Why wouldn't Dean have appealed to moderates?

[CTLawGuy]

I hear this meme all the time around here - that Dean would not have appealed to moderates. Especially people who also say Kerry did appeal to moderates.

What was it about Dean that moderates wouldn't have liked?

[Wat_Tyler]

1. This is a weird meme, as Dean was essentially a centrist moderate.

His only real radical positions were on the war, and perhaps, his recognition that the American Political System and the Democratic Party in particular needed radical change in order to survive.

[TahitiNut]

14. Indeed. Furthermore, real (pragmatic) moderates don't ...

... go for a single moderate Presidential candidate when Congress is so heavily tilted to the right. It has been the habit of "moderates" for centuries to vote for an offsetting (balancing) candidate. "Moderation" in American politics has been demonstrated by checks and balances - by electing a Republican President with a Democratic Congress, or vice versa. There is absolutely no 'moderation' whatsoever in driving all three branches of government to the extreme right. Thus, such a strawman is completely fallacious, serving only to further radicalize electoral politics.

To those who claim to be "moderates" I say: if you really were, you'd be supporting Kucinich or Sharpton. I find absolutely nothing intellectually honest in claiming to be a "moderate" and then supporting a Democrat from the center-right.

[Upfront]

2. He Appealed To Me. NT

[9119495]

3. Because he signed the gay marriage bill

I know--it was civil unions but that would have been the ad.

He also performed abortions
I know--but that would have been the ad.

He is too enthusiastic--that means he is crazy.
I know--but that would have been the ad.

[BlueInRed]

22. the people who decide on these issues

wouldn't ever vote for a Democrat over Bush.

I think there are different types of people who call themselves "moderate". The first group is socially conservative on issues like abortion, civil unions, etc. Those people tend to vote Republican no matter what you do or say. The second group is fiscally conservative and tends to want balance in social issues (ie, split it down the middle -- make social issues local and are okay with privacy rights, etc). I think Dean appeals to the second kind of moderate, which is the only kind Democrats really have a chance at anyway.

[DebJ]

56. Dean did NOT perform abortions. Not OB/GYN, not done in

med training, either. Someone asked him this in Gettysburg the week before the election.
I wish people would quit repeating this falsehood.

His wife never did any, either.

[dorktv]

72. And you know if they did do a commercial about that

(and they would) he could have hit back with "Hi, I am Howard Dean, a doctor of internal medicine. There was a commerical that came out a few days ago that said some false things about me and what I did in my medical practice. Well the people who made that commericial (insert name of company here) do not have any doctors on staff. And they are of course not allowed into my former patients' records, so when I say I never performed abortions, who are you going to believe? The doctor, or the corporate shrills?"

[blm]

4. I always said he SHOULD appeal to centrist voters since he governed as

a centrist for 11 years.

People got confused because Dean, after first running on his centrism, then began to shift his campaign rhetoric leftward to attract the antiwar primary voters. He became fiery to the point where many in Vermont who watched him govern barely recognized him. (Personally, I think Dean's supporters ultimately made him a believer in lefty issues and a BETTER political figure.)

Kerry, with his longtime liberal record used moderate tones throughout, knowing full well that his lifetime record on progressive issues would be used to paint him as a whacko lefty.

They all calibrate somewhat to extend their appeal. That's what politicians do. If they didn't they wouldn't even be in the game at all.

[cali]

7. As a Vermonter, I mostly agree

though Dean could always surprise while he was governor. He'd take a liberal position when you least expected, then turn around and take a position to the right of center, and he always spoke in a pretty straightforward, sometimes shockingly straightforward way. It must be said, that centrists in Vermont are looked on as liberals in most places in this country. I do think you've hit the nail on the head about his being influenced by his following and having grown into a better political leader.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

64. That was one of the biggest things my husband and I loved about him

he was so straightforward. We felt like he was truthful. It did get him into a few scrapes, but for the most part, I like feeling like I can believe the guy, ya know?

[Cheswick2.0]

27. oh jesus here we go again

He was moderate on some issues and liberal on others. He didn't change his rhetoric or his views when he was running. Just war is not just a liberal idea. All kinds of people thought the Iraq war was wrong. But it is true he appealed to liberals because of his opposition to the War.... unfortunately for Kerry, he didn't have the same wisdom and principals Dean had on the campaign trail. If he did he might be going to the white house. People didn't trust his stances because they were not only unclear, but contradictory.
Kerry may have been a liberal in the past but he voted and talked like a conservative democrat for the last few years so that he could run for President.

