The “Stop Dean” campaign and the divisions in the American political...

[IndianaGreen]

In the runup to the Iowa Democratic caucuses

The “Stop Dean” campaign and the divisions in the American political establishment
By David Walsh
14 January 2004

The Democratic Party contest has revealed deep divisions within the US ruling elite, expressed in particularly sharp form in the orchestrated campaign against frontrunner Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont.

In the January 11 debate in Des Moines, sponsored by cable network MSNBC and known as the “Brown and Black Presidential Forum” for its supposed emphasis on issues critical to Hispanics and blacks, the Reverend Al Sharpton launched the fiercest attacks on Dean. In a demagogic outburst that appeared to take Dean by surprise, Sharpton accused the former of having “discovered blacks and browns during this campaign.” He demanded to know why Dean, governor of a state that is 96.8 percent white, did not have a single senior “black or brown” member of his six-person cabinet.

Sharpton, a charlatan and former FBI informer, whom the media inevitably describes as a “civil rights activist,” proceeded to lecture Dean: “And I think that, while I respect the fact you brought race into this campaign, you ought to talk freely and openly about whether you went out of the box to try to do something about race in your home state and have experience with working with blacks and browns at peer level, not as just friends you might have had in college.”

Directly or indirectly, Sharpton was clearly operating Sunday night in the service of that faction in the Democratic Party establishment that is desperate to stop Dean. Neither the media questioners nor any of his fellow candidates were impolite enough to question Sharpton about a January 10 New York Times article reporting that “his campaign has paid thousands of dollars for him to stay in luxury hotels and to travel around the country with his own personal filmmaker” and that “a review of the candidate’s most recent campaign report, filed in September, shows it is marked by oversights, errors and potential violations.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jan2004/dems-j14.shtml

[brenty]

1. Doubts

I really doubt that Sharpton's critiques are that much of a threat to Dean. While obviously giving the "Stop Dean" movement some fire, I think Sharpton is in the end serving to give Dean some practice for the loads of crap he's going to get in the general election (assuming, of course, that he gets the nomination). The Rev might be cutting, but he lacks the resources, firepower, and credibility that the reactionary punditry and Rove-ites will use when they fully unleash. So it's good for Dean to preparing now by responding to Sharpton, Kerry, and his other opponents within the Democratic Party.

Despite all the whining on both sides, right now is certainly the calm before the storm of negative press. They're focusing on gaffes now; by May they'll have invented a scandal, and by October conspiracy/murder theories will become conventional wisdom.