Anti-Dean Blog

Posted by on . 8 comments.

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Jonathan Chiat started a new blog at the New Republic last week to catalog his fear of Howard Dean getting the Democratic nomination.

This one’s already on the bookmark bar both for substance and writing.

All the more relevant when things like this happen. Dean’s people re-leaked a conversation Dean had with Wesley Clark

“Joe Trippi may want to check in with his candidate before talking,” Matt Bennett said in a statement from Clark headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas.”Howard Dean did in fact offer Wes Clark a place on the ticket in a one-on-one meeting that Trippi did not attend.”

News of this meeting was originally leaked by the Dean camp just after Clark decided to run in an attempt to make Clark look indecisive. Trying to have things both ways is a Bush administration tactic, in this case botched by a ham-handed Dean. Just another reason not to like him.

Considering that the 2004 election will be largely based on the war on terror, shouldn’t the Dems run a candidate who doesn’t need a VP to give him credibility on foreign relations and national security?

Comments

  1. tom says:
    December 22, 2003 at 8:30 am

    im sure that the continued “dean is unelectable” campaign from so many dems is really only going to harm his chances in the likely chance that he does get the nod. that kinda shit is just as bad as the shit you guys claim nader does. except nader gets the far left, whereas TNR gets those middle ground cats. those are EXACTLY the kind of people the dems need to pull the election off. but instead oif banding together to try to help the leading guy get exposure to his good points, they poke at his weak points until theyve done the job the bush campaign would otherwise have to do. that makes so little sense that it hurts my head.

  2. matt says:
    December 22, 2003 at 8:46 am

    Clinton was re-elected in 1996 because of swing voters (by nature moderates). Perot threw the election to Clinton in 1992. Carter was a moderate. So as Clipse would say, “when the last time” a candidate like Dean won?

    There just aren’t enough dems to win, even if they all voted dem.

    TNR has a well defined editorial policy and political lean. They’d prefer Lieberman, so they lose some points in my book.

    I’ll vote for Dean if he is the nominee, which is different than the green strategy of “blow up the system”, even though i’m starting to wonder if Bush should be given another term so that he can be there when the payments come due on his plan of mortgaging the future.

    Doesn’t the fact that Rove, Delay etc want Dean mean anything to anyone? Delay was on Meet the Press yesterday barely concealing his hard-on when asked about a Dean candidacy. That should mean something.

  3. tom says:
    December 23, 2003 at 1:36 pm

    id say its just arrogance. obviously if enough people keep saying “dean is unelectable” it will become true. so if they agree, it helps keep dean on the defensive. if dean had a more united dem party behind him, i bet they wouldnt be quite so eager. but with big name dems already talking shit, its easy for them to help take out possibly their biggest threat.

  4. matt says:
    December 23, 2003 at 1:43 pm

    More people would stand behind him if he stood for what they believed in. He doesn’t, so they don’t. Your logic is flawed (imagine) because at various points, Lieberman was the front-runner, Kerry was the front-runner, even Clark was for a spell. People will stand behind him when and if he is the nominee. That’s just how primaries work, regardless of how you think they should work. Just like the party won’t (can’t?) force the jackass publicity hounds from the race.

  5. tom says:
    December 24, 2003 at 12:16 pm

    its not how i think things should work. its about people not trying to do whatever they can to fuck over someone who is essentially on their own team. theres no problem with campaigning about what makes you better than other candidates, but the anti dean ads that have been going around are the kind of thing the repubs should be doing, not fellow dems.

  6. matt says:
    December 24, 2003 at 12:32 pm

    Well, you aren’t in charge, and what’s more you don’t vote.
    This can’t be the first primary you’ve followed, or is it?

    Negative ads are as much a part of primaries as the are gen elections.

    And the press is running free pro-Dean ads every day. According to them, he got the nod already.

  7. D Miller says:
    December 29, 2003 at 11:23 pm

    I am writing because I am very concerned about the infighting
    between Democratic candidates. All you are doing is giving
    fuel to Bush and sabatoging any of the Democratic candidates
    any chance of winning.

    WHy don’t we try something different here, lets UNITE together!
    If we put all of our energy together, we can defeat Bush. I cannot
    afford to have 4 more years of him…I am tired of being
    unemployed and I am confident that a Democratic President will
    bring back jobs as has happened in the past.

    UNITE, don’t fight!

    D Miller

  8. matt says:
    December 30, 2003 at 1:09 am

    Your concern about the infighting in the Democratic primary betrays a lack of experience in watching politics. The primary is and has always been a time of unmitigated internal warfare. Most recently, wayyy back in 2000, Al Gore smacked around (anyone remember?) Bill Bradley. In 1992, everyone ganged up on Bill Clinton.

    Would you rather the non-Dean candidates all dropped out now before even so much as a vote because Dean has mamaged 22% of the support in polls?

    The Democrats (including myself, a certified Dean-o-phobe) will support whoever gets a majority of Democratic Convention delegates. Ironically, Dean is the only candidate who didn’t sign a pledge to support an eventual winner before the convention.

    Who was the last Democratic President before Clinton to create a significant number of jobs? It’s been a while. Simply having a generic Democrat is not a guarantee of massive job creation the likes that we saw in 93-00. I haven’t heard anything like a coherent economic plan from Dean, and his proposal to increase regulation in many areas does not sound like a job creation plan to me.

    I’m not ready to let the press tell me that Dean is my party’s nominee. I’ll be voting for Clark on March 2nd, and I’ll be encouraging readers of this site to do the same in their state’s primary. If Dean collects enough delegates, I will vote for him in the general election.

    I am on a mission to make sure that Dean supporters understand that this is not the first primary election ever.