennis Kucinich or John Kerry run
away and hide with the nomination.
Which brings us to the old folk saying: "If you want to make God laugh,
tell Him your plans." In all electoral likelihood, it will be the former
Governor of Vermont who will run away and hide with the nomination. No
votes have been cast yet, and the official score in the primary race is
still zero to zero to zero to zero to zero to zero to zero to zero.
But if polling numbers in Iowa and New Hampshire are any indication, the
front-loaded primary season designed by the folks at the DNC to pick a
nominee as quickly as possible will be catapulting Dean into the driver's
seat well before pitchers and catchers report in for spring training.
Dean's campaign has been, for my money, one of the most remarkable
electoral phenomena in recent memory.
He has forever changed the face of American political campaigning with his
use of Al Gore's internet. His fundraising abilities have been second to
none. He has captured the hearts of the ultra-liberal base, and pulled more
than a few Greens along in his wake, while being a centrist budget hawk
with a 100% approval rating from the NRA.
Figure that one out and you've got a stellar dissertation for your
Political Science PhD.
Or maybe not. At the end of the day, there is one reason Howard Dean
stands ready to grasp the brass ring in Boston. He stood up before the
die-hard base of the Democratic Party before, and in the aftermath, of an
unnecessary, criminal war. He stood up after two years of hide-the-ball
from Bush and the boys regarding September 11. He stood up after that base
had endured one of the most ruthless anti-liberal propaganda campaigns
since Joe McCarthy held a key to the Congressional washroom. He stood up
after this country got lied to again and again and again. He stood up
within the confines of a mainstream news media structure that has done more
to cover Bush's backside than anyone could have possibly imagined. He stood
up when too many of the other Democratic candidates sat on their hands and
played it safe. He stood up and roared, "I want my country back!"
Call Dean a centrist/conservative/whatever at your whim, but the difference
between the politics of Howard Dean and the politics of George W. Bush can
only be measured in parsecs. That is also the difference between George W.
Bush and the mores of a vast majority of the people within this country.
We have spent the last three years being ruled by fear, deliberately and
with intent. We have spent the last three years being ruled by a man who
had the unmitigated gall to stand before the American people on October 4,
2001, while a pall of poison smoke still hung over the smoldering graveyard
where once stood two soaring towers, and say, "We need to counter the shock
wave of the evildoer by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by
thinking about tax rebates."
Howard Dean wants his country back, and so do I, and all the electoral math
is pointing more and more every day to the fact that if we are to take this
country back from the brigands, we will be doing it in Howard Dean's army.
Annie get your gun, I'll bar the door.
There are other electoral realities in play here, however, and they must
be addressed.
In the last several weeks, an 'Anyone But Dean' movement has begun to form
within the power structure of the Democratic Party. A large portion of the
basis for this is the idea that Dean is dead meat against Bush in the
general election.
We will come to that in a moment.
This anti-Dean movement has spawned some of the most virulent and
self-destructive behavior to be seen within the Democratic party since the
Copperheads went to Canada to try and overthrow Lincoln's government.
The commercial that ran in Iowa attacking Dean while showing a picture of
Osama bin Laden was something that could have sprung straight out of the
fetid soil that holds the ruthless remains of political assassin Lee
Atwater.
There was no excuse for this, and whoever cobbled that particular chunk of
filth together should be deeply ashamed of themselves. Just today, some
within the party are saying Howard Dean is using his dead brother, the one
they pulled out of a shallow grave in Laos, for political gain. Cowards can
be brave in their anonymity, it seems.
The best attack to come down the pike has centered around Dean's comment
that America is not safer after the capture of Saddam Hussein.
Criticism came from three different directions simultaneously, all of which
attempted to make the argument that Dean's comment meant he has no concept
of foreign policy.
The weevil in the bread loaf here is that Howard Dean was absolutely
correct. Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, no connections to al
Qaeda, no conventional army worth a hill of beans, and posed no threat
whatsoever to America that was worthy of war. The shaggy man pulled out of
that hole certainly deserves what is coming his way because of the way he
treated his own people, but to claim that his capture somehow makes America
safer does not at all wed to the facts in hand.
I am certainly not one to say that the other candidates should run up the
white flag and surrender their campaigns before any votes have been cast.
At bottom, this would be a disservice to democracy, that messy system
crafted by the Founders to ensure a healthy, vigorous, bare-knuckled
debate. How can we see who and what we are voting for if the candidates and
their campaigns sit quietly and politely, smiling beatific smiles?
Democracy is supposed to be loud and unruly. If a candidate cannot cope
with the elbows being thrown within his or her own party, they have no
chance to survive what is coming from the opposition, and so we do what we
do.
But the ad in Iowa, the nonsense about Hussein's capture, and these most
recent smears about Dean's brother, are a cancer. It smacks of bitterness,
of candidates who thought it was their turn and now feel thwarted by this
doctor who came out of nowhere.
It smells like brimstone, because if it continues, it will return to haunt
us in the general election, the "Dean can't win" claims will become a
self-fulfilling prophecy, Bush will secure victory in 2004, and we will
reap the whirlwind.
If the Democratic party eats itself over the nomination of Howard Dean, it
will cease to exist as a viable force in America, and deservedly so. Memo
to the DLC and DNC: You have been warned.
The other side of that coin is the Dean campaign itself. In what is
probably a reaction to the 'Anyone But Dean' attacks, his campaign has been
lavishing criticism on "Washington Democrats" and the Clintonian center.
In essence, it sounds on occasion like Dean is running more against the
Democratic party than he is against George W. Bush. While this kind of
campaigning is effective in inspiring the base, which is deeply annoyed
because they feel that too many of the party's standard-bearers have given
up too much ground to Bush, it puts Dean in a tough position down the road.
The moderates and the centrists are going to have to come on board after
the nomination if Dean is to win this thing, and such talk will make it
hard for them to do so with the necessary enthusiasm.
As for the aforementioned electability factor, the argument at this point
is coming closer each day to being moot. The other candidates claim Dean
cannot win as they lose to him in poll after poll. I could argue that the
Red Sox would have won the World Series this past year, but that argument
is made silly by the fact that they didn't get past the Yankees.
If Dean wins the nomination, and the other candidates along with the party
apparatus get on the bus, the only thing left to do is to figure out a way
to describe the abominable record of George W. Bush to the electorate in a
way they can understand. That shouldn't be too hard, I think.
A lot of people within the GOP, Karl Rove and Tom DeLay most
recently, are making gleeful noises at the prospect of facing Howard Dean
in the general election.
If they get that chance, they will be facing a candidate who has already
overcome enormous odds. They will be facing a candidate whose instant
reaction message team has not missed a beat. They will be facing a
candidate whose seeming deficiencies are well-matched by his incredible
strengths. They will be facing an army of people who want their country
back, an army riding on the words of Victor Hugo: "There is nothing more
powerful than an idea whose time has come."
The idea here, simply, is that George W. Bush must go.
In other words, they will be facing another old folk saying. Be careful
what you wish for. You just might get it.
____________________________
William Rivers Pitt is the Managing Editor of truthout.org. He is a New
York Times and international best-selling author of three books - "War On
Iraq," available from Context Books, "The Greatest Sedition is Silence,"
available from Pluto Press, and "Our Flag, Too: The Paradox of Patriotism,"
available in August from Context Books.
|
