Go Dean!

Annie

Diamond Member
Nov 22, 2003
50,848
4,828
1,790
Only problem is, it's not the Democrats saying that:

Uneasy Democrats


By Donald Lambro
THE WASHINGTON TIMES



Democratic leaders increasingly worry about the prospect of antiwar candidate Howard Dean becoming their party's presidential nominee next year.
For the most part, their deepest fears about Mr. Dean's weaknesses on national security issues have been expressed privately. But lately these party leaders are going public, questioning Mr. Dean's pacifist agenda on national defense and his opposition to the war in Iraq to topple one of the world's worst terrorist dictators.
One of Mr. Dean's emerging critics is former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta who talked with me recently about the coming election. What he said is big news in and of itself, but it took on added significance because he talks frequently with former President Clinton and much of what he had to say reflects Mr. Clinton's views.
In a nutshell, Mr. Panetta says there is growing anxiety Mr. Dean's fierce opposition to the war in Iraq — despite strong public belief that going into Iraq was the right policy — will make their party look weak on national security and the war on terrorism in next year's election.
"There clearly are concerns about Dean's ability to appeal to the entire country, particularly on national security issues," Mr. Panetta told me.
"There is concern about how does this [Dean´s antiwar campaign] play out a year from now? How can you compete with President Bush on the national security front? There is some concern about whether Dean can rise to the occasion on this issue," he said.
"This country wants to know that whoever is elected president understands the importance of protecting our national security. While there may be one path to winning the nomination, it's a very different path to winning the presidency," he said.
Translation: You can run and win the Democratic nomination, just as South Dakota Sen. George McGovern did in his insurgent presidential campaign against the Vietnam War. But Mr. Dean is not going to win back the White House by running as the "peace candidate" in an age of terrorism that challenges U.S. security as never before.
Mr. Panetta's carefully chosen words echo similar fears among Democratic activists elsewhere in the country, especially in the South and the West.
However, it's not just Mr. Dean's far-left agenda on Iraq and raising taxes that many centrist-leaning Democrats fear but also his ultraliberal views on strict new government regulations on businssses, free trade and favoring civil unions for same-sex marriages.
Mr. Dean has pushed himself into front-runner position in the Democratic primaries by appealing to the party's large, antiwar activist base. Yet the party's liberal wing represents no more than one-third of all self-identified Democratic voters. If he becomes the nominee, he faces a landslide defeat if he cannot reach out to moderates and conservatives who now shun his candidacy.
Recent election match-up polls against Mr. Bush among the Democratic field of candidates shows Mr. Dean polls near the bottom of the list.
He now seems to be recognizing his weakness on national security. Last week, he was attacking the president on defense issues in Merrimack, N.H., charging that Mr. Bush has "no understanding of defense" and that he "has made us weaker."
"He doesn't understand that you better keep troop morale high rather than just flying over for Thanksgiving," a charge that was clearly out of step in his party. Every other Democratic rival praised Mr. Bush's trip to Baghdad, as did U.S. troops there. Public support for the visit was off the charts.
He also said Mr. Bush's "bullheadedness" was to blame for the war in Iraq and that the president was "incapable" of winning broad international support from our allies, meaning France and Germany. How would Mr. Dean win them over? He doesn't say.
As for the war, blaming the president for it, instead of mass-murderer Saddam Hussein and the al Qaeda terrorists who want to put him back into power, appeals only to the "blame America first" crowd in the peace movement, not to mainstream voters.
On other defense issues, Mr. Dean charged that "the president is about to let North Korea become a nuclear power" even though communist dictator Kim Jong-il began developing such weapons in the Clinton years. In fact, this is an area of diplomacy where Mr. Bush has had a lot of success, persuading North Korea this year to enter into multilateral talks with the U.S., Japan, China and South Korea on ending its nuclear program.
Can the former Vermont governor — who has politically embraced the antiwar protest movement's agenda and would have left Saddam's regime in power — persuade a majority of Americans he can better protect U.S. national security? It seems doubtful at best.
Leon Panetta's growing concern "about whether Dean can rise to the occasion on this issue" sends a chilling message to his party — one that Democrats had better heed before it's too late.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20031203-091004-7868r.htm
 
I don't think Dean will be the nominee, Kathianne. But even if he is I don't think it will matter. Short of Joe Lieberman, Dean is the most "conservative", if you will, of all the Democratic candidates. I think the American people are ready for a real change and Dean isn't cutting the mustard on that ideology. But that's just the opinion of a jerk that calls himself "Psychoblues".
 
