I this a "Right Wing" Conspiracy theory, or is it true? TWT - WSJ.com
CAMPAIGN 2004
Clinton & Clinton
To maintain their hold on the party, Howard Dean had to be destroyed.
BY R. EMMETT TYRRELL JR.
Sunday, February 1, 2004 12:01 a.m.
So, no sooner does Sen. John Kerry emerge from the New Hampshire primary as the Democrats' fragile front-runner than word gets out that Bill Clinton was flying down to Washington to plan the Democrats' return to the White House, and at this "high level" meeting Sen. Hillary Clinton would join him. What is this all about? Are the Democratic presidential contenders not capable of sorting things out on their own? Two, after all, were coaxed into the race by the Clintons, Sen. John Edwards and Gen. Wesley Clark.
To understand the 2004 presidential campaign we must bear in mind that there are actually two campaigns going on. The first appears to be a campaign among Democrats for the party's presidential nomination. Actually, as is becoming clearer every day, it is a campaign for control of the party for years to come; and that the Clintons are waging it is increasingly apparent. The second campaign is a historic struggle between the two factions of the 1960s generation--once known as the young right and the young radicals--to claim that generation's identity once and for all. That explains the Democratic contenders' already active vituperation of President Bush, who never joined with fellow Yalies Howard Dean or Sen. Kerry in the peace demonstrations.
The most imminent of these campaigns now is the Clintons' campaign to maintain control of the Democratic Party. Last summer's noisy rise of Mr. Dean, the outsider, sent alarm through the Clinton camp. The open field after New Hampshire is more to their liking. It allowed for Bill's high-profile trip to Washington last week. His influence will grow, and the arrival of a bruised Democratic front-runner at the convention this summer will allow Senator Hillary to play a dominant role. What that role might become will be the topic of many a cable television talk show in the months ahead.
Today the party of Roosevelt and Truman is the party of Clinton & Clinton. Bill Clinton remains a mesmerizing figure to those he does not repel. Hillary's appeal is in some ways broader than his. As a U.S. senator she has gained stature and positioned herself as a "Scoopette" Jackson, but one for the progressive bien-pensants. She can represent the transcendent dreams of the feminists, the gay-rights activists, the environmental rigorists.
Behind the scenes, Clinton servitors run the Democratic Party, beginning at the Democratic National Committee with Chairman Terrence McAuliffe. Though the McCain-Feingold "campaign reform" law has left Democratic campaign committees with depleted coffers, the Clintons' neo-Georgian mansion in Northwest Washington has become a money magnet, with generous lobbyists rolling up in their black Lincolns nightly to make New York's junior senator a richly endowed political donor. Hillary also presides over a New Age political machine, starting with a host of fundraising honeypots with cute names such as HILLPAC and Hill's Angels. Longtime Clinton loyalists are directing tens of millions of dollars to organizations under their control, including a liberal radio talk-show network and a moneyed think tank just off K Street, the Center for American Progress. Clinton lieutenant Harold Ickes is directing funds to what is expected to become a $250 million behemoth political organization called America Votes, which will rely on shared polling data, research and mailing lists, including "Demzilla"--the data bank on voters maintained by the DNC. "It doesn't take much to figure out what the issues are and the messages you need to be helpful," the clever Mr. Ickes told one reporter.
Al Gore, the Democrats' martyred 2000 candidate, should have been in control of all this, but for whatever reason he could not put it together. The retired president and his wife did, and when they saw a political unknown stumping across America, bringing in millions of new dollars and thousands of new supporters on the Internet, they felt the ground quake. They urged the New Democrat, Mr. Edwards, into the race and the smooth--though accident-prone--Mr. Clark. When Mr. Dean hissed at the Clinton's majordomo, Mr. McAuliffe, they knew they had to take action.
Looking back on the assault on Mr. Dean before the Iowa caucuses, one is reminded of the old joke that politics really is a blood sport, and by caucus day the blood was everywhere and so were the Clintons' fingerprints. I cannot recall such a concerted assault on a front-runner in any other primary season. Dick Morris was, perhaps, the first to claim that Mr. McAuliffe's agents spread negative research against Mr. Dean. Now we have more evidence. Sources in the Kerry camp and the Edwards camp told my colleague "The Prowler" at Spectator.org that much of the opposition research that smeared Mr. Dean in Iowa came from the Clark campaign. "It wasn't just Clark, though," a Kerry staffer reported, "We know of at least two different stories that came from people currently on staff with the DNC, who fed the material to reporters." Says an Edwards staffer, "These are folks who worked for Clinton back in '92 and '96 and in the administration."
Of course, the damaging Dean letter to President Clinton in the mid-1990s calling for unilateral action in Kosovo, which USA Today published just before the Iowa caucuses, could only have come from the Clintons. There is another report that Jimmy Carter's anticipated endorsement of Mr. Dean faded into a photo-op after Mr. Clinton called Mr. Carter. Obviously the Clintons have been very busy this campaign season. This explains to some degree Mr. Gore's endorsement of Mr. Dean and possibly Bill Bradley's too.
There are Democrats who want to loosen the Clintons' grip on their party. That grip has always been good for the Clintons but bad for the party. Will front-runner Mr. Kerry be the next victim of the Clintons' political research teams? Possibly not--he is the Washington insider that Mr. Dean is not. And it is not clear that he will be sailing into the summer convention with a great deal of brag and bounce. He may be limping in after still more primary battles. Then Hillary will make her grand entrance. With Mr. McAuliffe smiling from the podium her power will be vast. Possibly she will allow herself to be nominated to the No. 2 spot to assist her party in its moment of peril. Either way, Hillary and her husband will remain the Democratic powerbrokers for 2008. Or possibly just the powers.
Mr. Tyrrell is editor in chief of The American Spectator and author of "Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House," to be published this month by Regnery.
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