[blm]

35. Your view, fine. It's just not consistent with the view of journalists

and political analysts who covered Dean's governance in Vermont for 11 years.

[Dancing_Dave]

5. Dean would have appealed to the moderates

If the corporate media hadn't gone on a Dean-bashing campaign shortly before the Iowa primary. Real reason for the slander job? They heard him speak out against monopolization of the media!

There is a strong underlying trend which will become decisive in the next elections. People are getting more and more of the information they need to make decisions from the internet, and less and less from the corporate "news". The "news" gets more unreliable and misleading all the time, and with digital technology we just don't need it.

By 2008, the "news" won't be able to stop a canidate with internet coordination and plenty of energetic support on the ground.

[AP]

11. Dean did not appeal to moderates in the primaries.

Also, the media did not go on a Dean bashing spree until after he lost Iowa.

NPR on the day before the Iowa caucus did not mention John Edwards ONCE by name, although polls NPR saw certainly put him in second place. The only time we heard from Edwards was in an audio montage that didn't even identify him as the speaker. They barely mentioned Kerry although Kerry was in first place. 11 million people listen to NPR, and I suspect that a lot of those people are Democratic primary voters.

What NPR did do on the eve of the Iowa caucus was run three separate features on Dean or about issues which conveniently featured Dean. One was about the use of the internet in the primaries. Half the time was spent talking about Dean. Another was a "regularly scheduled series" (right) on two of the campaigns, which featured that day Dean's and Gephardt's campaigns. Another was a story (by Fox host Mara Liason) about Dean getting attacked by the other campaigns. Guess what? They didn't mention ONCE what the attacks were about, but they did say that Dean was looking forward to winning Iowa and moving on to the next stage of the campaign.

On the day before the caucus, NPR was doing everything it could to hold together Dean's campaign and to starve people of information about the candidates who were in first and second place in the polls.

The major source of the argument that Dean was being treated badly by the media was one paragraph from the middle of a NYTimes article responding to reader complaints that the Times was biased against Dean. The Times admitted TWO instances where a different choice of words to describe Dean might have been appropriate. That one paragraph became the foundation of a massive argument on DU about media bias here. However, the first time I saw that article quoted at DU, the person citing it didn't include a link to the story. Why? Because the rest of the NYT article was admission that Dean got way more coverage than any other candidate in the primary, and that it was uniformly (with only two exceptions) GLOWING. They admitted media bias IN FAVOR of Dean!!!

Dean's campaign in the last week started dropping the meme of media bias because some of the media was reporting on the attacks on Dean by the other campaigns, but it was my impression that Dean was also looking at the polls and could see that he wasn't going to win so the media bias meme came out as an anticipatory excuse -- it was a last ditch effort to rally the troops around a defensive position against persecution that the campaign probably hoped would stop the blood flowing and give people a raison d'etre. Of course, once the scream came out, Dean was right. The media went to town with that, but after Dean not meeting expectations in Iowa, his campaign was over anyway. And consistent to the media coverage leading up to Iowa, the media used the scream as an excuse not to talk about Kerry and Edwards.

[NYCGirl]

13. This writer disagrees with you:

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040308&s=greider

Excerpt:

Dean's Rough Ride
by WILLIAM GREIDER


In forty years of observing presidential contests, I cannot remember another major candidate brutalized so intensely by the media, with the possible exception of George Wallace. Howard Dean contributed some fatal errors of his own, to be sure, but he also brought fresh air and new ideas, a crisp call to revitalize the Democratic Party and at least the outlines of deeper political and economic reforms. The reporters, as surrogate agents for Washington's insider sensibilities, blew him off. Dean's big mistake was in not recognizing, up front, that the media are very much part of the existing order and were bound to be hostile to his provocative kind of politics. To be heard, clearly and accurately, he would have had to find another channel.

For the record, reporters and editors deny that this occurred. Privately, they chortle over their accomplishment. At the Washington airport I ran into a bunch of them, including some old friends from long-ago campaigns, on their way to the next contest after Iowa. So, I remarked, you guys saved the Republic from the doctor. Yes, they assented with giggly pleasure, Dean was finished--though one newsmagazine correspondent confided the coverage would become more balanced once they went after Senator Kerry. Only Paul Begala of CNN demurred. "I don't know what you're talking about," Begala said, blank-faced. Nobody here but us gunslingers.

