The View From Vermont: Dean Is No Liberal

[VermontDem2004]

The tone of the current race for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination was set 12 years ago last week when a little-known Republican governor of a state with fewer people than Baltimore dropped dead of a heart attack while cleaning the filter on his swimming pool.

The death of Richard Snelling - then in the first year of his fifth two-year term - would have remained merely a big story in the annals of Vermont politics with little national significance but for the family doctor and part-time lieutenant governor who replaced him: Howard B. Dean III.

Not that Dean, who went on to serve five full terms in office, had any designs on the presidency on Aug. 14, 1991. Far from it. On that morning, the doctor planned on a full day of seeing patients and was presumably still content in his decision a year earlier to forgo a bid for the full-time governorship.

Nor did this scion of a family that made a fortune on Wall Street have any aspirations to become the liberal maverick who has re-energized many hard-core Democrats around the country, scared much of the party's establishment and even captured the attention of Republicans.
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpall203420399aug20,0,3080100.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines
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My comment-Dean calls himself a centrist, he also said 'I don't care if you call me a liberal, a conservative, a moderate, as long as you call me Mr. President in January 2005.'

[Khephra]

1. If I was voting for a label I'd care

I'm voting for person though, and that person is Howard Dean.

[Walt Starr]

2. I'd prefer a more liberal candidate

But being a pragmatist, Dean is the only electable candidate in the field.

[Ardee]

5. I keep reading that same mantra

and it holds no truth, despite the endless repetitions one notes.....

[Khephra]

4. And you know what?

Who cared who was using the term "liberal" before Dean came around? Before Dean almost every frigging Democrat ran away from that label like it was a form of leprosy, with very, very few exceptions.

If nothing else, Dean has made people proud to yell at the top of their lungs that they're liberals again, without seeing them subsequently turning round with their tail between their legs.

You all don't think Dean is a liberal. Fine. Let's see your candidate openly use the term and champion it a bit. Until then he can use it since no one else is proud enough to stand by it's use, whether or not he's a "true" liberal, whatever that may mean to you.

(that excludes Kucinich, who has stood on the progessive/liberal side for years)

[GreenArrow]

3. Win or lose

Dean is going to disappoint a lot of people.

[Khephra]

6. This is where you all are fooling yourselves

Dean's main group of supporters are technically savy Internet-friendly people. Do you really think that those type of people aren't going to use the skills and tools that brought them to the Dean camp to have investigated Dean's background before joining up?

It's possible to be liberal and a pragmatist. Dean isn't anywhere near as liberal as me and I've known that from day one. Everyone I've talked to at meetups knows this as well. But he's the candidate that speaks the way I think about the current world/national situation.

The only people who are going to be disappointed are those who think Dean doesn't stand a chance of beating Bush.

[deutsey]

11. No, Kheph, don't you see?

We're all naive zombies ensconced in puppy love for the first candidate we've every had a weely big political cwush on.

Come on, 'fess up. They've got us marked, don't they? It doesn't matter that I've got a circle of people interested in Dean who have been politically active since Truman or even FDR. It doesn't matter that I have experienced peace activists who have struggled since the '60s against those powers that are propping up Bush. It doesn't matter that some of them have fought in wars. Babes in the woods. Idealistic chumps. All of them.

And Dean is our pied piper, leading us all down the primrose path of political delusion.

Gosh darn it, why can't we all just see the light?

[Khephra]

15. "...the primrose path of political delusion."

Great wordsmithing there. lol!

[GreenArrow]

20. I do think that Dean has a chance of beating Bush

I also think that Dean is an extremely status quo oriented politician, with a patrician attitude. He strikes me as a more intelligent version of GWB in some respects. I get the impression that he brooks no criticism, has thin skin, and has a memory like an elephant. He'll smile and nod, just like Dubya, and pretend he's listening, and then go ahead and do what he wants anyway. He has the classic, arrogant "Doctor knows best" attitude. I work with Doctors, I see this attitude, and Dean has it in spades.

If he should win, Liberals who vote for Dean will be disapointed because he will prove to be not nearly as liberal as he lets himself be presented as. He may slow the Bush train down, but he'll keep it on the same track.

If he's nominated and loses, then many more will be disapointed because that "thing" will have been re-selected.

I keep hearing the word "pragmatism" thrown around in regard to Dean. Too often pragmastism is a codeword for expediency, for lack of vision and imagination, for placing commerce above human needs and dignity. I'm sure the Bush gang considers itself pragmatic...it isn't.

[DrBlix]

28. Dean is a Bush Clone with a brain and a democratic twist

I agree with your assessment, Dean is very happy with the $400 billion defense (offense) budget and is Bush with a different party tag and a shorter fuse. Unable to take criticism and a hot temper. An oppertunist with a huge ego. Kucinich is our man. We don't just want to change bodies and get the same Bush policies. We've been lied to for so long and IMO with Dean we are being lied to again in spades, the man is not what he seems to be....wake up. One man can make a difference and that man is Kucinich, fight for him.

[JNelson6563]

31. most absurd statement

The Simian is totally unique in all ways (thankfully). His BFEE roots, that whole web, his stupidity and how perfectly pliable he is for the PNAC crowd.

Not one other person is like Bush in those ways. Not one. Not even any R's. Nobody could so perfectly embody the hopes and dreams of these wretched imperialists.

To even apply such nonsense to even the most riech-wing Dem is absurd not to mention horribly dishonest. Reminds me of the piss-poor performance of the unelectable Kucinich when he let Tweety do him with out lubricants.

Good luck tryin' to sell Dennis to the masses--especially with those tactics.

Julie

[MoonAndSun]

7. Win or lose, Dean will not disappoint me......

he is out there everyday ripping bush* a new one and not backing down. He has always said he is a centrist, all of us Dean supporters out here and around the country know that. He is not afraid to be called names, or have labels placed on him by ignorant or stupid people.

[GreenArrow]

29. He's trying to get elected

He's telling people what they want to hear, and people are so desperately afraid of Dubya that they believe him. Being a centrist may be what it takes to get elected, but it is not what it takes to get this country going in the right direction--just more of the same, since the center is already so far to the right.

As for him ripping Busgh, I'm all for it. But I'm not going to mistake criticism for shining armor and a snow white charger.

[DealsGapRider]

8. ?

Why do you say that, out of curiosity?

[GreenArrow]

23. see post 20

.

[Cha]

9. These people are so Hung up on these labels out of habit or

something! I know he was against the attack on Iraq and he is for civil unions which equal civil rights! :kick:

And I think he can lead this Country out of the mess that smirky has so carelessly and venomously gotten us into!

[blm]

10. I have no beef with him that he is a centrist.

My beef is that he did little to correct the early perception as an antiwar liberal from the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party" with the implication that all the others were the centrists. He garnered much support and $$$$ with that image. He IS the personification of the DLC way in his actual governance.

>>>
I came to Vermont from the Baltimore suburbs fully believing that Dean was a liberal throwback, a backlash against Clintonian, "third-way" Democratic politics. To distinguish himself from the Democratic field and get the nomination, he may even want to exploit that image. But as governor, Dean was largely a pragmatist - in the fine tradition of most of his Vermont predecessors.

[VermontDem2004]

13. He never calls himself a liberal

and he explained why he used that phrase, no matter where you are on the political spectrum, if you are a democrat, you must stand up in what you believe in. And he believes this Iraq war is wrong and so should every American. He calls himself a centrist and the media just laughs at him, for example, I was watching Scarborough Country last week and before he cut to comercial he said this with a smirk "Dean calls himself a centrist, imagine that."

[blm]

25. Never said he did.

He was RETICENT about his centrism when, earlier this year, it suited his political needs.

Why on earth would a centrist call candidates with records further left than his, "Bushlite?"

[Northwind]

16. You lie

Which is nothing new. Dean has stated from the beginning that he does not think of himself as a liberal. Every time he asked the question about being too liberal, he says he is centrist. He has done this from the start.

[blm]

21. Care to tell me what I lied about in my post?

Or does is that just an "in" thing to accuse me of?

Dean accused the others of being "Bushlite" and that's a FACT.

Dean used liberal Wellstone's sig line and said that HE was from the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party." That's a fact.

I never said that Dean SAID he was a liberal...he was reticent about his centrism earlier this year, and allowed others to define him in the press as the liberal antiwar candidate, while he was attacking those to his left for their "perceived" centrism. That's how he raked in the early support.

The talk of his actual centrism didn't come up much until the DLC dog and pony show.

[killbotfactory]

17. Kerry stole a major plank of his environmental policy from a VT republican

So if that's how VT republican's are, so calling Dean a centrist seems like an endorsement.

JANUARY 21, 1999

The report highlights a comparison between a strong proposal by Senator James Jeffords (R-Vt.), which would increase renewables to 20 percent of electricity generation by 2020

[blm]

22. Baloney...keep trying to convince people that

Kerry has no credentials on the environment. He only worked on environmental issues for over 30 years, and his wife is one of the world's foremost philanthropists to environmental research.

Kerry doesn't NEED to steal environment creds from another lawmaker, since he has the best record in the Senate, and I don't doubt that Jeffords would agree.

[killbotfactory]

27. Did you accidentaly reply to my post?

I never said Kerry has no credentials on the environment.

Wait... is this just a strawman because you're embarrassed for Kerry claiming credit for an idea that a Vermont republican came up with a couple years earlier (and which Kerry voted for).

[DrBlix]

12. Dean is OK in my book

Anyone that Ariel Sharon endorses is OK in my book.
.
http://www.muslimwakeup.com/mainarchive/000119.html

[newyawker99]

14. Hi DrBlix!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[DrBlix]

32. Hi Back

Hi Back Newyawker99
.
We've all had a hard coming up on three years now with "weak and stupid" in the WH, I for one can't wait for the divorce to be final BUT I refuse to rush into a new marriage and will be mighty careful the next time around.
.
Let me be up front here, for me Leiberman, Kerry and Dean are out.
.
Aw gee, there I go knocking our very own dems.......really (?)
.
By all that's right Leiberman should be running on the republican ticket. Kerry is too busy worrying about his hair to do any good and is just waltzing around pretending he's a Kennedy he's a phoney and a player and nothing will change with him.
.
Now Dean is something else again. The weather in Vermont can change in an instant perhaps that's why Dean sways from side to side.
.
Follow the money!
.
Look behind the curtain and see just who supports him besides those that believe this clever wannabe pres. First off he get's too much corporate media attention a red flag if ever there was one.
.
Anyone knows that the powers that be have more than one horse in this race and they don't intend on losing. We've all been intrenched in dirty politics for too long not to understand the way the game is played.
.
Dean is a non-compromising personality, now some of you feel this is good and this is what it takes BUT as said he has a short fuse this can be dangerous. He makes like Mr. nice guy, review his past performance in Vermont, ask the tough questions, not from Dean but those that really know him and find out for yourselves.
.
He is the perfect replacement for Bush, hand picked. He is an opportunist with a huge ego, who has been practicing for this moment for 10 years he'll do anything to get elected, even lie his ass off as did Bush.
.
On his last trip to Israel He was anointed by Sharon who has too much political power in the US, we all know what happened to McKenney in Georgia and Hilliard in Alabama.
.
VOTE KUCINICH One man can make a difference. Stop listening to your enemies who put him down, your doing exactly what they want you to do. Get behind him and shove.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

18. i node that...drove up to vermont and had a look see for myself

he is a conservative centrist

[clar]

19. And that makes you an expert?

Vermonter here. Give me a break. You can't become an authority by having a "look see". I've said it before, I'll say it again; Dean is not an easy guy to label. Very liberal on some issues, moderate on others, but a conservative centrist? No. What's more, I think you'll find that a great number of Vermont progressives and liberals, although they've had their difference with Dean, think highly of him.

[Melinda]

24. You again? Why must you repeatedly start a new thread on the same topic?

Over and over and over and over again. OCD?

[0rganism]

26. Are you saying he's electable?

I guess I just don't understand something.

Howard Dean may not be a liberal, but he doesn't run away from the label. He doesn't appear to give a crap about the label. He is what he is. He's proven an ability to reach out to Greens, Union Dems, rural voters, independents and moderates.

The DLC should be creaming its proverbial shorts over this guy. He's like a Bill Clinton from Vermont.

Why do they see him as so dangerous?

[GreenArrow]

30. "Why do they see him as so dangerous?"

Maybe they know something we don't?