The "Dean o phobe." New Republic
ANOTHER EMAIL:
Ok, so I emailed you when you first starting this blog, berating you etc. etc.
But last night, I officially "unsubscribed" from blogforamerica.com and instead, sent John Edwards $50. Dean's speech, was well, freaky. Less mentioned, but just as weird, was his incredibly testy interviews on both MSNBC and Larry King during the night's TV coverage. He just looked like he had a pole up his a**.
I like Dean. I think his critique of the DC Democrats' fecklessness during the George W administration, culminating in the disastrous '02 midterm campaign and the run-up to war, was necessary and on point. But as you've pointed out, he'll be mince meat to Rove and company. Drudge has been having a field day today....imagine if he was the nominee.
Anyway, I'm starting to get fired up for Edwards.
By the way, the emailer quoted in the previous item now supports Clark. If Dean implodes, the question of the day may be what happens to the ex-Deaniacs.
posted 7:02 p.m.
E-mail the Dean-o-phobe
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STILL MORE ON THE MEANING OF IOWA: It's only now starting to sink in just how badly Dean wounded himself with that speech last night. I think it will be the defining event of his political career, like Ed Muskie crying or Gary Hart's infidelity. Here's one email I've gotten:
Dean is toast.
I've supported Dean since May (an ABB Deaniac--anybody but Bush, and I really thought Dean had the best chance, maybe with the exception of Clark). I've written you letters decrying your Dean-o-phobia, defending the doctor.
But the veil has been lifted. The light bulb has gone on. The screech-speech last night WAS truly bizarre. I thought he was a brilliant campaigner, but clearly he screwed up royally in the weeks ahead of the caucus.
I realize that trying to draw conclusions about public opinion from your emails is about the least reliable gague of public opinion you could devise. But I have seen sentiments like this elsewhere. The floor under Dean's support may be far lower than I thought, and he may not get past New Hampshire.
Another thought on what Iowa means: As others have noted, voters no longer regard Iraq as the seminal political issue of the race. That's an extremely auspicious sign for Democrats. Dean's most important effect on the race was to make Iraq the ultimate litmus test of ideological purity. Iraq is a perfect wedge issue for Republicans--most voters support it, but most Democrats oppose it. Dean's harping on Iraq put Democrats in a no-win situation. In order to win they must somehow fudge the issue.
Now, fudging Iraq sounds bad, but I think it's actually defensible on moral grounds. The decision to go to war is over. It should not matter what position a candidate took except insofar as it reflects on that candidate's future foreign policies. Therefore I think nominating a candidate who agreed that Saddam Hussein represented a terrible threat, but disagreed with how Bush addressed that threat, is both intellectually and politically tenable. All the major candidates argue, plausibly, they could have handled the issue better. John Edwards argues that, given the choice between Bush's invasion and no invasion he'd take Bush's invasion. (That's my position, too.) Wes Clark and John Kerry argue the opposite. But the intellectual distance between those two positions is not that great, at least as far as what the difference implies about how those candidates would handle foreign policy if elected.
In any case, elevating the distance between those two positions into a moral fetish is politically stupid and substantively groundless. Iowa's greatest legacy may have been to deal a mortal wound to that fetishism. |