The party establishment, limp as it is, was correct to target Dean with tribal vengeance. From their narrow perspective, he represented a political Antichrist. The unvarnished way he talked. The glint of unfamiliar, breakthrough ideas in his speeches. His lack of customary deference to party elders (and to the media's own cockeyed definition of reality). What the insiders loathed are the same qualities many of us found exhilarating. I already feel nostalgia for his distinctive one-liners:

[AP]

15. If Paul Begala had so much power in the media, Bush wouldn't be president.

90% of the righw wingers in the media gave Dean glowing coverage -- and way more of it to Dean than to anyone else -- and Paul Begala said a few things about Dean that a lot of DU'ers also said. Thank god somebody in the media gave voice to those legitimate criticisms. Too bad Paul Begala doesn't also run NPR and the NYT.

And it's not clear whether Greider's question in the airport was about the scream coverage (which was after the horse had left the bard, and therefore not relevant).

Something interesting about Greider's article is that he describes a lot of positions Dean had which he said the media ignored. Guess what? A lot of those positions were things that Kerry and Edwards also said -- about Amerian being run on behalf of the corporatocracy, about the equities markets being used to rip off investors and guarantee wealth for the wealthy, and about poverty. But the problem, which Greider acknowledges in the second half of the article, was that Dean was not in control of his persona. The media was in control of it. And that's exactly why people like Begala were worried about Dean. There were better candidates who cared about the same things and who were able to get their positions across.

Finally, Greider can complain all he wants about the opinion journalists. But I don't think he can deny what I heard on NPR leading up to the primary.

[NYCGirl]

17. I don't believe he attributes it all to Paul Begala. (eom)

NT

[AP]

21. He doesn't attribute it to anyone by name except Begala.

Meanwhile, I say, just listen to NPR the week (and months) leading up to Iowa, or read the NYT's own admission that it gave extensive positive coverage to Dean. Or look at all the statistics that showed that the media gave Dean more coverage than all the other candidates combined right up until the end of December. Look at the fact that media tried to kill Kerry in October and ignored Edwards until after they finished with the scream.

Greider is right that the media controlled Dean, but I think he's wrong about why (which is understandable, since he was an advisor to the campaign and wanted to believe in it).

I believe the media was trying to deliver up to Bush a flawed, anti-war candidate for the General Election. So they defined Dean in a way they knew could work in the primaries but wouldn't work in the General Election.

[NYCGirl]

23. True, he doesn't mention any by name, but it seems there are many more

"I ran into a bunch of them, including some old friends from long-ago campaigns, on their way to the next contest after Iowa."

The reason I posted this was that the writer has much more experience than I (40 years in politics).

Edited to add: But I don't think it was after the "scream" that the press turned against him. It had been building up for a few weeks. That was just the culmination.

[AP]

25. If you look in the archives here (January 2004)...

...after a lot of DU'ers started this mantra, I asked for the evidence of media bias and the ONE story they could point to was that NYT article I mention elsewhere which said that the NYT was biased IN FAVOR of Dean with but two slight exceptions (of course the story was posted without a link and only the two exceptions were cited).

Greider doesn't give enough information about what he saw as bias, but he does give an explanation for why he might not be the most impartial judge (he was part of the Dean campaign).

So, until I see better arguments for how the media was bad to Dean, I'm going to trust my own observations based on facts like NPR's ridiculously supportive coverage of Dean, and I'm going to fit it within the paradigm that makes the most sense to me (that the media wanted to deliver up to bush a flawed ant-war candidate), and I'm going to trust that all the things that have been described as weaknesses for the Kerry campaign would have been exponentially more troublesome for Dean (eg, even talk of the war going poorly hurts Democrats and helps Republicans and that values voters hurt Kerry).

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

66. Great article

it made me nostalgic for Gov. Dean and the heady days I was involved in his campaign.

[Cheswick2.0]

28. nonsense

he appealed to centrist more then Edwards or Kerry did. They just became convince along with everyone else that Kerry was "electable".

[AP]

39. They became convinced by Kerry and Edwards. That's what primaries are

all about.

[Nordic]

49. Were you in Iowa? I wasn't either

but what I remember is that it seemed the voters wanted someone who they thought "could win against Bush" and that's why Kerry seemed like the best choice.

