Why Dean should take charge

Why Dean should take charge

With his passion and populist appeal, Howard Dean is exactly the leader
the Democratic Party needs right now.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Mark Hertsgaard

Jan. 24, 2005 Florida Democrats' decision to unanimously back Howard
Dean as the new chairman of the DNC (Democratic National Committee)
shows two things: first, there are still some Democrats out there --
including in the supposedly hopeless South -- who have brains and guts
and aren't afraid to think for themselves; and second, Dean now has a
real shot at winning the DNC job and launching a much-needed makeover of
the Democratic Party.

Political and media elites in Washington are at once horrified and
dismissive of Dean's quest. They insist that Democrats would be crazy to
pick a raving liberal like Dean as their next party chairman. But as is
so often the case, this inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom is based
on dubious "facts" and assumptions about how ordinary Americans relate
to politics. Dean is exactly the leader Democrats need to become
relevant again.

The Florida Democratic chairman's statement to the New York Times
reveals just how out of touch the Washington establishment is: "I'm a
gun-owning, pickup-truck driver, and I have a bulldog named Lockjaw,"
said Scott Maddox. "I am a Southern chairman of a Southern state, and I
am perfectly comfortable with Howard Dean as DNC chair."

And the reason Florida Democrats like Dean?

"What our party needs right now is energy, enthusiasm, and a willingness
to do things differently," Maddox added. "I think Howard Dean brings all
three of those things to the party."

Maddox isn't the only prominent Southern Democrat backing Dean. On
Tuesday, the state chairman from Mississippi and the vice chairmen from
Oklahoma and Utah announced that they, too, were endorsing the former
Vermont governor, leading ABC News' influential The Note to declare that
Dean "is now emphatically the front-runner" for the DNC job.

A year ago, Dean was jeered off the national stage by television's
non-stop coverage of his "scream" speech. And it must be admitted that
he showed some undeniable weaknesses as a presidential candidate in
2004, including a tendency to speak first and think later. But Dean is
running for party chairman now, not president. The chairman's job is to
rally and organize the party faithful to do the unglamorous but vital
grass-roots work that will expand the Democratic base, reach out to new
and uncommitted voters, and win future elections. As Maddox said, Dean
fits that job description perfectly. He inspires grass-roots enthusiasm,
and his time as governor of Vermont grants him the necessary executive
and administrative skills.

What's more, in the wake of the Democrats' loss to President Bush in
November, Dean's political message, and especially the way he delivers
it, looks better and better.

Dean, after all, was right about the central issue of the 2004 election
-- the Iraq war. Nowadays, a majority of the American public believes
that attacking Iraq was a bad idea. Dean was saying this -- and being
criticized for it -- in the fall of 2003.

Dean was also right when he said Democrats should be the party not only
of urban liberals but of "guys with Confederate flags in their pickup
trucks," another comment he was derided for. But in view of how many
centrist voters chose President Bush over John Kerry, even though
Kerry's economic policies would have benefited them more, Dean's call to
reach out to culturally conservative voters was prescient.

Above all, Dean was right that Democrats would win only if they told
voters exactly what they stood for and why. Kerry never did that,
especially on Iraq, where his reluctance to call the war (and not just
its prosecution) a mistake let the president off the hook on his most
vulnerable issue.

By contrast, Bush never shrank from saying what he believed. Like Dean,
he understood a basic fact of American politics: voters value
plain-spokenness in a politician much more than agreement on specific
issues. Bush was even clever enough to steal one of Dean's signature
lines: "You may not always agree with me, but you'll always know where I
stand."

All of the news stories reporting Dean's decision to seek the DNC
chairmanship repeated the standard rap against him: He's too liberal.
But that charge doesn't reflect reality so much as it reflects the
Washington establishment's version of reality. Dean was labeled a
liberal by the media essentially because he opposed the Iraq war. Never
mind that he was also a deficit hawk who opposed gun control, gay
marriage, and universal healthcare, or that many conservatives later
embraced his criticism of the war. In the post-Sept. 11 mood of false
patriotism, the media assumed that anyone who criticized an apparently
successful war had to be a liberal, and that was that.

This mischaracterization has led observers to miss the real source of
Dean's appeal to a jaded electorate: He knows what he believes, and he's
not afraid to say it plainly enough for ordinary people to understand.
His vision for Democrats is not about moving the party to the left; it's
about Democrats standing for something that resonates with ordinary
Americans -- a task that current party leaders have manifestly failed to
achieve.

Dean believes the Democratic Party's allegiance to big donors and
cautious incrementalism has alienated many of its logical voters. Alone
among prominent Democrats, he recognizes that the party has little
future if it cannot connect in an authentic way with the extraordinary
grass-roots energy that propelled his own presidential campaign (and
that later nearly got Kerry elected, despite the Kerry campaign's many
shortcomings).

In 2004, Dean rewrote the rules of presidential campaigns by using the
Internet and local "meet-ups" to raise small donor money. But Dean's
real secret was to give supporters real influence within his campaign
and thus hook them on continued political participation. The idea of
meet-ups, for example, came from the grass roots, not from campaign
headquarters.

The Bush campaign tapped into similar grass-roots energy among
conservatives and thereby expanded Republican turnout enough to gain the
president a second term. Democrats must do more of the same in the years
to come, and Dean is the leader who best understands that imperative.
Dean, after all, is a populist. And his populism is not the brand
espoused by President Bush -- a millionaire who shills for billionaires
while talking like the common man. Dean's is the real thing. Which is
why Republicans privately fear him.

Another part of the media consensus on Dean is that he only wants the
DNC job to grease his run for president in 2008. For his part, Dean has
declared he won't run if he gets the DNC job. Of course, he could change
his mind. But it's worth remembering that presidential candidate Dean
always said that Democrats must first reform their party and its
approach to politics if they want to win the White House.

Dean is now traveling around the country telling his supporters that
remaking the Democratic Party is a long-term project that could take 20
years. His first hurdle comes on Feb. 12, when 447 largely unknown party
officials from around the country will vote for the next DNC chairman.
The Florida and other Southern Democrats' decision to back him will, of
course, be enormously helpful to Dean's prospects, but it also figures
to call forth still more "anyone but Dean" efforts from the party
establishment.

Everyone agrees the Democrats have to remake themselves; they just lost
to perhaps the most vulnerable incumbent in history. The DNC vote will
give the first hint of how they plan to proceed. At a time when America
has never needed an effective opposition party more, let us pray
Democrats can rise to the challenge.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writer
Mark Hertsgaard is the author, most recently, of "The Eagle's Shadow:
Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World," and "Earth Odyssey:
Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future."


http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/01/24/dean/print.html