Is Howard Dean the next "Ronald Reagan"?

[doh_phooey]

Mr. Right Is Mr. Wrong

"But the comparison that comes to mind when Lieberman bashes candidates who are popular with the party's base voters is not to the 1972 race, but rather to the 1980 contest for the Republican presidential nomination.

That year, moderate Republicans were horrified by the prospect that the party cadres were preparing to nominate former California Governor Ronald Reagan for president. Reagan's foes warned that if the conservative icon became the nominee, the November election results would be as disastrous as the 1964 campaign where standard-bearing conservative Barry Goldwater got trounced.

... There was even talk that former President Gerald Ford might have to be drafted into the primary competition in order to stop Reagan. But the party faithful could not be dissuaded. They followed their principles and their hearts and went with Reagan. The November election results proved them right. Even if Americans did not agree with Reagan's ideology, they preferred his confident style to the more nuanced and centrist offerings of Jimmy Carter and John Anderson.

Democrats who counsel compromise going into the 2004 contest are likely to find themselves disregarded in much the same way that Republican compromisers were in 1980. And rightly so. If the party chooses a candidate who is confident enough to aggressively challenge George W. Bush, Democrats might well find that steering a bold course is far more appealing to the great mass of American voters that the circumnavigations proposed by Joe Lieberman."












George Bush GOOP