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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: D. Long who wrote (2837)	6/29/2003 4:37:20 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793848

Probably explains Dean's strong showing in the Internet poll the other day. He had a prepositioned army of voters. I think the WSJ.com sums it up well today. Dean of the Democrats He appeals to the party's rotten mood. Sunday, June 29, 2003 12:01 a.m. One pleasure of every Presidential election season is that there is always a surprise. This year's biggest so far is Howard Dean, the former Vermont Governor who has become the most consequential Democrat challenging President Bush. On Monday Mr. Dean formally "announced" his entrance into a race he's been running for months. Dismissed at first as a lefty from a small state, he has risen in the polls by tapping into the strong anti-Bush mood of core Democratic voters. In the process he's yanking the entire Democratic field to the left. Mr. Dean doesn't merely want to raise taxes on "the rich"; he wants to repeal every tax cut passed during the Bush Presidency. Asked last Sunday by Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether he "would consider increasing the payroll tax," Mr. Dean replied: "Absolutely. You don't have to increase the amount of the payroll tax, you increase the salary that it's applied to." Applying the same rate to more income is still a tax increase, and in this case on anyone earning more than $87,000 a year. In Mr. Dean's wake, every Democratic candidate is now proposing some kind of tax increase. It's become the price of Iowa admission. John Kerry once talked about repealing the double tax on dividends, but not any longer. Even Joe Lieberman, once a capital-gains rate cutter, now wants to restore the highest Clinton rates. The Vermonter's biggest splash has come on national security, where he leads the party's anti-anti-Saddam Hussein wing. Unlike the notably back-and-forth Mr. Kerry, Mr. Dean has been determinedly dovish. He says he'd have voted against the Iraq war authorization in Congress, and even afterwards said about deposing Saddam that, "I suppose that's a good thing." These days he's leading the charge on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, accusing Mr. Bush of having "misled" Americans about their existence. More than these policy details, what's notable about Mr. Dean is his partisan furor. While articulate and smart, he's also angry, especially at Mr. Bush. The President isn't merely wrong, he's a liar. He isn't merely conservative, he's a "radical" who is "dismantling the New Deal." The Bush EPA wants "to put more pollution into the air," and his tax cut is denying health care for kids. In all of this Mr. Dean is touching something deep in the current Democratic psyche. The polls all show that while most Americans like Mr. Bush and approve of his performance, a large core of Democrats loathe him and despise his policies. Without control of the White House or any part of Congress for the first time in 50 years, they are increasingly frustrated and angry. Their mood matches that of the liberal pundit class, whose bile seeps through nearly every column. They're mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore. Mr. Dean is doing well because he's as mad as they are. Readers of these columns won't be surprised to learn that we doubt this is a winning platform. Americans have come to like and trust Mr. Bush, and Democrats won't prevail in 2004 by asking, as Bob Dole did in 1996, "Where's the outrage?" There's a debate to be made on GOP policies, but anger is not an agenda, especially in a nation as inherently optimistic as America. The danger for the Democrats in 2004 is that they will indulge their outraged inner liberal rather than compete for the political center. Based on his impact so far, no one should discount Mr. Dean's chances of pulling a George McGovern. A first or second in the Iowa caucuses would give him momentum going into New Hampshire, where he and Mr. Kerry would vie to knock each other out. Stranger things have happened, and they might again if Democrats next year decide they want a choice, and not an echo.