TWELVE REASONS TO CHOOSE DEAN OVER CLARK
1. Despite the similarities in their positions, there are some important differences. First, although Clark opposes the war now, he did not openly oppose it when it was popular. He did publish a timid piece called "Let's Wait" last fall, but in the heady days after the fall of Baghdad, he got swept up in the apparent victory and conveniently lost whatever reservations he had about the war. On this point, he published an article in the London Times this spring, deliriously proclaiming how "freedom was at hand." Dean is the only candidate who firmly stood in opposition to the war at every stage and did not let its popularity cloud his judgment. Isn’t that the sign of a great leader? Dean is the only one who has consistently shown leadership on this issue. Clark only had the courage to speak out against the war when it was clear that it had become politically safe to do so and when it became clear that the war was not going so well after all. Despite the fact that Clark is the military man, Dean has shown himself to be far more courageous on the political battlefield. Dean is the ONLY candidate who has shown that he has a spine.
2. Clark is a good candidate and has some interesting ideas about a "new patriotism," but Dean is the one who is really inspiring, energizing and mobilizing people. The Clark campaign is run by party insiders; it is all about playing it safe with an image and an innocuous message that can appeal to mainstream America enough to beat Bush. Dean is not about just trying to win the next election; he is about trying to give power back to the people who have been disenfranchised by corporate interests and disengaged from the political process by the incessant replay of empty images and innocuous messages every political season. Dean wants to usher in a new era of democracy driven from the ground up. He has been creating this new democracy by using the Internet to mobilize new participants and combat the unfair political privileges of the wealthy. Dean wants to transfer power to a new generation that is not stuck in outmoded Cold War models of viewing the world, that is not stuck in outmoded 1950s-era values about sexuality, and that does not condone running up a huge national credit card debt that the same generation will have to pay for later. These ideas would all be nice if they were merely ideas, but Dean has a rare ability to actually inspire people and to get them to believe that change is possible. He has gotten the ball rolling in a big way, and if you vote for him, you are voting for a change in the way politics is done. If you join in, you are recognizing that this is a rare moment in which change can actually happen in America. These moments don't happen often --maybe once every 30 years. The possibility of real change is happening now with the Dean campaign--don't you want to give energy to this movement, or do you want to miss this rare opportunity?
3. Dean has had the guts to say the truth: that ALL Bush tax cuts will need to be repealed to balance the budget. Clark is playing politics as usual by saying that only some of them need to be repealed. It’s not true; he’s just saying whatever needs to be said to get elected, and when he takes office, he won’t balance the budget. If that’s what you want, vote for Clark. If you want someone with enough backbone to tell people up front what sacrifices will be required for fiscal responsibility, then vote for Howard Dean.
4. Dean is a congenial man of the people, a fighter, a hardy Vermonter, a hockey dad, a former wrestler, and a brilliant, creative intellect. His mastery of issues is reminiscent of Clinton's. (Oh, and he's an MD with a background in finance.) Watching Dean work a room is a sight to behold. It's amazing how genuine and comfortable he is talking to ordinary citizens. When a supporter says something with which Dean disagrees, Dean will look him straight in the eye and tell him why he disagrees. Clark, on the other hand, is much more avuncular and removed. He's a little like Kerry in this regard. You can tell he's used to a certain distance between himself and everyday people. He's not used to being challenged, and he doesn't have great mastery of issues beyond foreign policy. Clark, for all of his virtues as a general, is more image than substance as a politician. Basically, if you support Clark, you may win, but you'd have passed an opportunity to seize this moment to promote real reform of the democratic process.
5. Dean is running a brilliant campaign, so much so that every other candidate is now trying to imitate his message and his Web site. Clark in particular has echoed many of Dean’s lines on the campaign tour and has created a Web site cut out of Dean’s mold (but that has only 10% of Dean’s activity, at most). What I’m wondering is, what happens if Dean is gone and Wes can no longer crib his notes off Dean? Dean is THE source of political innovation in modern-day politics. He is the fresh voice, the exciting voice. If you want to preserve the source of new ideas *after* election, vote for Dean. If you want political change *after* your candidate is elected, vote for Dean.
6. Dean was the first candidate to rush to California to back Davis, even though this was an unpopular move at the time. Time and again, Dean has shown that he has the courage to lead, even when there doesn’t seem to be a political benefit. By showing personal courage, he clears the path, and other candidates follow his moves.
7. If you want to be president in this country, you need to be a fighter, not just a supervisor calling shots from 30,000 feet. Dean is the former; Wes is the latter. If you’re not a fighter, you’ll end up appeasing the right-wing yet again. Clark is a decent man, but it doesn’t look like he has much fight left in him. To fight the Limbaughs and the De Lays and the Cheneys and the Savages and the O’Reillys, we will need a ferocious, tenacious fighter. In the face of such opposition, only Dean can be trusted to stand his ground in defense of our values. I firmly believe that every other candidate—including Wes Clark—is afraid of the right-wing and will seek to appease them again as soon as he is elected.