Well other than semi-personal attacks, I don't think you're a jerk.

Unless something weird happens, he'll be the nominee. Now, if Hillary does decide to enter either before or at the convention, THAT might be interesting. Question is, will the dems actually vote for her in that back door way and/or would that candidacy ensure massive anti-Hillary voting? It would be something though.

Liberman is the most threatening to Bush, substance wise, but dems are not liking him. Kerry appears to be out and no one else is even close. The 'Clinton' candidate Clark, can't even garner media anymore.
 
Originally posted by Kathianne
Well other than semi-personal attacks, I don't think you're a jerk.

Unless something weird happens, he'll be the nominee. Now, if Hillary does decide to enter either before or at the convention, THAT might be interesting. Question is, will the dems actually vote for her in that back door way and/or would that candidacy ensure massive anti-Hillary voting? It would be something though.

Liberman is the most threatening to Bush, substance wise, but dems are not liking him. Kerry appears to be out and no one else is even close. The 'Clinton' candidate Clark, can't even garner media anymore.
Agreed Kathianne, Dean is the man to beat right now.
 
I'm sure this article by Howard Fineman has Bush's advisors ready to give some advice:

Dean Stumbles Over Sealed Records
Newsweek Web Exclusive


Is Howard Dean ready for prime time? I'm not so sure after watching him handle--if that is the word--the issue that has taken possession of his campaign this week: the 10-year seal he placed on the records of his 12-year tenure as governor of Vermont.

IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS, especially presidential ones, the revealing moments--the defining moments--are the unscripted ones. The candidate doesn't pick them; chance and circumstance do. The key is how the candidate responds. How does he (and the campaign team he's assembled) handle the crisis? What does his behavior say about the kind of president he would be? The media (and, through us, the voters) will make their judgments.
The contretemps over Dean's Vermont records hardly qualifies as a "crisis." Still, Dean is the front-runner, and at this point in the campaign season, every detail of his life, career and actions is fair game, magnified and studied for clues to the kind of leader he might be. So far, the episode shows that Dean is a feisty guy (voters like that) with a tendency to shoot his mouth off (voters don't mind that) who, when backed into a corner, dithers over telling the full story (voters don't like that), doesn't seem to know all of the latest facts (voters don't generally notice that) and then tries to blame the staff (voters hate that). He's managed to turn a one-day story into a week-long story, at least in Campaignland, and managed to generate curiosity and suspicion about exactly what the sealed papers contain.

I've covered Dean, on and off, for a year now, and interviewed him a few times. Watching him joust with Chris Matthews on "Hardball" for an hour at Harvard the other day, I can say (again) that Dean is the real deal--proud, smart, committed. But his tough-guy stance will backfire if he's too arrogant or sloppy to prepare for the big league combat to come.

RECORDS COVER MANY TOPICS
My friend and Newsweek colleague Mike Isikoff ignited the issue. (The Isikoff byline alone is enough to make sure the story got attention.) It wasn't news that Dean had had his records sealed, but Mike added new details: that Dean had sought and won an unusually long stay in the deep freeze for them; that the governor's lawyers had demanded that any item with his name on it be removed from "live" files; and that the records covered a wide swath of topics, including Dean's handling of the explosive issue of civil unions.


Dean is no babe in the woods: Everyone knew what he was up to. He was burying what he could of his papers to keep them from the prying eyes and hands of the "oppo men"--opposition researchers for other Democratic contenders and, of course, the Republican National Committee. The proudly combative Dean admitted as much last January, telling Vermont Public Radio in teasing fashion, "Well, there are political considerations. We didn't want anything embarrassing appearing in the papers at a crucial time in any future endeavor."

