Reply #85: Yup. the Democratic Party has two choices

[Nicholas_J]

To become more and more conservative. or to make a case for the liberal agenda as being the agenda that supports the middle alss and not the multinationals. I find it amusing that in post attacking me as being a troll, they of course, use a Dean quote attqacking the right as verifying Deans credentials as a solid Democrat.

The idea of watching what someone does rather than listening to what they say never occurs to some blind supporters of a candidate.

The prime reason that Dean's campaign fell into oblivion in Iowa was that Gephardt simply re-published many articles pointing towards decision Dean made as governor from mainstream Vermont newspapers. Gephardt himself never had to attack Dean on these things, just point tem out, while Dean was left floundering to recover. Talk is cheap. He can talk all he wants but he will not make a record of favoring big business and the rich at the expense of those who have little, go away. While his stance on keeping a balanced budget is correct, Whose back you balance that budget on is another thing entirely. In an examiniation of vermont's economy duiring the 90's, the years that Dean was governor, the Economic Policy Institute fiugures showed that the poor got poorer, the rich got richer, and the middle calss stagnated. When arguing about this, Dean suporterd had to point out all of the other situations that caused this, but much like Bush, theeffort is to not accept responsibility tfor theactions of the gy who was supposed to be where the buck stopped.

THis party has either got to revert to its principals of social justice, or we can simply do away witha two party system in reality, and simply have two conservative parties grinning at each other across the aisles of congress As usual Dean's staements about the rigt wing simply to not hold up when compared to his plicy and platform as Governor, which is the onlyl thing that can be used to judge him. He has gained a good deal of political capital by saying what people want to hear. But there is precious littlevto back up those statements.

Again, whilec Denataaught some very important lessons to the Democratic PArty during this election cycle, the history of his political agenda is not the place the Democratic Party needs to be taken. The DLC poster boy while he was governor, in order to get a base following, Dean had to do what he was most famous for in Vermont. Saying whatever needed to be said to get support. He saw a large group of the disgruntles young, angry at the centrist moves of the DLC, and sucked them in by saying exactly what the wanted to hear. But the Dean of the democratic campaign was not a figure whoever existed on the political map. His behavior as governor was solidly conservative. as solid as most of the moderate Republicans in Congress. His opposition to democratic and progressive platforms was legend among liberal and progressives in Vermont. He basicaly had a one issue platform and that was balancing budgets no matter what harm was done along the way. And his economic ideas for balancing budgets were pure trickle down economics at their best (or worse, depending on whether you are trickling or being trickled on). Dean's five wins as Governor of Vermont relied more on Dean's out centristing the DLC than anything else.

As for Clinton, unfortunately most of his failures came from the fact that he had little or no Washington experience. He himself has pointed out that he was so gung ho to try to get his agenda through, that he failed due to trying to push harder than conservatives would take. Had he dealt with part of his platform during the first term as president, and saved some of the more difficult things until a second term where he would have had more political credibiity. His health care program would have had a better chance of getting though in some form, This is the hazard of electing Governors to the presidency. They are impatient to succeed, and so theymake ewrrors allowing them to be shot down.

Dean is simply too muh of the same. Far from ever having been a politician with a real bold vision, he simply rehashed a lot of standared liberal democratic speak, and mixed in the core of his political philosophy, whhich is balacend budgets, balanced budgets, balanced budgets. And if that fails, balance budgets. There is little else to HowardDeans career.