[AP]

50. So voters looked at Dean and said, "this guy cannot win against Bush"

He's too anti-war, not enough about middle class opportunity (which Kerry had a record of protecting as Senator) and he's a loose cannon who'll get killed on the values question, and he doesn't seem to be the same person who was Governor of VT.

Who's to say they weren't exactly right?

[Nordic]

52. well bottom line is we'll never know of course

But my take on what happened in Iowa is that the Dems went with someone "safe" rather than someone who really fired them up.

My take was that it was a fear-based choice rather than, well, a positive support of the guy who was really appealing.

If that makes any sense.

It doesn't really matter.

I personally feel that the election was stolen, so it doesn't really matter who we ran, or who we run in the future, unless we deal with the voting problems in this country.

We could have run Jesus Christ in 2004 and Bush would have "won".

[AP]

53. But if people want to debate it, at least we can apply common sense,

history, and logic, and we can cite facts we do know.

By the way, pickign someone who fires you up is a double edged sword. A person who fires up the anti-war crowd was also going to fire up the pro-war crowd, and was going to make people in the middle lean one way or the other, and more often they'll lean towards the person who says they'll protect them than the person who says they won't.

We know this from '68 and '72.

As for picking Kerry as a "fear-based" choice, I couldn't disagree more.

You know why FDR put on a sweater and had fire-side chats, rather than pull out a baseball bat or get in the face of his opposition? Because he didn't want people to be motivated by fear. Kerry was way closer to FDR than Dean was. In many ways, Dean was trying to get mileage from fear and anger, and people said they didn't want that. They wanted to go with someone who was more like FDR -- someone who was calm and told them that we're all stronger when you're stronger.

[Nordic]

59. Well, I learned to love John Kerry during the campaign

but I loved Dean first.

Personally, I want a leader who will use his position to educate people.

Dean's use of his position to educate people about why the war was wrong was, I think, responsible and necessary.

The problem in this country is that people are completely misinformed. We need leaders who will fix this, not play along with all the misinformation.

There's "leading" and there's "pandering" and sometimes trying to appeal to everybody can lead to a lot of pandering.

People can and will come around if given the right information on which to base their decisions and opinions.

[AP]

63. I think it'd be a stretch to say Kerry pandered. He bordered on pedantic

in the debates. He really used his position to try to sway people intellectually.

I think Dean just tapped into people's anger towards Bush without stopping to think where that was going to take him. It's kind of like that moment during the primaries where he thought it'd be a laugh to jump on the back of a delivery truck that was pulling away from a group of people. Exept the delivery truck sped up and nearly drove off on the highway with Dean on the back of it.

[Warpy]

6. Strong opinions on controversial issues

Lots of people see the need for changes but they're really uncomfortable with anyone they think will propose them. They hate having the boat rocked.

Dean was right about Iraq, right about healthcare, right about a lot of things, but he'd have upset a lot of applecarts. He just plain made the mushy middle uncomfortable.

The best hope for Dean now is that his organization can manage to exercise enough clout within the party to neutralize the election losers known as the DLC.

Until the DLC is gone, the party will continue to be marginalized at the polls.

[jobycom]

8. He might have. He didn't appeal to enough Democrats for it to matter

I was never sold on Dean. I liked his fire, I liked most of what he said, but he always struck me as a lightweight. He gave pep rallies when he was supposed to be appealing for votes before a national audience. He raised his voice when he should have been rationally laying out an agenda, or an indictment of Bush. He seemed sophmoric, to me, in most of his speeches.

I don't think Deans problem was his positions, I think it was his stature. He didn't look like a leader, he looked like a cheerleader. I like cheerleaders (a lot) but I don't think of them as presidential.

That's my impression, as a lifetime liberal often to the left of the Democratic Party. And it is based on knowledge, so there's need for a litany of Dean's virtues. I know his virtues. But they weren't enough to earn his vote in the primaries from his own party, from the people who most agreed with him. If he couldn't convince the Democrats to vote for him, he wouldn't have won the general election.

There were no candidates who would have done better than Kerry, except maybe Gore, and he didn't run.

[DebJ]

57. following this logic, Bush looks Presidential???

[WI_DEM]

9. Dean would have run at least as well as Kerry

Look at the states Kerry won, it is highly probable that Dean would have carried the same states. Would his less ambiguous stand on Iraq made a difference between losing and winning--I can't say.

