Centerfield

Yeah, I agree. I had wanted to find some time to blog on this. More and more Dean to me has the scent of a hothouse flower, a 21st century internet populist whose appeal may not translate to the general population.

A lot of people talk about the red state/blue state schism and suggest a bipolar distribution of views. But it seems to me that there's roughly a 1/3-1/3-1/3 split between the left and right on the ends and moderates and independents in the middle third, even if some of them self-identify as either democrats or republicans.

And if you buy the hypothesis that its the midle third that's going to decide the elcetion, you've gotta conclude Dean is in deep trouble come the general election. In my surfing, I see more and more centrists and moderate democrats complaining about Dean's incoherence. And there's a large group of moderates from both parties that weren't especially enamored of Bush's approach to foreign policy, but support in at leats in part because almost no one on the left is able to voice a sensible alternative.

Dean's got a ton of money, so he may carry the nom, but I have the feeling that at best it may be enough to purchase a pyrrhic victory.

Tully - I'm curious about your take on Clark but didn't see an anwer on your weblog.

Feel free to email, if you wish (or ignore, if you wish)

:}

My take and reasoning so far:

Dean has come as far as he has by pandering to the hard left, the Bush-haters, utopians, and doctrinaire socialists. With the Dems fragmented by these leftist factions vs. the DLC faction (which currently has control of the party itself) Dean represents those who feel disenfranchised from the Dem party by the DLC faction. This is not a new phenomena, it's happened to both parties in modern times. Remember "Clean for Gene?" And McGovern's campaign had much the same dynamics, a grass-roots leftist movement carrying it into the primaries. The difference is that McGovern actually had some support from the national party going into the primaries, which is not going to happen with Dean, so that when McG got the nomination he actually had a coherent party organization to pick up the campaign from the grass-rooters.

But True Believers can carry you only so far. They're usually political neophytes, dedicated and full of zeal, but they're also loud, obnoxious, repetitive and stunningly annoying. And about the only voters they can sway your way are the ones that already incline your way. This is good in a primary, and useless in the real race. For the home stretch you must have the national party on your side, complete with the enthusiastic cooperation of the campaign pros and the fund-raising apparatus.

Now here's where I leap off into sheer speculation on too little information, and without a parachute. Barring a major national disaster, the Dems can't field anyone to beat Bush in 2004, and the DLC knows it. Publicly praying for such a disaster, as the hate-Bushers have been doing, not only won't win you any votes, it could actually solidify Bush's support should a disaster occur. (It's not a thing that being right about will win you many friends--quite the opposite.) Dean has been playing left field too long, and can not reform himself by moving to the middle, as no one will believe it. (Please note that whether or not Dean is "really a moderate" makes absolutely no difference--he's carrying the banners of the hard left into the primaries, and he's stuck with them. GOP campaign ops will make sure of it.)

The DLC faction is still controlled by the Clintonites. I don't mean Bill, I mean the brains of the family, the real political geniuses, Hillary and friends. (I may not like Hillary, but I do NOT underestimate her abilities or intelligence--she's quite formidable.) And the DLC faction is pushing Clark. Hillary, the de facto DLC boss, wants to run in 2008. But that would require the Dem party keeping a "moderate" face, and managing an honorable loss as a "reasonable, moderate, centrist" alternative in 2004 and 2006, halting the erosion of Dem power in Congress. This requires the Dems to start chipping voters away from the GOP-leaning moderates and turning them into Dem-leaning moderates. This can't happen if the Deanies sieze title to the national party. Winning the primary would give them control of the party, but not the DLC resources. It won't bring them the Clinton machine and personnel that now occupy the party apparatus, and without that, the election will be a major Bush blowout, making even Dukakis' '88 loss look good. The only candidates that would allow the DLC the positioning they want for the next few years are Clark, Gephardt, Kerry, or Leiberman. Leiberman hasn't the charisma or support to carry the nomination, Kerry isn't polling all that well and would likely want control of the DLC (which he won't get from Hillary), so the only two dependables are Clark, and Old Pol Gephardt.

I predict that the DLC will push Clark, but also provide clandestine support to Gephardt trying to whittle away some of that union support from Dean, which is thin and superficial support to begin with. And they'll back the hell out of either one if they gain a clear lead in the primaries. They'd prefer the outsider, Clark, because he carries less baggage, is much more controllable, and would be of more help in retaining Congressional seats in 2004 and '06, but would settle for Gephardt if he shows enough strength. They'd even go with Kerry if the wind blows that way, but won't provide any real support unless he looks strong in the early primaries. But they'll fight tooth-and-nail to sabotage Dean, who would likely cost them a lot of seats in Congress over the next four years and seriously damage their starting position in 2008. This doesn't affect the hard left Congress critters, who are almost exclusively in safe districts, but could severely impact Dem moderates in contested districts.

