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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (3928)	8/7/2003 7:40:10 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10965

Dean tapped into pure hatred by rank-and-file Democrats of the reigning Republican suntimes.com August 7, 2003 BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Not until Howard Dean, the 21st century candidate of the Internet, achieved old-fashioned 20th century laurels of simultaneous Newsweek and Time cover stories did the skeptical realize he really may become the Democratic presidential nominee. The party's establishment, however, still cannot understand the phenomenon, which is perfectly clear to his own managers. Dean utilizes the technology of 2004 to solve the insurgent's usually fatal fund-raising shortcomings, while his opponents are mired in 1992. He also benefits from the institutional memory of campaign manager Joe Trippi, who understands the historic importance of the Iowa and New Hampshire tests that his opponents have downgraded. But the former governor of Vermont is now the Democrats' recognized front-runner mainly because he is the Anti-Bush. Dean's campaign is a remorseless assault on George W. Bush, far exceeding his opponents'. Humorless and unsmiling, the country doctor with upper-class roots pummels the president. He has tapped into pure hatred by rank-and-file Democrats of the reigning Republican that I have never seen in 44 years of campaign watching. Not Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan or even Bill Clinton generated such animosity. Dean stays far in front of the nine-candidate pack in Bush-bashing. His latest coup was a television ad, run in the president's home state of Texas, showing Dean on camera denouncing Bush (''The only way to beat George Bush is to stand up to him''). That feeds Dean frenzy among Democrats. Every other candidate, even the pleasant Sen. Joe Lieberman, bashes Bush regularly. Nobody, however, does it with Dean's relish. Only the Dean camp perceived early on that Democratic voters wanted no optimistic messages of growth, but attacks on the president who has been demonized ever since the Florida recount. Sen. John Kerry and Rep. Richard Gephardt caught on belatedly, and Lieberman less vigorously. While Trippi is celebrated for harvesting big money through contemporary technology, he is also a 47-year-old politician who remembers the recent past. I first interviewed him in 1984 when he worked for Walter F. Mondale in his second presidential campaign. Trippi had not been engaged in such an effort since 1988, but he is a rare political operative who always appreciated the potential of New Hampshire and Iowa. Those early states have not been determinative since 1988, but Trippi knew that second place in Iowa and first in New Hampshire would put Dean in front and a win in both states probably would nominate him. Dean's strategists sensed that quite apart from the 2004 front-loaded primary election schedule, the campaign was off to a very early start. This nomination could be clinched by Feb. 10, and slow starters are doomed. With Lieberman still narrowly leading in the national polls, his strategists still seem to be running in a non-existent national primary. The intensity of anti-Dean sentiment within the Democratic establishment cannot be exaggerated. It is not because of ideology, despite Lieberman's description of Dean as an ''extremist'' who ''could take the Democratic Party into the wilderness.'' Dean is actually in the mainstream of the party, with all candidates enunciating the same liberal line. Although Lieberman calls himself a centrist, his liberal rating in the Senate last year was measured by Americans for Democratic Action at 85 percent (actually higher than the 80 percent for Iowa's supposedly ultra-liberal Tom Harkin). What makes Dean so distasteful to his Democratic detractors is that he is not part of the establishment and unlikely ever to become part of it. The native New Yorker has become a flinty Vermonter, looking a little like a Calvin Coolidge of the left. But how to stop him from being nominated? Former Clinton (and current) Lieberman pollster Mark Penn predicts Dean would lose 49 of 50 states to Bush, while a former Clinton colleague (unwilling to be quoted by name) told me: ''Mark is wrong. Dean would only lose 40 states.'' This ''he can't win'' argument did not stop Barry Goldwater, George McGovern, Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter from being nominated, and the last two actually were elected. The party faithful liked the purity of those candidates and did not care about electability, and the same might be proved true of the Anti-Bush. Copyright © The Sun-Times Company All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

To: calgal who wrote (3928)	8/7/2003 7:48:19 AM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10965

Democrats' Dean races full-steam ahead suntimes.com August 7, 2003 BY GEORGE WILL Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh asked a simple question, but the answer is not simple. At a meeting of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, Bayh asked fellow Democrats, ''Do we want to vent or do we want to govern?'' Bayh was responding to the ascent of Vermont's former governor, Howard Dean, who at the moment, is the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Dean's face is on the covers of Newsweek and Time, and one of Dean's rivals, Sen. Joseph Lieberman--a Scoop Jackson Democrat in a party more attuned to Jesse Jackson--on Monday described Dean as ''a ticket to nowhere.'' Dean, who believes that extremism in denunciation of George W. Bush and all his works is no vice, has made himself the vehicle for venting by Democratic activists. They comprise the big bleeding liberal heart of the party's nominating electorate, whose detestation of Bush is a witch's brew of hatred and condescension. Its three main ingredients are lingering resentment about Florida (they believe the U.S. Supreme Court should not have settled the 2000 election; that Florida's Supreme Court should have), fury about Bush policies from tax cuts to war and, most important, an almost aesthetic recoil from Bush's persona--his Texasness, the way he walks, the way he talks. They would not like the way he wears his hat or sips his tea, if he did such things. When Barry Goldwater decided to go into politics, he said, ''It ain't for life and it might be fun.'' Politics is supposed to be fun, and it is fun for activists--that is one reason why they are constantly active. Venting--the catharsis of letting off steam--is part of the fun, and is one function, of politics. But only one function. A party is dysfunctional when dominated by people for whom venting is the point of politics. That can happen when there is an intraparty vendetta. In 1964, Goldwater Republicans disliked President Lyndon Johnson, but they really disliked Nelson Rockefeller Republicans. Goldwaterites wanted to win, but not as much as they wanted to settle scores with those who had repeatedly frustrated conservatives' hopes for presidential aspirant Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio. And Goldwaterites knew there would be subsequent presidential elections for a Republican Party they could control after a Goldwater candidacy. Dean Democrats are not like that. However much they fault his rivals, their target is Bush. So the answer to Bayh's question is: They want to govern. Dean's conceit that he represents ''the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party'' is a reprise of what Harry Truman supposedly said when disparaging Democrats who were insufficiently combative: Give people a choice between a Republican and a Republican and they will pick the Republican every time. Dean's mantra also echoes Barry Goldwater's boast that he offered ''a choice, not an echo.'' Dean knows that he must strike early in the process, for two reasons. First, early on, the ideologically high-octane activists are apt to be a larger proportion of participants in the nominating process than later on. Second, there might not be a later on. Given the compression of the nomination process, the Democratic nominee possibly--perhaps probably--will be known seven months from now. In 2000, when Bush lost New Hampshire to John McCain, he immediately fell behind McCain in South Carolina. But Bush had 18 days to overtake McCain before South Carolina voted. This year South Carolina votes seven days after New Hampshire. If Dean wins Iowa and New Hampshire, the wave of free media on which he will be surfing could flood South Carolina. To those who call him ''polarizing,'' Dean can respond: How do you polarize a polarized electorate? Some in the White House believe that true independents are only about 7 percent of the electorate. If so, the 2004 election, even more than most elections, will turn on the parties' abilities to turn out their committed supporters. And some in the White House are beginning to worry about Dean because he understands that venting may be a practical precursor to governing. Venting energizes the party's base. That is why some in the White House say they worry that Dean might be an especially dangerous opponent. But, then, Brer Rabbit said, ''Please, Brer Fox, don't fling me in that briar patch.'' Copyright © The Sun-Times Company All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.