[ScreamingMeemie]

10. Because the media said so.

I know of a Libertarian that was going to vote for him, but instead stayed home. I know of a Green that was going to vote for him, but instead voted Nader. There was cross party appeal there, but Dean was taken down after the HardBall interview. :hi:

[njmst12]

12. Because he's not a moderate like most americans

And it the moderates that cast the deciding vote.

[BlueInRed]

16. he does IMO :)

Most of the moderates I know liked him a LOT. I always hear this from tag line from people who are not moderates OR who are not fully familiar with Dean's record in Vermont. I really don't know of any of his real positions that are out of the mainstream.

For those who say he doesn't appeal to moderates, please identify the particular stands you think turn moderates off. I've only heard 3 mentioned a lot - Iraq, civil unions and reforming NAFTA. He's been completely vindicated on Iraq, and I agree with him that NAFTA has gotten out of hand and backfired on us. I think civil unions are supported by a lot of moderates.

Also,
He's very fiscally disciplined -- this really appeals to moderates.
He has a business, medical and investment banking background -- appeals to moderates.
He speaks his mind -- appeals to a broad range of people.
He's got an A+ rating from the NRA and thinks it's a local issue -- appeals to moderates.
He actually produced results in providing healthcare -- again, appeals to moderates.

I am seriously asking for specifics to understand why people think this. Thanks! :)

Added: In all fairness, when people in DU first started talking about Dean here, I was very skeptical. A governor from a tiny New England state appealing to Midwesterners and Southerners? Then I looked at his record and listened to him and changed my mind. I've been living in TN and TX the past decade, so if I know moderates he appealed to, its in a bloody red state and a purple state.

[Alpharetta]

18. What if Super Tuesday had been earlier in the primaries?

I wonder if Dean would have shaped his message more to the right of Kucinich if he had been forced to campaign in the south earlier in the race.

[seabeyond]

19. he would have. he did

he is the candidate that talked most to the "men" in the texas panhandle. any many dont like bush. but wouldnt go kerry. dean, they like dean and what he said and backed him

so for those manly men regular joes, they could do dean. dean knew this

[Dora]

20. I think it's a myth.

I saw him speak here in Austin early in the campaign, and I thought he just ooozed, nearly dripped with moderate appeal.

That may have been sweat that I saw, but I still thought his platform was very appealling and could be marketed to people across the spectrum.

He was a threat, an outsider, and a change-maker.

[BlueInRed]

24. right

"threat, an outsider, a change maker"

EXACTLY. The DNC and the media took him down because he was shaking up the apple cart and going to interfere with their power base.

[Nikia]

31. I think his outsider status would have appealed to some

Dean was a doctor was happened to become governor of a non powerful, urban state. In that, he appeared to be common. He would not have been seen as a liberal elitist. He wouldn't have been seen as a flip flopper because he didn't have to play as such as a compromise game as national legislatures do. He would have been seen as someone who was willing to do something. People wouldn't have asked why he hadn't done more to further his agenda while he was in the Senate like they did with Kerry. For that reason, he would have appealed to moderates, especially rural moderates. That may have got us a few more red states, including Ohio.

[Cheswick2.0]

26. he DID appeal to moderates

there is no question of that.

[tibbiit]

29. Of course he would have appealed to moderates IF

The Media had decided he did.
Its the Media Stupids!
(They are dispicable)
tib

[MattWinMO]

30. while he may have appealed to moderates....

On some issues I believe Dean had views on the 2 top issues which he pursued without compromise.

For one, he opposed Bush's entire tax cut and would've even refused compromise on the issue(keeping parts of the tax cut which went to the middle class). Secondly on Iraq he wasn't even going to support the threat of force against Iraq to get inspectors back in.

He wouldn't have appealed to moderates because his entire campaign was based on taking an opposite view than Bush on an issue and then refusing to compromise in the least. Kerry is actually a bit more liberal than Dean on some issues but appeared willing to seek a compromise.

[mzmolly]

32. Because he was 'THE MOST LIBERAL SENATOR IN THE SENATE!'

Oh wait ... he was the CENTRIST Governor of Vermont wasn't he? /sarcasam

[blm]

36. True. The centrist would have become the "MOST LIBERAL GOVERNOR...EVER!"

Because that is the Republican way. And they control the media, so there.

[patcox2]

33. Because he acted immoderately.

I am serious.

