Dean's gift to the GOP
Toolbox
Published: December 8, 2005
Howard Dean makes a heck of a lightning rod. The former Vermont governor and Democratic National Committee chairman is back in the news this week for telling a Texas radio station that "the idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong."
It was part of a discussion in which Dean compared Iraq with Vietnam.
You could applaud Dean for putting forward his opinions in public. Undoubtedly a lot of Republicans from George Bush on down are doing just that in private — as they hammer him publicly for being soft, weak and cowardly.
At a time when six out of 10 Americans think Bush is doing a bad job running the war, anything that takes the focus off his performance has to be manna from heaven for the White House. The GOP is eager to use Dean's comment, along with those of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and some others, to reinforce the notion that Democrats cannot be trusted to run a war.
The Washington Post on Wednesday reported that some Democrats in battleground-type states are running for cover:
"Dean's take on Iraq makes even less sense than the scream in Iowa: Both are uninformed and unhelpful," Jim Marshall, a Democratic congressman from Georgia, told the Post.
Certainly, Democrats don't have a lot to gain from Dean's comments in the short political view. The longer the public's attention stays on Iraq, the better off the opposition's hopes.
But even assuming Bush's poll numbers stay in the toilet through next fall's midterm elections and the Democrats make gains in Congress, stifling comments like Dean's is just putting off the inevitable.
At some point, the Democrats have to decide where they want to stand. They are going to have to discuss whether they support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a pullout measured in years or decades. They must stake a position on health care, immigration, personal privacy and national security.
The Republicans have successfully portrayed themselves as the party of motherhood and apple pie, and invited the Democrats to have whatever is left over.
The Democrats have to choose whether to fight for the middle ground, mom-and-apple-pie turf, or whether to put forward a new New Deal of some kind.
As long as the party doesn't have a recognizable platform, it stands no chance of beating a charismatic Republican for the presidency. Bill Clinton beat a flailing incumbent, but probably could not have beat a strong one. The GOP have learned how to engage their conservative base, and a good candidate will eat into the Democrats' support somewhere.
The Democratic Party needs to find a way to discuss social and economic justice that will attract, not repel, the middle class. They need a way to win the hearts of the elderly: typically a conservative group, but one that worries about its access to health care.
They need to rescue "liberal" from the trash heap of the American vocabulary.
It's going to be painful for the party. It's going to mean giving the GOP lots of gifts like Dean's off-the-cuff remarks on Monday. But it's a process the party needs to go through if it's going to stand for something, instead of being the antiRepublicans.
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