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Politics : HOWARD DEAN -THE NEXT PRESIDENT? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (2667)	2/1/2004 10:27:25 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 3079

Populism Redux Sunday, February 1, 2004; Page B06 CLOSE YOUR EYES and listen to the Democratic presidential candidates, and you might think it's the 2000 campaign all over again. "They're for the powerful and we're for the people," Vice President Al Gore said in his convention speech, pointing to "big tobacco, big oil, the big polluters, the pharmaceutical companies, the HMOs." Flash forward to John Kerry's New Hampshire victory speech: "I have a message for the influence peddlers, for the polluters, the HMOs, the big drug companies that get in the way, the big oil and the special interests who now call the White House their home. We're coming, you're going, and don't let the door hit you on the way out." Mr. Gore told voters four years ago that the election was about "whether forces standing in your way will keep you from living a better life." Mr. Kerry promises to "take on the powerful special interests that stand in your way." Mr. Kerry told Roger Simon of U.S. News & World Report recently that he found Mr. Gore's brand of populism "too divisive and a little bit shrill," but it's not clear where their two messages diverge. The mantle of populist outsider rests as uneasily on Mr. Kerry as it did on Mr. Gore: Both are sons of privilege who spent their careers in the corridors of power. On the campaign trail, Mr. Kerry says he wants to "free our government from the dominance of the lobbyists," yet his campaign war chest is filled with more lobbyist cash than the treasuries of his rivals. But the real issue has to do with substance, not biography. A campaign that descends to primitive business-bashing does not reflect well on any candidate. Mr. Gore's running mate, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, has argued that the campaign's "people against the powerful" message was a tactical as well as substantive mistake, turning off independent voters "who don't see America as us versus them." Others disagree, pointing out that Mr. Gore did win the popular vote and that the argument may resonate more in 2004 than it did four years ago: Attacking the special interests in charge works better when your party is out of power in the executive branch and both houses of Congress. And the Bush White House offers a legitimate target for criticism on everything from the vice president's industry-dominated energy task force to a Medicare bill tilted toward HMOs and drug companies to a tax cut whose benefits went primarily to the wealthy. But as Mr. Kerry and his rivals inveigh against corporate special interests, what they leave out is significant too. The Democratic Party too often is captive to its own special interests, and in the past Mr. Kerry recognized this. He has taken on teachers unions with proposals to end tenure for public school teachers. Citing a "generational responsibility" to fix Social Security, he said in 1996 that Congress should consider means-testing benefits. But that Kerry is nowhere to be found on the campaign trail. It may be asking an awful lot of candidates to adopt such stances during the primary season. After all, Bill Clinton's Sister Souljah moment -- he used a speech before Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition to criticize the rap singer's racially divisive comments and thereby illustrate his willingness to say unpopular things before traditionally Democratic audiences -- didn't come until he had the nomination sewn up. But Mr. Clinton's success was based on his ability to merge the populist themes captured in the title of his campaign manifesto, "Putting People First," with a centrist New Democrat agenda of personal responsibility and fiscal discipline. And like Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry and Howard Dean know better -- they know that business is not the source of all evil and that solutions to the nation's troubles are a lot more complex than booting fat cats out the Oval Office door.

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (2667)	2/1/2004 2:42:38 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3079

The fodder against Kerry will be that at least 2/3 of his fellow Vietnam vets don't support his candidacy. They were outraged & insulted by his Jane Fonda funded radical anti-war protests. Another fodder-rich target will be fact he more than any other senator has received campaign contributions from "special interest" lobbyists. You're correct that Kerry's war record trumped Dean BUT he then negated it with radical protests. Whereas, Dean's campaign contributions are comprised mainly of small amounts from average citizens.