Why I'm for Dean

[fabius]

Why I’m for Dean.

First of all, I need to say I’m glad we have all our candidates, even Clark if he gets in. Every one has something to say. This multitude of voices strengthens the Democratic party tremendously. I think Gore failed to win in a landslide because there was essentially no real issue discussion in the primary. "Lockbox"-come on.

If this were a Parliamentary system what we have would be several parties. I’ll identify them as follows:

“DLC” Party.
Interest groups = corporate, business, religious conservatives, “new Democrats"
Issues = economic growth, social stability, national security, balanced budget

“Women’s” Party
Interest Groups = feminists, women, social justice activists
Issues = right to choose, education, social justice, health care, jobs, security, anti-war

“Rainbow” Party
Interest Groups = gays, minorities, social justice activists
Issues = education, minority rights, gay rights, social justice, health care, jobs, anti-war

“Labor” Party
Interest Groups = organized labor, traditional Democrats
Issues = labor rights, jobs, anti-globalization, social justice, health care

“Green” Party =
Interest Groups = environmental activists, social justice activists
Issues = environmental stewardship, anti-globalization, social justice, anti-war

“Populist” Party
Interest Groups = disaffected young voters, disaffected independents, social libertarians
Issues = anti-corporate, anti-big-government, pro-states rights

The Republicans are now made up of the following general groups:

Paleocons:
Interest groups = corporate, business, fiscal conservatives, foreign policy conservatives
Issues = economic growth, social stability, national security, balanced budget, “modest” foreign policy

Neocons:
Interest Groups: big corporations, robber barons, fiscal uber- Keynesians, think-tank Metternichs
Issues = income redistribution (upward), social repression, geopolitical adventurism

Fundamentalists:
Interest Groups: Fleecers and sheep
Issues = Christian state

All of the nine (or maybe ten) candidates represent one of more of these groups. Some of them may appeal to a significant fraction of the “paleocons” i.e. traditional conservatives. This appeal grows stronger as Bush’s foreign policy grows weaker. So, here goes my estimate of the groups our candidates could probably pick up. Trying to be realistic here:

Lieberman = DLC, Women’s, Rainbow, can pick up lukewarm support of other Dem. Groups and some Paleocons.

Graham = DLC, Labor, Can pick up lukewarm support of other Dem. Groups and some Paleocons.

Gephardt = Labor, DLC, Women’s, Can pick up lukewarm support of other Dem. Groups and some Paleocons.

Kerry = DLC, Labor, Women’s, Can pick up Rainbow, some Greens, and some Paleocons.

Dean = Populist, Labor, Green, Rainbow, Can pick up DLC and Women’s and some Paleocons.

Edwards = DLC, Populist, Labor, can pick up Women’s and some Paleocons.

Sharpton = Rainbow, Green, Labor, Women’s, will NOT pick up DLC, Populists and Paleocons

Braun = Women’s, Rainbow, Labor, Green, will NOT pick up DLC, Populists and Paleocons

Kucinich = Labor, Green, Rainbow, Women’s, will NOT pick up DLC, Populists and Paleocons

No Democrat will pick up any neocons or fundamentalists.

I think Dean is well-placed to appeal to the broadest spectrum of voters, and to energize the young and disaffected voters the most. Why? because he asks them to participate, not just sit back and listen to sound bites.

Politically I’m really of the Kucinich-Braun-Sharpton wing but I can easily live with Dean. In fact I prefer him because regardless of specific political views, he is encouraging exactly the thing we need most: grassroots organization and participation. Nobody else in this race comes close. If we want to drive the neocons back in their box forever, Dean is showing us the way to do it. Also the DLC hates him that makes me like him more. If the people are empowered in this election and if we can keep that energy, we could really elect Kucinich in 2012.

Especially after his sterling performance as Labor Secretary under Dean.
;-)

[redeye]

1. Parliamentary system?

You mean proportional representation, don't you? Britain has a parliamentary system and it has 2.5 parties, exactly because it has a single-member district system like the USA. And even so, I can't bring myself to believe that the USA is so divided politically that it'll have the same number of parties as the Israeli Knesset (10), even with pure proportional representation without a threshold (i.e. your party gets enough votes for one seat and you get into Congress).

[arcos]

3. No, but imagine...

if a party could get a seat in congress with 20% of the vote (or even less depending on the system that is used and the amount of seats per district) it would be much easier.

You won't have 10 parties, but there could be several independent or third party representatives that will bring important issues to the national arena.

[Piper3069]

2. Adding to the one group you missed . . .

Constitutionalists. Dean speaks issues of "states rights" like a mantra. And for those of us who believe in that Oregon should be allowed to have differentt laws from Alabama and vice versa, Dean is the candidate of choice.

[fabius]

4. Constitutionalists - Right!

As an Oregonian and a defender of Death with Dignity and medical marijuana against the depradations of Asscroft, I see the point!