A FLIP RESPONSE
Wink, wink.

Timing is everything in politics. Mike's Periscope item in Newsweek hit the wires on Sunday. On Monday morning, Dean was asked about it on ABC's "Good Morning America." He gave a flippant--and, as it turned out, ill-informed--reply, arguing that he was doing nothing more than what George W. Bush had done at the end of his term in Texas. That's hardly a strong argument to begin with, but the point is, it was factually wrong. Bush had tried to seal his records, but had ultimately failed, when the Texas attorney general ruled that they had to be placed in a public repository.

After the TV show, Dean hit the road for Cambridge, Mass., where he was scheduled to do an hour-long interview on MSNBC with Matthews on "Hardball." But rather than prepare for that interview, he was forced to spend a couple of hours in the afternoon behind closed doors on the phone fielding calls from reporters about the records matter. Rival campaigns, eager to slow Dean's momentum, had seized on the issue, demanding he unseal his history.

Dean's public reaction to the mini-furor was revealing. When Matthews asked about the records, Dean--with a straight face--came up with this defiant howler: He had had the records sealed not to protect himself, God forbid, but to protect the privacy of HIV-AIDS patients. I think Chris was too stunned to laugh. As it turns out, the identity of such patients is automatically shielded; and, of course, Dean had long since gone on record with the refreshingly candid admission that the advent of the presidential campaign was the real reason.

SERIOUS OR 'SMARTY REMARK'?
Politicians never seem to get the concept of irony: Here is a guy who is running on the notion that he is a fearless, truth-telling outsider, and he's covering up the reason for covering up. What about the interview last January, in which he talked about "future political considerations?" Said Dean: "That was sort of a smarty remark. I mean I wasn't really being very serious about that." Memo to the governor: When you speak to us from now on, please tell us when you are being serious and when you are merely making another "smarty remark."

Seeing an opening, the GOP jumped on the story, of course--this from an administration that views disclosure of even the most mundane facts as a crime akin to treason. When GOP Party chairman Ed Gillespie announced that he was on his way to Vermont, Dean's entourage let it be known that their man would fire back. But then they changed their mind. Rather than hit back, Dean said, he would try to be "accommodating." Generally speaking, candidates shouldn't discuss the mechanics of what they are going to do, or not do, but Dean couldn't help it. "We were going to take a whack at him (Gillespie)," he said. "But we're not going to take a whack at him." To whack or not to whack? Is that the question?

As for the original terms of the agreement to sequester his records, "I didn't have anything to do with those negotiations," Dean explained. Hardly a tough-guy answer, and an ironic moment. Just the night before, on "Hardball," Dean had called President Harry Truman--the guy with "The buck stops here" sign on his desk--one of his heroes. It's hard to imagine "Give 'em Hell Harry" saying "I didn't have anything to do with those negotiations."




© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/1000747.asp
 
Due to the confusion of the numbers, the Dems aren't liking anyone in this race so far. I still believe that Dean will fail in his bid as will Lieberman. It's a toss-up in my opinion between Gephardt and Clark and I don't think either of them can possibly beat Bush. As much as I oppose the policies and demonstrated ideologies of GWB I would prefer him over either of the forementioned. But, I am a jerk, just ask my wife, and I am seriously opinionated and according to some seriously impaired in my views. :mad: :)
 
But, I am a jerk, just ask my wife, and I am seriously opinionated and according to some seriously impaired in my views.

Well Ok, if you insist, I'll take your word for it.

Due to the confusion of the numbers, the Dems aren't liking anyone in this race so far. I still believe that Dean will fail in his bid as will Lieberman. It's a toss-up in my opinion between Gephardt and Clark and I don't think either of them can possibly beat Bush.

Well then, I guess 'the people' aren't so ready for change afterall.
 
