HOME / ballot box: Politics and policy.

JihowardHoward Dean, suicide bomber.

By William SaletanPosted Monday, Dec. 22, 2003, at 6:28 PM ET

Dean's populist jihad might do him inLast Thursday, Howard Dean declared, "While Bill Clinton said that the era of big government is over, I believe we must enter a new era for the Democratic Party—not one where we join Republicans and aim simply to limit the damage they inflict on working families." Clinton alumni, naturally offended, fired back. Bruce Reed, Clinton's former chief domestic policy adviser, called Dean's remark "a cheap shot at Clintonism."

RSS

Friday, the Dean campaign denied that Dean had meant to slam Clinton. "If he is the nominee, Governor Dean would ask for President Clinton and former members of his Administration to be a very active part of his campaign," said the campaign. The Dean aide who had written the offending line in Dean's speech, Jeremy Ben-Ami, insisted that the line was "not intended in any way to pick a fight with the Clinton legacy." Rather, it was "intended to pick a fight with the Washington Democrats in power."

Washington Democrats in power? You mean, as opposed to Clinton, the last Democrat who held power in Washington? The guy in whose White House, located in Washington, Ben-Ami worked as a domestic policy adviser? The guy Howard Dean defended against "liberals" when, in 1996, he joined Republicans in supporting welfare reform legislation, aiming simply to limit the damage it might inflict?

Sunday morning, the Deaniacs were at it again. On ABC's This Week, Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi said Dean was running against the Democratic "establishment." Pressed to define the members of this "establishment," Trippi bobbed and weaved. Eventually, he said, "I'm talking about Dick Gephardt, John Kerry, and Joe Lieberman."

You mean, Dick Gephardt, the guy for whose presidential campaign Trippi worked in 1988? The guy who shepherded Clinton's economic plan through the House in 1993 and hasn't held power in Washington since he stepped down as minority leader last year? You mean Joe Lieberman, the presidential candidate who has most fiercely defended and most faithfully extended Clinton's centrist Democratic agenda?

You get the point. Either all this stuff from the Dean campaign about the establishment is an attack on the Clintonian center, or it's the usual meaningless blather that politicians toss to crowds to make themselves look nonpolitical. Either way, it's fake. I think it's blather, but the more Dean talks about it and applies it to various issues, the more it looks like an attack on the center. And if that's the mission Dean has in mind, Democrats would be well-advised to jump off his truck before he blows it up.

Dean often says Democrats can't win by running as "Bush lite." Thursday, he accused "Washington Democrats" of failing to oppose President Bush more diametrically on Iraq, tax cuts, and education. "The Democratic Party has to offer a clear alternative," he argued. Toward that end, Dean rejects nearly every proposition or policy put forward by Bush. "We are no safer today than we were the day the planes struck at the World Trade Center," Dean said Thursday, adding that the capture of Saddam Hussein "does not mean that this president—or the Washington Democrats—can declare victory in the war on terror."

Picture that debate next year: On one side, Bush, the Washington Democrats, support for some tax cuts, relief at Saddam's capture, and the belief that by toppling the Taliban, if not Saddam, we're safer today than we were on 9/11. On the other side, Howard Dean.

There are three problems with this "clear alternative" approach. One is that it misconceives and underestimates the alternative. As I argued a year ago, being a Clinton Democrat rather than a McGovern Democrat isn't about eliminating the differences between you and the Republicans. It's about choosing those differences. You eliminate differences that create bad policy or bad politics in order to focus the election on differences that create good policy or good politics. War? Yes, if necessary, but with allies so we don't get stuck holding the bag. Tax cuts? Yes, but for the middle class, not the rich.

The second problem is that far from freeing you, the "clear alternative" approach makes you a slave. If you insist on being different about everything, you let your opponent define you by defining himself. He's for war, so you're against it. He's for tax cuts, so you're against them. Pretty soon, you're against Mom and apple pie.

The third problem is that it's a demonstrable failure. Three years ago, Al Gore's pollster conducted a survey to show that Gore's "people vs. the powerful" populism hadn't hurt him. The survey showed the opposite. Given a list of 15 reasons to vote for Gore, of which each respondent could choose three, 12 percent of respondents chose "his willingness to stand up to the HMOs, drug and oil companies." Given a list of 16 reasons to vote against Gore, 17 percent chose "his attacks on HMOs, drug and oil companies." For those of you keeping score at home, that's a net loss.

