A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics
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A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics | |
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December 12, 2003Gore Endorsement FalloutExcellent take on the Gore endorsement from William Saletan of Slate. Here's part: The problem isn't Gore. The problem is the myth of inevitability, which fulfills itself by undermining free will. Also, Lieberman is making political hay out of it, with at least modest success: Lieberman's aides report that scores of well-wishers have contacted the campaign. Many are opening their wallets, too — the campaign reports that more than $250,000 worth of donations have come in since Gore's intention to endorse Dean was revealed Monday.Posted by William Swann at December 12, 2003 09:08 AM Comments
Like I already said, I don't think a single person changed their mind about who they are supporting because of what Al Gore said. And if this is true, it's hard to make the case that Gore's endorsement makes any difference as far as who is going to win the dem nom. And sure, after all ,it aint over til its over. But that doesn't change the fact that Dean's got mucho buzz, and no other dem has any. ANY. So while Dean's getting the nom isn't inevitable, it LOOKS inevitable. I think all this jabbering about Gore's endorsement and what it means has mostly to do with us junkies needing something to jabber about. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that after the first few primaries, someone will emerge as the Dean alternative, simply because the number of candidates will shrink from 9 as the untenable candidacies will wither. Personally, I view this as a good thing. And I'm not especially happy that it looks like some of the no-shot candidates (Sharpton, Kucinich, and Braun come to mind)might stick around to serve as turds in the punchbowl, wasting my time. To my thinking, the sooner that 9 shrinks to a 2 or a 3, the better. The longer that 9 stays close to 9, the better it will be for Dean, tho. My main objection to there being 9 candidacies is that it makes it hard for me as a political consumer to get a sense of the candidates in an efficient way. I didn't even CONSIDER watching this last debate. With 9 debaters? I mean, do the math. Posted by: bk at December 12, 2003 12:23 PMYou're right about the presence of 9 candidates doing a very basic disservice to all of us. For the person who emerges as "the anti-Dean", though, it isn't so much the number who remain that matters as it is who remains. There are three contenders, it seems to me, for the role of moderate/DLC challenger to Dean -- Clark, Edwards and Lieberman. Each of those three is sucking some of the life out of the others by remaining. And none of the three will quit before the primaries because each has some legitimate hope for emerging as the primary opponent. It would be ideal for any of those three if the other two would quit, and if all the more liberal candidates remained, each of whom sucks a little potential support from Dean. If the DLC crowd could pick a winner and somehow concentrate their support, they'd have a better chance. That doesn't seem likely, though, as Drezner points out in his incisive analysis of the whole thing. Posted by: William Swann at December 12, 2003 12:59 PM |
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