First of all, I agree that he was actually a centrist, I thought thatv the worship of him as a progressive leader was absurd.

But he would never have been able to win because of his angry volatility. Immmoderate affect. Quite frankly, he reminded me of Howard Beal, loopy.

[Killarney]

34. His tax plan

No Democrat has ever won the presidency on a platform of raising taxes on the middle class. Whereas Kerry and some of the others only wanted to raise taxes on >$200K, Dean wanted to get rid of all the Bush tax cuts which would have essentially raised taxes on everyone. It would have been a slaughter. I remember (when conservatives assumed Dean would be the one they were going to be up against) they had a website where you could put in some basic info and they'd tell you how much Dean would raise your taxes by.

I really liked Dean a lot. I loved his energy, his intelligence, the way he spoke. I liked everything about him. It would have been nice to have someone that didn't vote for the war, too, because he would have been in a better position to attack Bush on that issue than Kerry was. But, unfortunately, his tax plan would have sunk him.

[CTLawGuy]

58. they had ads saying that kerry would raise taxes

by 900 million dollars!

Whats your point?

[Killarney]

68. My point is quite clear.

But since you're having comprehension problems, I'll make it clearer.

Kerry was only going to raise taxes on the rich folk. Everyone knows that. Dean's plan was to raise taxes on everyone.

Which one do you think would have gone over better with the masses?

[Nordic]

37. it's pure RW bullshit that some people are susceptible to

Dean is a moderate. His followers were moderate. I loved Dean, and I am a moderate.

Dean was the "common sense" candidate. He was an early victim because he had not only the RW smearing him, but the other Dems who were running as well.

And then the media crucified him.

The anger his followers were venting scared the powers that be.

Can't have mobs of angry people, now, can we?

[MattWinMO]

38. how was he moderate?

Everyone says he's moderate, but how so?

[RogueTrooper]

41. I was his policy positions that made him a classic moderate

1. Budget balancing, fiscally repsonsibly govenor.
2. Strong support for the Second Ammendment.
Would be the two most obvious.

Dean got labled a "liberal" because he opposesed the Iraq War. That was only because of the Republican "frame" that says that only liberals oppose war. Depsite the numerous moderates, independants and conservatives who opposed the war. It is just he Republican way.

I was a Dean MeetUp host for most of his run and we had a lot of Republicans come to our meetups. They were genuinly drawn to Howard Dean. In fact, one of my jobs, as a host, was to manage the inevitable culture conflict between partisan Democrats and their new Republican friends.

[MattWinMO]

44. He was pretty liberal

He supported a balanced budget but his method of balancing the budget was to eliminate tax cuts including those for the middle class. Supporting a balanced budget can be liberal depending on how you plan to balance it.

[killbotfactory]

45. His tax cut stances were his only real hard sell

But that's just due to trying to get people to realize there weren't really any tax cuts, just a tax shift from the federal to state, and at the consequence of the US going into extreme debt.

[AP]

47. I never believed that was a good argument. To me it made no sense that

the federal government had to tailor it's behaviour based on a hypothesis about how state governments would behave.

Dean was saying that Federal government could not do the right thing just because the state government would undo it. Well, not if the state governments are run by politicians who are committed to the same ideals about progressive taxation and increasing the wealth of the middle and working class that the Federal government believes in. And just because they might not be is not an excuse for the Federal government not to be committed to those ideals. And what would be a better way to spread those ideals down to the states than by using the presidency as a bully pulpit for arguing about progressive taxation and building up wealth in the middle and working class.

Whereas as FDR, JFK, LBJ, Clinton and (in the primaries, most explicitly) Edwards were all down with that, Dean wasn't. And that was a big reason I wasn't down with Dean.

[AP]

46. He also didn't believe in deficit spending. He believed that you should

give back extra money in the form of a tax break and that you shouldn't take in any more than you need to meet current expenses.

That's actually pretty conservative.

It's hard to find many democrats who don't thik that deficit spending during bad years on things that promote long term growth is a good idea.

[Nordic]

48. Really? Why don't you tell us how/why he was so liberal?

if you please.

[jpgray]

40. Well, he lost to Kerry among moderates in the Primaries, for example

But also he failed at defining himself in the media just as Kerry did. He became a caricature--a crazy leftist angry screaming caricature. This caricature of Dean wouldn't do much better than Kerry's did among moderates. I think Dean would have done as well or better in the debates, and I think he could have given a better speech at the convention, but his skills at playing the media were about as abysmal as Kerry's, and the media tell the moderates what to think. They define what is moderate, after all.