And let's make no mistake--if you accept that the DLC believes Bush likely can't be beat, the rest follows, and the real fight in the Dem party is over damage control in Congress, public perception for '04, '06, and '08, and positioning for the '08 presidential race. If the Dems are stripped of the moderate image acquired in the Clinton years by a hard-left Dean candidacy, they're going to be out in the wilderness for a very long time. The DLC faction knows that. The insurgents, the "True Believers" and hard leftists, can't seem to look that far ahead, or even include Congressional electoral strategy in their thinking at all.

As to what I think of Clark--I may be handicapped by too much knowledge of his military career, and the opinions of those who served with him, and too little knowledge of any actual ideology on Clark's part. They don't think much of him as a military man, but they do think he's a ruthless egocentric career climber (a politician!) and quite a competent one. He has been drafted to fill a role, not win an election, and there is no doubt in my mind that he is doing so for his own career reasons. In short, he's certainly no worse than the rest of the pack, maybe even much better, as he possesses considerable applied political skills and he's probably not just fooling himself to feed his ego, but rather filling a specific role in exchange for future position in the party or support for a Congressional run, even that VP slot in '08. Let's face it, many of the primary candidates know they're hopeless before they even file papers. They're intentionally garnering resources for bartering at the convention and farther out. Why should Clark be an exception? That doesn't mean he won't do his damndest, as a slacker he most certainly is not. But his record indicates an extremely practical man self-directed man with no illusions, which leads me to my conclusion.

I don't get where this theory that Dean is not going to sustain the momentum is coming from. He has been the frontrunner consistently for months, even when many have predicted his down fall. If someone has some actual evidence of this, than I would love to see it. From what I can tell, Dean is leading in all of the key primary states.

I wish there was a more moderate-DLC alternative, but there isn't, and for some reason they have all written off Joe and John Kerry, who I think actually would have a decent shot at Bush. They are the only two Democrats, besides Gephardt, who are intellectually honest and have the skills, the experience, and the creativity to lead an entire nation.

Clark is simply not Presidential material. I think he is well versed on foreign policy issues, but I think he came out against the war only for political purposes. And let's face it, until the day he decided to run for President, he was a Republican. This whole reinvention campaign he is doing will not work with the voters... they will see through it and rightfully so. Not to mention that he is has some serious credibility issues since no one who has worked with him in the past appears to be supporting his candidacy.

I don't think we know who Wesley Clark is or where he stands on domestic issues... I am not even convinced that he knows where he is. I don't see him as rallying the base of the Democratic Party unless he goes extremely liberal which in that case I don't see the point in supporting him. Clinton was able to run as a moderate and win because he was Clinton. Wesley Clark has nowhere close to that kind of talent.

Maybe I am being a bit negative, but in less a McCain like movement surrounds Lieberman or Kerry (and it may not matter either way), than Howard Dean is going to be the nominee of the Demcratic Party and once again the majority center of the country will pick between two evils. For me anyway, between Dean and Bush, I pick Bush.

The only way actual evidence of a "loss of momentum" can be revealed is in the actual elections. Leading now and leading when the votes are counted are very different things, as more than one failed candidate can tell you. Gephardt and Dean have swapped first place in the Iowa polls several times and remain close, and many of the other early primary states (the Feb. 3 "Super Seven") show a statistical toss-up with several of the candidates running inside the margins of error. In Oklahoma, for example, the polls have swung back and forth between Clark, Leiberman, and Dean with astounding swiftness, and in Missouri there's little doubt that homeboy Gephardt will kick Dean's butt. In Delaware it's Leiberman well in the lead. Arizona has Dean and Clark neck and neck. Let's not forget that at this point 12 years ago, Bill Clinton was barely a blip on the board.

And even if the polls were perfectly predictive (which they aren't, by a very long shot) they'd only be perfectly predictive for the moment in time they were taken. A Gephardt win in Iowa could shift the numbers dramatically, as would a strong showing by Clark in New Hampshire or Kerry in South Carolina. Remember that those in charge of the Dem party at the national level would prefer either of those three to Dean, and the party resources are in their hands until someone can take them away at the DNC. And the convention winner only gets access to the DNC resources, not the DLC/Clintonite resources. The DLC/Clintonites are opposed to Dean, and unlikely to spend much of their war chest on his behalf in any circumstances.

I won't go into the detailed deficiencies of polling, particularly the popular fallacy of using national polls to predict local primaries, but they're both considerable and fundamental. Quick example--California Deanies don't get to vote in South Carolina's primary, or Oklahoma's or the Iowa caucuses. As I said, it ain't over 'til it's over. And it's only really over when the delegate's votes are counted at the national convention, as that's the only poll that actually counts.