Originally posted by Kathianne
Well then, I guess 'the people' aren't so ready for change afterall.

Yep, that's the beauty of reading all the Bush bashing, knowing they will be dealing with him and the republicans till '08! :D
 
So your thing is not national politics at all? Heck, I would've prefered that it were. I guess Dem bashing is what you're all about? Just kidding you, jimnyc. The Dems have a mess on their hands. A nominee field too large to comprehend and ideologies to vast to focus. Well, that's American, IMHO.

It sure beats the hell out of the prevailing "my way or the highway" thing. I've found that philosphy in the past. It usually comes from incompetents or otherwise idiots. It's a diggin' thang, don't 'cha know?
 
Originally posted by jimnyc
Yep, that's the beauty of reading all the Bush bashing, knowing they will be dealing with him and the republicans till '08! :D
Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy....'08? We'll see.
GWB and the republican party in general has a weak flank, Iraq. If they don't get a reversal on the unemployment figures, they can also be attacked on the class warfare argument. ("George Bush and his fellow travellors, have sent your job to China. They'd like to thank you for your contribution.")
As a president, GWB has quite a few skeletons ratteling in his closet as well. Failure of the SEC and the administration to prosecute his good buddy Ken Lay, the Senate Intelligence Investigation, the Justice Department Investigation into the Wilson/Niger leak and I'm just touching on a few of the more glaring ones.
The Dems are manuvering to bring all the heat in the election stretch and who knows how well/poorly GWB will be doing at that point. He will have to take direct, unscripted questions from reporters and he will probably have to debate the democratic candidate as well. He's not a very good extemporanious speaker so watch for the republicans to minimize his exposure, which is also going to minimize the impact of his message.
Its' a long way to the finish line, the Dems are sitting on thier ammo right now, none of them are running against GWB yet, so things like publicly challenging Bush to account for some of these screw ups will wait until after the Dem convention.
Dem challengers have to take some comfort from the steady erosion of Bush's polling numbers since the Iraqi invasion. It's 11 months to election day, I wouldn't be picking out my tux for the innauguration just yet.
 
I stand by my prediction, and was even willing to put money on it! :)

Regardless of what anyone thinks about him, he's a better president than anyone in the democratic field. I've spoken to many that don't like Bush, and quite a few of them still think he's a better leader than any of the other candidates. Iraq may hurt him according to some, and according to others it is soldifying his position. And if the economy stays on the upswing it'll be no contest at all.
 
Theres a very real possibility that GWBush will be re-elected. Not only that, but the republicans will also increase their seats in the house and possibly the senate. What remains to be seen is the after effects of such majority rule.

The major drawback, or disadvantage, to this republican led government is going to be whether they follow the traditional republican ideas or continue to push this new right wing pro corporate agenda. If the former comes to light, then we'll continue to see some tough times for awhile, if the latter prevails then we should all be prepared for alot of chaos.
 
Originally posted by jimnyc
I stand by my prediction, and was even willing to put money on it! :)
I never bet on politics, it is much more interesting as an intellectual excersize than as a wager.
And if the economy stays on the upswing it'll be no contest at all.
Jobs. The dems are going to try to drive the debate back to Education, healthcare and jobs. The producivity number is not especially good news for job seekers, though it does make stock holders happy.
You realize that if you buy the tux and he doesn't win, you'll have to do something hideious like taking your wife to an opera or "art gallery opening". Consider the ramifications of your exuberance, grasshopper...:cof:
 
I never bet on politics, it is much more interesting as an intellectual excersize than as a wager.

Not to mention you don't have a candidate worth laying a nickel on. :)

I'll gladly go to an opera or art gallery if Bush loses. I'll respect the democrat that gets the nod should that happen, although it certainly wouldn't be my first choice. Sucks more for those that are living with hatred for GW. What are they going to do if he gets reelected, just hide their feelings? Move out of the country like so many promised in 2000? :laugh:
 
posted by Jimmy
I'll gladly go to an opera or art gallery if Bush loses. I'll respect the democrat that gets the nod should that happen, although it certainly wouldn't be my first choice.

