UPI: Why the Democrats Need Dean

[newsguyatl]

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030814-021549-5681r

good stuff!

<snip>
However, three clear, defining principles have vividly emerged about Dean's candidacy, and they are all in the Democrats' long-term interest.

First, Dean stands for financial probity, a balanced budget and a sound currency when the ruling Republicans have thrown those values out the window. As long as money can still be borrowed and overseas investors still enticed, they will continue to get away with it. But that cannot be forever, and may not even be for long. When the day of reckoning comes, it is the Dean-ized Democrats, not the big spending, deficit-happy Republicans who will reap the reaction.

Second, Dean is the only potential presidential candidate the Democrats have who came out loud, clear and early in opposing the war in Iraq, and the more that war slides into costly quagmire, and probably far worse, the more his stock will rise at the expense of all the Democrat straddlers who agonized on the fence, and in contrast to George "Trigger-Happy" Bush, too.

As the death count of U.S. soldiers rises, Bush's May 1 bravura performance in landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier to proclaim the major military operations of the war over will look a lot less macho and a lot more phony. Democratic supporters of the war like "Holy Joe" Lieberman or wafflers like John Kerry will be in no position to cash in on that, but Dean will.

Third, Dean has charisma and he can fire up the white middle-class grass roots. Even Bill Clinton could never do that. This means that a Dean candidacy, even if he loses, could carry the same hope for the Democrats that Al Smith did for them in 1928 and Barry Goldwater did for the Republicans in 1964. He can launch the process of a long-term dramatic shift in national political alignments away from the old, long-dominant party and to the advantage of the long-minority one. Even if Dean cannot win in 2004 -- and it is far too soon to proclaim that he cannot -- he may therefore be the essential ingredient to prepare the way for decisive Democratic victory in 2008.





<snip>
Back on Nov. 16, 2002, we noted in UPI Analysis, "The root cause of the Democrats' dilemma in the post Tip O'Neill era is that they continue to imagine that they can beat something with nothing. And they never have. Only Bill Clinton, who with all his self-indulgent personal flaws, most definitely was 'something' has effectively led them into the corridors of executive power and kept them there over the past generation. And so far, the congressional Democrats have yet to emulate him. Gephardt certainly didn't. Can anyone?"

Nine months after we wrote those lines, we finally have a positive answer to the question we posed back then. Howard Dean offers the Democrats at least a chance at creating a coherent, credible and attractive national vision again, nearly four decades since their last one went up in smoke. Now at long last, the Doctor is In.

[Terwilliger]

1. TWO things

Howard Dean offers the Democrats at least a chance at creating a coherent, credible and attractive national vision again

He does? Just from saying things people want to hear? Is that a "vision"?

nearly four decades since their last one went up in smoke.

And what vision was that? Who lost it?

[searchingforlight]

2. The only thing that bothers me about this is that it comes from

UPI. Isn't that Rev. Moon's group now?

[Kanola]

3. I am so bored with this candidate bashing

Dean has extensive grassroots supporters. Get over it!