Who's Nader Now?
The New York Times
January 2, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
By PAUL KRUGMAN
In the 2000 election, in a campaign that seemed driven more by vanity
than by any realistic political vision, Ralph Nader did all he could to
undermine Al Gore - even though Mr. Gore, however unsatisfying
to the Naderites, was clearly a better choice than the current occupant of the
White House.
Now the Democratic Party has its own internal spoilers:
candidates lagging far behind in the race for the nomination
who seem more interested in
tearing down Howard Dean than in defeating George Bush.
The truth - which one hopes voters will remember, whoever gets
the nomination - is that the leading Democratic contenders share a lot of
common ground. Their domestic policy proposals are similar,
and very different from those of Mr. Bush.
Even on foreign policy, the differences are less stark than they
may appear. Wesley Clark's critiques of the Iraq war are every bit as stinging as Mr.
Dean's. And looking forward, I don't believe that even the pro-war
candidates would pursue the neocon vision of two, three, many Iraq-style wars.
Mr. Bush, who has made preemptive war the core of his foreign policy doctrine, might do just that.
Yet some of Mr. Dean's rivals have launched vitriolic attacks
that might as well have been scripted by Karl Rove.
And I don't buy the excuse that it's
all about ensuring that the party chooses an electable candidate.
It's true that if Mr. Dean gets the nomination,
the Republicans will attack him as a wild-eyed liberal
who is weak on national security. But they
would do the same to any Democrat - even Joseph Lieberman.
Facts, or the lack thereof, will prove no obstacle: remember the successful attacks
on the patriotism of Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, or the Saddam-Daschle ads.
Mr. Dean's character will also come under attack.
But this, too, will happen to any Democrat. If we've learned anything in this past decade, it's
that the right-wing scandal machine will find a way to smear anyone,
and that a lot of the media will play along. A year ago, when John Kerry was
the presumptive front-runner, he came under
assault - I am not making this up - over the supposed price of his haircuts.
Sure enough, a CNN
host solemnly declared him in "denial mode."
That's not to say that a candidate's qualifications don't
matter: it would be nice if Mr. Dean were a decorated war hero.
But there's nothing in the polling data suggesting that Mr. Dean
is less electable than his Democratic rivals, with the possible
exception of General Clark. Mr. Dean's rivals
may well believe that he will lose the election if he is nominated.
But it's inexcusable when they try to turn that belief into a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
Let me suggest a couple of ground rules. First, while it's
O.K. for a candidate to say he's more electable than his rival,
someone who really cares about ousting Mr. Bush shouldn't pre-emptively
surrender the cause by claiming that his rival has no chance.
Yet Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Kerry
have done just that. To be fair, Mr. Dean's warning that his ardent
supporters might not vote for a "conventional Washington politician" was a bit
close to the line, but it appeared to be a careless rather than a vindictive remark.
More important, a Democrat shouldn't say anything that
could be construed as a statement that Mr. Bush is preferable to his rival.
Yet after Mr. Dean declared that Saddam's capture hadn't made us
safer - a statement that seems more justified with
each passing day - Mr. Lieberman and,
to a lesser extent, Mr. Kerry launched attacks that could,
and quite possibly will, be used verbatim in Bush campaign ads. (Mr. Lieberman's remark
about Mr. Dean's "spider hole" was completely beyond the pale.)
The irony is that by seeking to undermine the election prospects
of a man who may well be their party's nominee, Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Kerry
have reminded us of why their once-promising campaigns imploded.
Most Democrats feel, with justification, that we're facing a national crisis -
that the right, ruthlessly exploiting 9/11, is making a grab for
total political dominance. The party's rank and file want a candidate who is running,
as the Dean slogan puts it, to take our country back.
This is no time for a candidate who is running just because he thinks he deserves to be
president.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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