I remember back in '92, Bush v Clinton. A good friend of mine came over to my home with her 2 small children. My 3 small children were also there, both of our oldest were in kindergarten.

We had both volunteered on Bush's campaign. Election night had us and the 5 kids under 6, watching the returns. When it soon became obvious that Clinton would win, my friend went to pieces. Being a political science major and all, I told her, "You'll get used to him, you may not like him, but he'll be our president and you will accept that, even though in '96 we'll try to put in someone else."

Within 4 months of his taking office, both of us realized we'd never accept him. I don't know what I'd have felt if someone had attempted to assassinate him, though I never thought that would happen, and it didn't. It seems that the military on the whole agreed with our assessment, as did some of the bureaucrats, especially secret service, serving under him.

I guess that is what those that feel that 'GW' is illegitamate are feeling, in spite of the fact that it's been 2 years since 9/11 and it hasn't occured again. As my nemisis said, "I feel your pain," but you have a long row to hoe.
 
Originally posted by Kathianne
posted by Jimmy

I remember back in '92, Bush v Clinton. A good friend of mine came over to my home with her 2 small children. My 3 small children were also there, both of our oldest were in kindergarten.

We had both volunteered on Bush's campaign. Election night had us and the 5 kids under 6, watching the returns. When it soon became obvious that Clinton would win, my friend went to pieces. Being a political science major and all, I told her, "You'll get used to him, you may not like him, but he'll be our president and you will accept that, even though in '96 we'll try to put in someone else."

Within 4 months of his taking office, both of us realized we'd never accept him. I don't know what I'd have felt if someone had attempted to assassinate him, though I never thought that would happen, and it didn't. It seems that the military on the whole agreed with our assessment, as did some of the bureaucrats, especially secret service, serving under him.

I guess that is what those that feel that 'GW' is illegitamate are feeling, in spite of the fact that it's been 2 years since 9/11 and it hasn't occured again. As my nemisis said, "I feel your pain," but you have a long row to hoe.
 
"I don't know what I'd have felt if someone had attempted to assassinate him (Clinton)"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This scares me. I grew up as a rock-rib dyed in the wool Republican. I never thought JFK was a very good President (funny how a little think like being killed raises a person's stature).

But on the evening of November 22, 1963 I attended a memorial mass for "MY" President. I cried along with the whole country for several days. It was horrible that anyone would even think of assasinating a President.

But now we seem to have GOP loyalists and (apparantly) party activists wondering how they would feel if the properly elected President were killed.

Enough said..............
 
Originally posted by killintimer
"I don't know what I'd have felt if someone had attempted to assassinate him (Clinton)"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This scares me. I grew up as a rock-rib dyed in the wool Republican. I never thought JFK was a very good President (funny how a little think like being killed raises a person's stature).

But on the evening of November 22, 1963 I attended a memorial mass for "MY" President. I cried along with the whole country for several days. It was horrible that anyone would even think of assasinating a President.

But now we seem to have GOP loyalists and (apparantly) party activists wondering how they would feel if the properly elected President were killed.

Enough said..............

That's the stupidest thing I've read all day.

Wondering about death is completely natural. And how do you read someone stating their personal feelings and relate that to "Gop loyalists and party activists"? It was one persons personal thoughts!

Typical liberal, always trying to put a spin on things.

'Nuff said.
 
But now we seem to have GOP loyalists and (apparantly) party activists wondering how they would feel if the properly elected President were killed.
posted by kinllintime

You are pitiful, don't discuss, just spin. How? You have no idea of where I come from, political wise. I've worked on GOP campaigns and democrat campaigns.

What I posted regarding Clinton was the truth. I never accepted him as President. He was a waste. Sadder is what I now believe of the American electorate. Oh well, too bad for me. G_d help us, you are probably representative.
 
No liberal by any stretch of the imagination. But I cannot any longer call myself a conservative by today's standards.

But I stand by what I said.
 

Forum List

Back
Top