8. I think Dean and Clark are head and shoulders above every other Democratic candidate. My dream ticket is Dean-Clark. Clark is ideal for a VP because he has no political experience but neutralizes some of the demographic problems Dean might face in a general election. If you remember back to Clinton's first election-- he was trailing Bush in a big way until he stood next to Gore. Dean-Clark, like Clinton-Gore, has the look and feel of a winner. These are two men who are both smart and strong. A doctor and a general, both with finance backgrounds. The only problem is, you're only likely to get Dean AND Clark if you vote for Dean. If Dean wins, he's likely to pick Clark as the VP. If Clark wins, he's likely to be coached into choosing someone else, such as Hillary. The people that run Clark's campaign do not like the grassroots insurgency of the Dean campaign. They want politics as usual because that is a process they think they can control. I want the Dean-Clark ticket, and of those two men, Dean is the more exciting, experienced candidate, the one with the fresher ideas, the stronger resolve, and the sharper mind. His would be a much more exciting candidacy than Clark’s. Clark just needs to sit there and say, “dissent is patriotic” while clad in a military uniform. That sounds like a good job for a VP.
9. The Clark candidacy is all about making compromises to the right wing of the electorate. Clark is being coached not to offend Republicans because he needs to appeal to moderates in the general election. The problem with this strategy is that it's exactly what Democrats have been doing for the past 20 years, and in doing so, we've lost considerable influence. The Republicans have not made a single compromise in our direction since 1980. They are holding their ground or inching to the right in every election, and Democrats keep moving more and more to the right so as not to offend "middle America." This unwillingness to fight Republicans has skewed the political landscape so much that anyone moderate is now considered “liberal.” Anyone who listens to NPR and is demonstrably more informed about Iraq is considered a “liberal.” (http://www.sunspot.net/features/lifestyle/bal-to.fox04oct04,0,3378189.story?coll=bal-pe-today)Anyone who espouses George Bush senior’s principles on foreign policy (Dean) is considered “liberal.” It’s totally out of whack, and nobody but Dean has had the guts to stand up and say so. He is the only person who has had the courage to point out what is painfully obvious -- that politics in America has been hijacked by the right wing. In doing so, he shows us that he is the only one that can actually represent our VALUES and not just our party. Howard Dean is the one that can stand up in the crowd and say, "The emperor has no clothes." Clark, for all his virtues, does not have that.
10. People like Clark because they think he has the best shot against Bush. But don't underestimate Dean for a few reasons. Men in the South and Nascar Dads may otherwise be inclined to vote Democrat, but they think Democrats are "wusses" and not real men. Dean can neutralize this because he is by far the candidate that appears the "toughest." David Gergen spoke about how his Republican college students in Mississippi were extremely impressed by the image of strength that Dean projected in the last debate. Don't discount this point--it is a huge factor in every election. Another reason why Dean will beat Bush is that with Dean's mastery of issues, he will destroy Bush in the debates. Clark will look good next to Bush too, but Clark is not nearly as sharp as Dean, and he could feasibly be portrayed as someone with too little experience for the job. Dean, in constrast, actually has many years of experience as an executive. The presidency is not a place to learn politics as you go. (Eisenhower could do it only because the world was a lot simpler then.) Finally, an important reason Dean will beat Bush is that because Dean can actually excite people, he will get huge numbers of people out to vote for him. If many more democrats become likely voters, they will win.
11. Clark is basically Dean Lite. Go for the real deal.
12. Read this--it's from The New Republic.
tnr.com
DOES THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE FAVOR DEAN?: Today's edition of Roll Call reports that a group of Republican pollsters believes Howard Dean represents a serious threat to George W. Bush. Interestingly, the pollsters make two of the points we've been flogging here for the past several months: 1) Dean is the one guy capable of exciting the Democratic base without alienating moderates--since the substance of most of his policy positions is pretty moderate. 2) Dean's appeal has less to do with specific policies than with his personal charisma and apparent plainspoken-ness. The way we see it, this fact leaves Dean a ton of room to moderate himself on substance without alienating his more liberal supporters.
One interesting point the pollsters bring up that we hadn't even considered is that Dean may actually be well-suited to pick up the marginal electoral-college states a Democrat needs to win the presidency. The article cites Nevada and West Virginia in particular--the former because Dean could focus his anti-Bush vitriol on the administration's plans to turn the state into a nuclear waste dump, and the latter because Dean's moderate position on gun control could bring blue-collar voters back into the Democratic fold. (Al Gore narrowly lost the traditionally Democratic state in 2000 thanks to defections among these voters.)
What's truly amazing is that Nevada and West Virginia are (theoretically) the only two states Bush carried in 2000 that Dean would need to carry in order to win the electoral college. Meanwhile, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to think Dean would hold his own in the states Gore won. After all, the winning margin in many of the states Gore carried only narrowly--Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, even Florida--was depressed because of defections to Nader or broader liberal dissatisfaction with Gore. Dean's aggressive criticism of the president should only help him here.
Maybe the broader point is that in red/blue America, a reasonably competent Democratic nominee starts with close to 250 electoral college votes. If he can just slice off a couple more here and there, he can make a pretty compelling run for the White House.
Posted on the DeanforAmerica Blog by JC Mackin
October 7, 2003 04:29 PM
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