[PhuLoi]

42. Because the DLC said so. n/t

[killbotfactory]

43. Because he was CuhRAZY! Boogaboogaboo!

Insuring all children with healthcare? Total loser among moderates.
Balancing the budget? Ditto
Not a strong gun control-advocate? Yeah, surefire loser.
Pro-civil unions? Golly, that would have cost him votes among the deeply religious. Just like Bush.
Anti-dumb ass war? Yeah, right. People like wasting lives and money on a giant WMD snipe hunt. Think again.

Oh, and he's sooooo craaazzzziiieeee

[Kipepeo]

51. I always thought he *would* appeal to moderates

and that was why Rove was scared of him.

My dad really liked the fiscal responsibility he showed in Vermont. I used to send him all of that stuff, even though my Dad is a Bushbot...but he was a Bushbot upset with Bush on the economy - and I think he found Dean attractive. He voted for him in the primaries (an open primary where both parties can vote).

:shrug:

[JVS]

54. That he didn't support the IWR

[killbotfactory]

61. Yeah, it was a big mistake on his part

Since a majority of American's think the war was a mistake and hasn't made us safer, just like Dean said, he would have never been able to garner that precious 40% of the right who still think Saddam had WMD's and was aiding Al Qaeda. Sure fire loser.

[Pig_Latin_Lover]

55. Dean knows how to talk to the right

Dean is very straight-forward, clear, and stern in his opinions yet is able to get in some friendly banter and reason with someone when he debates them. I think this would appeal to a lot of people on the right, even if they didn't agree with him.

I really hope he runs again in '08, or at least plays a key role in shaping the next Presidential campaign.

[Nordic]

60. I agree. He calls them on their bullshit which is imperative

He sees it when they're framing the debate, and he doesn't fall for it.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

62. I can only tell you my perception

My husband and I are what you would probably call "far left" liberals. Probably slightly to the left of Kucinich, LOL!

But something about Dean really resonated with us. I don't know if it was his charisma or what, but while he did seem rather centrist to us (almost everyone does) he also had some positions that are considered pretty liberal nowdays in America.

I think the right wing and right wingers would have chewed him up and spit him out. Not that he isn't strong, just I think they would have made total hay of the Vermont civil unions thing and some other pretty liberal positions of his. Yeah, they did the same thing to Kerry but I think they could have done it even worse to Dean.

As for moderates, I don't know, I'm not moderate. I did know a hell of a lot of moderates who liked him a LOT.

:shrug: Doubt I helped, sorry.

[goodhue]

65. Dean is a moderate

But he spoke to antiwar issues. Which is what some moderates dislike.

[Julien Sorel]

67. Every Dean thread the same.

The same paranoid conspiracy theories, the same outraged tone, the same finger pointing, the same boogiemen out there riding around in their black helicopters, out to visit something dirty on the mighty Howard.


Why would Dean have problems appealing to moderates? The crazies who fueled his campaign, who sent him more money with every gaffe, who invented insane rationalizations for every weakness, every flaw, who were, as a group, politically more attuned to Kucinich, but who went to Dean for his perceived "electability," then exploded with rage when the mainstream DP voters chose Kerry because he, in turn, was more electable.

Those people are why.

[killbotfactory]

70. The same mudslinging against Dean supporters

Thank God Kerry won, now they have to shut up.

[Clarkie1]

69. It's not about liberal/moderate - It's national security

Because Dean has no experience in the national security arena, he wouldn't have had a chance, IMO.

[killbotfactory]

71. How could you do worse than Bush?

That's what I don't get. We had Bush nailed for getting us into a stupid bullshit war that's made us less safe, but we ran Kerry, who didn't come off as credible when attacking Bush on the issue.

[PrpgndBrdcstingSystm]

73. Dean said: "Raise retirement age" and "this is the last gasp of the Left"

Dean wanted to raise the Social Security age to 70. That is what he said.

Dean said "This is the last gasp of the Left".

Dean is a fiscal conservative who put on a liberal face and grabbed a liberal issue (anti war) as a gambit to get into the 2004 primary race. He crashed and burned in Iowa when the other candidates outed him to the liberals and senior citizens in the Iowa primary.