Dean's jihad is even crazier than Gore's. It's almost completely undisciplined. Three weeks ago on a national radio show, Dean brought up the "interesting theory" that Bush had been warned beforehand about 9/11. Last week, Dean defended that remark by telling reporters, "I acknowledged that I did not believe the theory I was putting out." When the Washington Post exposed several Dean comments that didn't fit the facts, Dean scoffed that voters could believe him "or they can believe the Washington Post." No word yet on whether voters must choose between believing Dean and believing the Los Angeles Times, which issued a similar analysis of Dean's whoppers last Thursday.

You'd think Dean would know better. Last week in New Hampshire, a voter asked about his relatively modest health-care proposal. Dean explained it this way: "We did not take on all the interest groups. Bill Clinton took on every special interest at once. It makes you feel good to do that. … The problem is that they have enough power, so they'll kill the bill."

I'm sure Dean feels just as good about declaring war on moderate Democrats, tax cuts, military intervention, and the press. And if he keeps it up, he'll be just as killed.

E-MAIL

RECOMMEND... Get Slate RSS Feeds

William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War. Follow him on Twitter here.

Photograph of Howard Dean by Jim Bourg/Reuters.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

Today's criticism seems to be that Dean will lose to Bush because Dean claims that the United States isn't any safer than it was before 9/11. Who else makes that argument?

Bush is the President who justified the Patriot Act on the argument that American is less safe than it was before 9/11. His Administration is still arguing in Court that some U.S. citizens must be detained for the rest of their lives without trial and without lawyers because the world is more dangerous than it was on 9/11.

Bush is also the President who raised the terror alert level a notch a week after Saddam was captured, confirming Dean's accurate statement that here in America we aren't any safer than we were before Saddam was captured.

Bush is also the commander in chief whose army has lost ten soldiers in Iraq in the nine days since Saddam was captured (demonstrating that Dean was too optimistic when he said that capturing Saddam did make our soldiers in Iraq safer).

Dean's calling it like it is; Saletan's trying too hard to sound like a cool kid.

--historyguy

(To reply, click here)

Saletan hits on a key point the Democrats have not been hitting hard enough. Yes, Democrats rightly argue that Dean cannot beat Bush and, thus, Dems need to nominate someone who can. But while that argument has a lot of merit, its focus isn't about anything other than the general election horse-race itself. Its a complaint not based on a positive vision of the Democratic Party, but rather on a fear of losing. Playing up that fear, however accurate, will only embolden Dean supporters and strengthen the notion of Bush's electoral strength.

Dems need wake up fast. Forget the general election, Dean shouldn't win the Democratic nomination because he'd abandon the successful policies of the Clinton years. The Dems need to make the nomination an election pitting Dean v. Clinton (Dean has provided amply fodder himself). Dean have some popularity, but Clinton is the party's rock star. Since Hillary will not assume the Bill Clinton role, Clinton-knighted Wes Clark needs to start shouting Bill Clinton's name as loud as possible.

To Dean supporters, remember the longest period of sustained economic growth in American History under Bill Clinton? Do you want a candidate who wants to openly seeks to contrast himself with that?

--Adam_Masin

(To reply, click here)

**"Suicide Bomber"** ?!? "Jihad"?!

William Saletan reaches into his bag of illustrative rhetoric and pulls THIS out?

Howard Dean acknowledges he is in fact running in primaries against people currently in office in Washington who have, in his view, provided poor leadership (and have been getting, not rolled, but ROARED by Bush & Company for three years) for the Democratic Party.

And so William Saletan pictures Dr. Dean with a kaffiyah on his head, with dynamite strapped to his chest, boarding a bus for downtown Jerusalem.

Howard Dean states quite rightly that capturing Saddam Hussein has done nothing to improve US domestic security from terrorism, and Mr. Saletan writes...

"Picture that debate next year: On one side, Bush, the Washington Democrats, support for some tax cuts, relief at Saddam's capture, and the belief that by toppling the Taliban, if not Saddam, we're safer today than we were on 9/11. On the other side, Howard Dean."

This is a deliberate misrepresentation on the part of Mr. Saletan of Dr. Dean's position: Dean, in fact, supports the war in Afghanistan, and it is President Bush who has shifted military assets AWAY from Afghanistan and the international war on terrorism in order to invade Iraq.

If Mr. Saletan were to have complained that Dean's position could be criticized on political grounds for being potentially subject to distortion by the Bush campaign, he could not have given a better object lesson for Mr. Bush as to how this distortion might be conducted than in his own over-reaching article (as if Karl Rove needs any such lessons).

--Jack_Baltimore

(To reply, click here)

(12/23)

What did you think of this article?

Join The Fray: Our Reader Discussion Forum

POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES