I trust Ted Rall more than I do Howard Dean.

[MiltonLeBerle]

And Ted never even brings up Howard Dean's affiliation with the DLC.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030813/7/4ylif.html

"...But as Vermonters tell anyone who's willing to listen, the former governor they call "Ho-Ho" is at best a leftie-come-lately. "The Howard Dean you are seeing on the national scene is not the Dean that we saw around here for the last decade. He's moved sharply left," says John McClaughry of the Ethan Allen Institute, a rightie think tank, of Dean's campaign rhetoric.


Vermont created proto-gay marriage "civil unions" during Dean's term--but that was the state Supreme Court's doing, not his. Even though Vermont's constitution didn't require him to balance the budget, he was a fierce deficit hawk who vetoed proposed Democratic spending. He sided with ski resort owners over environmentalists. And when big business called, he always picked up the phone. "We would meet privately with him three to four times a year to discuss our issues, and his secretary of commerce would call me once a week just to see how things were going," gushes IBM's John O'Kane.

According to Vermonters, Dean is a shrewd operator who saw millions of anti-Iraq (news - web sites) war demonstrators last spring for what they were: untapped Democratic primary voters. A few well-placed verbal broadsides spread his reputation as the only presidential contender willing to go after Bush while other Democrats remained silent or supported his war. His opportunistic Bush-bashing attracted liberal voters tired of being taken for granted and disgusted by do-nothing "Republican Lite" Dems.


Liberals are driving Dean's come-from-nowhere campaign, but they don't share his take on most issues. "If he gets the nomination, he'll run back to the center and be more mainstream," predicts Republican resort owner Bill Stenger. "He was not a left-wing wacko..."

I liked the idea of a Howard Dean- but the more I see of him, and read of him and his views and actions, the less I see "The Answer" to the Democratic woes.
Hopefully, Dean has peeked, as far as piquing Democratic voters interest is concerned.

Wesley Clark/Bill Richardson in 2004.
That's the ticket.

[VoteClark]

1. Finally, someone that thinks like me.

I am for a Clark/Richardson, or a Clark/Warner Ticket. I don't trust Dean either.


:kick:
J4Clark

[MiltonLeBerle]

2. Dean seems like a DLC "stealth" candidate to me...

Like they're hedging their bets in case Kerry, Edwards, or LIEberman don't make the cut.

[ButterflyBlood]

3. you trash Dean but you want Richardson?

Richardson's a guy who promised to repeal New Mexico's extremely regressive food tax and instead gave a Bush-style tax cut to the wealthiest 2%. And he's more progressive?

[MiltonLeBerle]

5. Vice-Presidents rarely dictate policy

(unless they are actually running the show for a repuke figurehead of a "president")

Vice-presidents are more or less for rounding out the ticket, and attracting particular groups of voters.

Richardson as vp candidate could help with the west and with Hispanics.

[shance]

10. Dean has nothing to hide - he has proven himself as far as Im concerned.

It may be true he has had some close ties with business people. What governor hasn't?

With that said, what has been so monumental about the Dean movement is Dean himself.

I have heard him say how these past few years have changed him, as they have effected all of us. Not to mention, one would have to be short of any emotion not to be strongly influenced and impacted by the committed campaign he has undergone. I have never seen any candidate EVER put in the kind of undeniable commitment and energy and passion that this man has. I have also never seen someone speak with such authenticity as Dean has. You cant fake it. He's worried as hell about this nation and so am I (and so is everyone else).

I don't criticize someone else's skepticism, but I do say that they open their ears to what he has to say and what actions follow. He is as consistent to what he says more than any other person I have ever seen run. He has earned every ounce of respect he has received, and unlike a few of the other candidates, he is worked hard for it. Some candidates I feel think they deserve the nomination and have no interest in really understanding this diverse nation that we live in.

To listen to him speak, is to me hard to describe. Its I guess, very comforting. He is so often a step ahead on things I have ever thought about and they are almost like lightbulbs for me when I hear it. Its incredibly energizing and motivating.

How many candidates have you ever listened to and thought, that was incredible, he should sell tapes!!** That is how I feel about Dean, especially when he gets going on an issue. He starts humming on automatic and free thinking and its incredible - he triggers all this great creative thought. I think its what attracts so many people. And ultimately he seems to have a strong sense of loyalty to what is good and right for all, more than he does for patting his buds on the back and making a deal.

One thing that seems evident about Howard Dean, money does not seem to be his motivator in life, and although he has proven to be saavy when it comes to budgeting, it seems to me that people are more his motivators. What greater leader could we have than someone who is motivated by people and ideas, and not by the almighty dollar?

[sangha]

32. All those words

but nothing about what Dean has done.

[ryharrin]

4. As a Dean supporter all I have to say is

duh. We know this. We knew this all along. Its not just his stances on issues that we like. Its the fact that we know his stances on issues. He actually will look at an issues, and let us know his thought process that going into his decisions. His campaign is also incredibly empowering.

[MiltonLeBerle]

6. Empowering?

The more I see of Dean, the less enthusiastic I get about his campaign.

I do not trust the man.

[Cha]

Good for you, milton! I do trust Dean!

[wheresthemind]

23. hehe

I like your image there... For some reason it makes me laugh, he looks like superman and the flag is his cape!

*note this post was not intended to be negitive just so no one takes it wrong*

[ryharrin]

11. Do you have any explanation for that?

What don't you trust?

[shanti]

13. so?

some of us do trust him. now what?

[Eloriel]

7. Wow. For a savvy guy, he sooooo majorly doesn't get it.

I'm astonished, frankly. I've read a bunch of his columns and this one really takes him down a notch in my estimation.

Here's just ONE example of how dreadfully wrong he is:

Dean's supporters don't believe what they're told. They hear what they want to believe, and Dean provides the strident vagaries that fuel their self-delusion. (snip) And how can antiwar types reconcile Dean's support for Bush's invasion of Afghanistan (news - web sites)?

I don't think of Dean as a liberal. I'm not deluded -- by him or by myself. In fact, when I encounter one of his more liberal stances, I tend to be pleasantly surprised. But IMO he holds quite a few of them, esp. for a moderate or centrist.

Here's my response to columns like this:

FOR THE 600TH TIME:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=157434
I'm tired of posting these things over and over again in threads where Dean is questioned or outright bashed. So I'm going to say them here, and bookmark the damn thread so I can just post the link from now on.

1. YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT DEAN if you're not tapping into and accessing his campaign directly. If you're just repeating what you've heard or what you've read, BRZZZT! you lose. You don't get it. You can't get it because "they" don't get it. I've seen one or two columns/articles about Dean that got PART of it, but didn't get all of it. If YOU want to know about Dean, you MUST go directly to his campaign. It's just that simple.

There's nothing like what the Dean campaign is that has EVER happened before. It's unique in American history. It is a quiet revolution, the top (noisier) edges of which are more visible and to some extent get reported on. Beneath the surface is a re-ordering of the old ways of doing politics and political campaigns. This is more than a political campaign, it's a movement, and it is changing people's lives -- giving them a sense of hope, giving them a sense of self-empowerment, and engaging them in the political process in a very direct way. Many of us who have been affected by this campaign will never go back to "the old ways." Most of us who have been affected by this campaign will go on to EXPECT to be participants in our government in ways that we haven't before.

2. DEAN IS ALREADY ATTRACTING MODERATES, SWING VOTERS, INDEPENDENTS, EVEN REPUBLICANS, AND EVEN PEOPLE WHO'VE NEVER BEEN INVOLVED OR EVEN VOTED BEFORE. He's actually bringing in NEW voters. So stop "worrying" if he can do so in the future. He's already proven it. Any pundit who worries about this either just doesn't get it or is using talking points to try to diminish his "electability" quotient and thus erode his support.

At most of Dean's appearances, esp. outside Iowa and NH, he asks people in the audience how many have never been involved in politics before. Time and again, a large percentage -- up to half and even more -- raise their hands. Read the comments posted by supporters on the Official Blog to get a feel for people joining up who are from across the political spectrum, who've never been involved and/or never contributed to any campaign before. THERE IS SOMETHING GOING ON HERE THAT NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN TAP. Based on these numbers, Dean is not just "electable" he's the MOST ELECTABLE of the candidates.

Official Website
http://www.deanforamerica.com

Official Blog
http://blog.deanforamerica.com/

BRAND New Democrats for Dean
http://brandnewdemocrats.blogspot.com

Independents for Dean
http://deanindependents.org/

Republicans for Dean
http://republicansfordean.blogspot.com/

African Americans for Dean (new)
http://www.africanamericansfordean.com/AA/

D.C. area Dean supporters to participate in the 40th Anniversary of March on Washington, Aug. 28
http://blog.deanforamerica.com/archives/000991.html

Eloriel

[MiltonLeBerle]

8. YOU may not be deluded-

but plenty of other Dean supporters(plenty that I've talked to anyway) are, and think of Dean as some kind of standard bearer for the liberal cause.
Just because that group may not include you, it doesn't make Ted "dreadfully wrong" on that point.

Every time I've seen Dean interviewed (NOT spewing pre-written campaign sound-bite ridden speeches), He's lost more ground in my opinion of him as the kind of candidate we need.

[DrFunkenstein]

17. What's Sadder - The Deluded or The Self-Compromised?

I have a hard time dealing with people willing to compromise their ideals because a candidate is more entertaining. If it was down to the end, I would be totally ABB and support whatever centrist came down the pike. But not when there are true progressives in the race - people who THINK like Wellstone, not perform like him.

Then you have the irony of some major anti-O'Reilly people saying that long-time politician Howard Dean "tells it like it is." Way to exchange one demagogue for another.

In the end, I prefer the "suckers" (Norman Soloman's term) over the people who willingly compromise themselves everytime they learn something new about their populist-messiah - the "I know I don't agree with him on the issues, but he has guts" crowd. Notice how the more they are compromised, the more smug they get?

[ryharrin]

18. What a disgusting comparison!

O'Reilly's reputation for telling it like it is is completely made up. He does nothing but bully and lie on his show. Dean on the other hand tries to explain, in detail, his opinion and the reasons for his opinion.

[Pastiche423]

21. How many Dean supporters

have you spoken w/? Did you speak w/them at Meet Ups?

[Mairead]

28. Eloriel, what exactly is it that you think you just said, here?

As far as I can tell, you're saying that you're excited about Dean because you're excited about Dean. Is that meant to be persuasive in some way?

[blm]

30. Shhhh...neo-centrism is "in" now.

No explanations are necessary. The word pragmatism and compromise are the lingo now.

Liberal lefties are SOOOO on their own to fight.

[Voltaire]

31. Thanks Eloriel

Sometimes the stuff I hear about Dean is outright amusing in its desperation to try to nail him down. Most of it, though, is unadulterated pernicious BULLSHIT. And all folks have to do is read, like you said. Dean is not only going to get the nomination, he is going to beat Bush with AT LEAST 60% of the vote. On the day after the November election, perhaps Dean's detractors will finally get a clue.

[w4rma]

9. "His base knows exactly how moderate he is. I interviewed dozens …"

…
Of course last week's Dean hype managed to do both at once. It knocked him down by setting him up, in a way. No longer was the question "Is he too liberal to be electable?" Reporters belatedly scoured his record and discovered a fiscal conservative who put balanced budgets before social spending in Vermont, who opposes federal gun control legislation and backs the death penalty for certain crimes. Now the make-or-break question about Dean became: "Will liberals desert him when they figure out that he's actually a moderate?" Then came other pre-fab worries about the problems of sudden success: Had Dean peaked too soon? Could his fledgling campaign handle the attention? And OK, maybe he was moderate enough to be electable, but was he likable enough? Was his reputation for "straight talk" just a euphemism for brusque and arrogant?

Hanging out with the local Dean folks was my way of getting out of what his campaign dismisses as "the media echo chamber," and trying to figure out what's really going on. I've lived here almost 20 years. I know the San Francisco Dean phenomenon is not a microcosm of what it will take to get him elected; I saw the way the GOP smeared House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi -- and pushed her to the center some -- by calling her a "San Francisco Democrat" before she even took over the leadership post. I know we're DLC founder Al From's worst nightmare. But I also saw some intriguing things following Dean around San Francisco at the end of July, and talking to his supporters the week after he'd gone. The Bay Area Dean machine is attracting more than the usual suspects: It's neither the Greens nor the City Hall regulars; it's neither the moneyed elite nor the rabble; it's not just the young and the hip; it's not ponytailed '60s holdovers -- it's all of them, and then some. I met Republicans and Ross Perot voters who were supporting the antiwar candidate who promises to repeal Bush's tax cuts. And I met Dean himself, and watched two speeches. You can't get his charisma without seeing him in person.
…
I ran into Well co-founder, entrepreneur and activist Larry Brilliant, the only other person besides Amy Rao I knew personally, and he was beaming. "Look at this crowd!" he said, marveling at its size and diversity. Later, he explained Dean's appeal in an e-mail. "Liberals like myself may be disappointed to find out he's a fiscal conservative, in the mold of Clinton not FDR, and a moderate on most things -- except this obscene ideological 'coup' of the Bush crowd. But I'm surprised how happy I am that someone is finally calling the emperor on the fact that he has no clothes. I was afraid Bush's deceptions would go unchallenged. That alone makes me love Howard Dean. I also happen to think he can win."
…
The UFCW crowd seemed a lot like Donna Brazile: They were ready to love everybody. Only the leftier candidates -- Kucinich, Carol Moseley Braun, Gephardt and Dean -- showed up; Sharpton couldn't make it, but Kerry appeared by satellite, as befits his attempt to be a more centrist liberal. All of them got big cheers. These were the folks Al From tried to warn us about. But if Dean hadn't been red-baited by the DLC, you might well hear him as the moderate in the race. He criticized Kucinich and Moseley Braun's call for single-payer universal healthcare, the left's politically impossible dream, as well as Gephardt's expensive public-private hybrid. Kerry vied with Dean for the moderate mantle with his relatively modest healthcare plan, but overall Dean came off as the fiscal conservative in the bunch. Amazingly, he got the biggest hand from this union audience when he called George Bush a "borrow and spend, credit-card Republican" and promised to erase the deficit if he's elected.
…
One thing I don't worry about is that his lefty base doesn't know what he stands for, and will bolt when they realize he's a moderate. His base knows exactly how moderate he is. I interviewed dozens of his liberal devotees, and they all know the not-so-liberal aspects of his record. Someone at the Meetup lamented his staunch pro-Israel stance; several people I met said they differed with him on the death penalty. Brilliant says he has issues with Dean on all of his more conservative stands. "But he's not afraid to say what he thinks. Dean asks the fundamentally sound questions and does not have an ideological answer that trumps reason, as Bush does."
…
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/08/11/dean/

[e-mail]
Ted's Email Guidelines
http://www.tedrall.com/email.htm

[Cha]

14. Hey! Thanks for rall's e-mail, w4rma! I was asking for that

much earlier, today! :-)

[dsc]

12. Three states had the same decision in regards same sex unions

(VT, HI, and AK) while only one VT has civil unions. Does Rall have an explanation for that fact?

[Cha]

15. Should we e-mail him and ask?

:hi:

[Octafish]

16. The VT Supreme Court pushed the issue.

As to why Rall didn't mention it in his column, I don't know. He did write about a lot of other things that are pertinent and may have run out of room.

[Voltaire99]

19. Alas, Ted Rall is right

A timely and necessary piece. As Alexander Cockburn also recently pointed out (on the brilliant Counterpunch.com), Dean is really a fairly typical establishment man.

Now, the doc's also a reasonable sort who speaks fairly well off the cuff--at least such is my opinion after watching him for an hour on C-SPAN last week. And his reasonableness is, after all, preferable to the Bush Reich, all things being equal.

But pro-corporate reasonableness won't cut it. We're hemorraging jobs like crazy, desperately in need of health care, hated the globe over for our vicious imperialism, and blithely permitting education inequality and income disparity to make a mockery of civil society. To boot, our democracy is severely busted. For these ills the timid center, represented by Dean's corporate tax-cut school of government, offers little hope. Nor is there a bubble for this Clinton clone to ride out eight laissez-faire years upon.

Not that the Democratic leadership seems to notice. The polls are also disturbing about the base--so clearly starved of principled leadership that it can hardly bring itself to dislike Bush. After eight years of Clintonism, today's mainstream Democrats aren't terribly different from mainstream Republicans, except on a couple of key issues (they'll take the corporate state with a helping of reproductive rights, please, and a tiny side order of multicuturalism--but hold the welfare!). It would be interesting to see if they'd accept a candidate like Kucinich, if the news media were to allow him to be seen and heard. That fix, however, is in.

But even if things are bleak, already Nader's invigorating effect upon the moribund party can be read in Dean--his emergence, even if it is as hokey and deceptive as Rall suggests, comes at least partly as a response to the defection from the nest that began in 2000 and continued to show its dissatisfaction with politics as usual in last year's anti-war rallies.

It's just lucky for Dean that the Dr. Strangeloves in Washington make it seem too scary for many right now to think of voting Green. But it's still early in the campaign--plenty of time for Dean to show his true colors and be brought to the DLC's heel, and if that happens, voting Democratic will seem about as necessary this time as it did last.

[ErasureAcer]

20. Exactly, Dean isn't a liberal...

I was a fan of Dean early on...but the more I learned about the man...I jumped ship. He isn't a liberal and I will never vote for him.

Kucinich is the answer this country needs...I don't trust any of Dean's stances...especially his "opposition" to the war. I bet under his presidency we'll be fighting Bush's wars and even some new ones.

Really now, Dean's words mean nothing to me.

[jafap]

22. will the real ted rall, stand up?

As I mentioned before, in his column last week, he seemed to suggest that Dean really was on the left:

"Turning left means disaster, argues the centrist Democratic Leadership Council: they say Dean, who opposes the Iraq war, would be 2004's George McGovern. When DLC poster boy Bill Clinton co-opted GOP platform planks like welfare reform and deficit reduction in 1992, he defeated the first President Bush. "The Democratic Party has an important choice to make: Do we want to vent or do we want to govern?" asks DLC chairman Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana. "The administration is being run by the far right. The Democratic Party is being taken over by the far left."

Did he get a bunch of emails that set him straight?

BTW: check out some of the cartoons on that link. I love the one with the Board of Directors saying: "Fire the top three execs or 32,000 workers. The costs are the same, but the choice is clear." Hits the nail.

[Mairead]

26. What you're quoting there

says that the DLC *says* he's a leftist. That's quite different.

[Andromeda]

24. If you were looking to Dean...

to be the standard bearer for the liberal cause because he was against the Iraq war you were probably disillusioned because that didn't mean he was against ALL war. He was just against a preemptive war that wasn't fully sanctioned by the U.N. If he had been a member of the Senate or Congress I believe that he wouldn't have voted for the Iraqi resolution. He has made it clear that he was supportive of the war in Afganistan, in principal.

Now that he's been on the scene for a while you've had a chance to hear some of his other views. His ideas on healthcare reform are more incremental than drastic and that may not set well for some people who want immediate and dramatic change. His policies are inclusive and don't just benefit one segment of the population which is disappointing to some of the leftists and Greens like Ted Rall.

There are other issues besides the War, NAFTA and Globalization, three issues that some super-lefties seem to be stuck on to the exclusion of all others.

Dean is not like McGovern or Dukakis. Dean is an individual, strong and not afraid to stand up for his positions. He is a lone entity and a phenomenon---a man who is a liberal, a moderate and a conservative all rolled into one. He appeals to Independents, Republicans, Democrats and Greens.

That's what we want, you know. To pull in undecided voters---and it seems to be working. People who haven't voted in years are beginning to wake up because here is a person who is standing up for everybody who is still angry at the current pResident in the White House, and that person is HOWARD DEAN.

Dean's fundraising on the internet is breaking all records. It has never been done before. People believe in him.

I suppose you think that the other candidates who bashed Bush are opportunists too? But it's not okay for Dean to do it? Just because Dean does it and people really listen when he does, I think it pisses some people off because they can't get anybody to listen to them when they do it.

Dean steals all the attention and Lieberman says "he's pulling the Democratic party to the left." That comment hurt Lieberman more than it did Dean and you can bet that Ted Rall won't turn the tide either with his disapproval.

Dean may not be the true-blue messiah of the socialist left but he is a man for the people---ALL the people.

[Mairead]

27. Jesus! I think you should read 'Good Behavior' by Westlake

He has a fascist-feudalist character in there whom you might have been quoting.

[chimpymustgo]

25. Thank you Ted Rall for helping to expose the phony opportunist Dean.

Howard Brush Dean III.

Excellent article.

[sendero]

29. these concerns rest squarely on the premise....

... that peoples' (and more specifically politicians') political beliefs do not change over time.

Did it ever occur to you that Dean might have actually changed his outlook? After all, I was once a Reagan Republican.

Advice to those who want to discredit Dean.

Find something real. Find an actual bad act. Find a vote that is hard to defend. Find a real lie. These persistant "well he might have kicked his dog" threads just make me like Dean even more.

Send attacks with some basis in reality or give it up. You are not doing your cause, whatever it is, any good with this tripe.

[JI7]

33. where did dean change ?

i agree change can be good. what areas do you believe dean changed in ?

[HFishbine]

34. Milton

The article accuses Dean of not being as far to the left as he would have us believe, and then you tout your pick of Clark. Are you saying that because Dean is not really left enough, you want Clark. Does that mean we are to consider Clark to the left of Dean?

BTW, people who try to suggest that Dean supporters just don't know what they are doing because Dean is really more left or more center than we really know are wasting their breath. Dean is a pragmatic populist. The left/center/right labels don't work on Dean and his supporters aren't concerned about it.