[REP]

5. I Think Dean Has The "Women's Party"

He has never once flinched in his pro-choice stance, not once. He does talk about health care and how to get everyone covered. We know he's against this war (and I doubt anyone is against gong to war if our country is really under direct attack).

I know many women don't trust Kucinich on abortion issues because of his nasty voting record and sudden getting right with Jesus at what seemed to be an expedient time in his political life. I do agree that he would probably be an excellent Labor Secretary.

[Cornus]

6. Why Dean likely can't win

This was posted at another site this morning:


Guest columnist Timothy S. Huebner is
an associate professor of
history at Rhodes College and directs
the Rhodes Institute for
Regional Studies.


September 4, 2003

If the Democrats hope to defeat
Republican President Bush and retake
the White House next year, they will
need to brush up on two
important subjects: mathematics and
history. Both show that the best
hope of a Democratic victory in 2004
lies in a Southern nominee.

First, the math: In addition to the many advantages of incumbency,
Bush will have an electoral advantage in 2004. Every 10 years, the
number of electoral votes allocated to each state changes, based on
the latest U.S. Census. In 2004, the electoral map will reflect
population shifts documented in the 2000 Census. (In the 2000
election, electoral votes were still allocated according to the 1990
Census.)


Six of the states Democrat Al Gore won in 2000 have a smaller share
of the U.S. population now than they did under the previous
population count. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, New
York and Connecticut will have a total of eight fewer electoral votes
in 2004.

Even with the addition of an electoral vote in California, where Gore
won, the 20 states that voted for Gore in 2000 will be worth seven
fewer electoral votes this time around - 253 rather than 260. Because
a presidential candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the White
House, the Democratic nominee in 2004 will need to win 17 new
electoral votes, in addition to holding all the Gore states.

Several historic trends make these numbers even more compelling. The
relative population losses experienced by the Great Lakes and
Northeastern regions are part of a long-term American migration to
Southern states. At the same time those traditionally Democratic
states lost residents relative to the rest of the country, the South
gained a larger share of the nation's population.

In the presidential elections of 1964 and 1968, when electoral counts
were based on the 1960 Census, the 11 states of the Old Confederacy
had a combined total of 128 electoral votes. As more Midwesterners
and Northeasterners moved south, those numbers increased steadily
over the next four decades.

Now, based on the 2000 population count, the same 11 Southern states
carry 153 electoral votes. Florida, Texas, Georgia and North Carolina
will all have more electoral votes in 2004 than in 2000.

This demographic shift to the South has coincided with the rise of
the Republican Party in the region. In the past 40 years, as the
region's share of the national population surged, the GOP went from
the minority to the virtual majority party in the South, with
Republican presidential nominees achieving particular success there.

Republican Richard Nixon won only three of the states of the Old
Confederacy during his first run for the White House in 1960. In
2000, Bush won all 11 of these states, including Gore's home state of
Tennessee. Republicans can take comfort from the fact that such a
fast-growing region of the country is also heavily Republican and,
according to polls, the most pro-Bush.

Democrats should know that their best chance of winning those extra
17 electoral votes will be to nominate a ticket that can compete in
the South. The only times Democrats have won the White House in
recent history have been when they nominated Southerners from the
centrist wing of the party: Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in
1992 and 1996.

Carter swept every state of the Old Confederacy but one in his first
race for the White House. Clinton won Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana
and Tennessee in 1992, and Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana and Tennessee
in 1996.

The most recent Midwestern or Northern Democrat to win a Southern
state in a presidential election, by contrast, was Hubert Humphrey of
Minnesota, who carried Texas in his failed bid for the White House in
1968. Over the past four decades, white Southern voters - who on the
whole are more conservative than the rest of the American electorate -
have shown they just will not vote for liberal, non-Southern
Democrats for president.

Despite the surge of recent interest in the candidacy of former
Vermont governor Howard Dean and the early spotlight on Sen. John
Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democrats' best chance of beating Bush
will be to nominate a candidate with a Southern pedigree.

Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina and Bob Graham of Florida and
retired Gen. Wesley Clark of Arkansas currently lag in the polls
compared to Dean and Kerry. Yet they eventually stand the best chance
of retaining the Democratic base in the Midwest and Northeast and on
the West Coast, while making inroads in the increasingly vote-rich
South.

Nominating a Southern candidate is not a sure-fire recipe for
success, especially given Gore's total defeat in the South in 2000.
But history shows that the chance of Democratic victory is much
greater with a Southerner at the top of the ticket than without one.

Of course, if the Democrats choose to ignore both mathematics and
history this time around, they will have another four years to learn
their lessons.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

8. Just so I'm sure I have this right.

We should choose our nominee based on where they were born/live and not on his/her policies and accomplishments?


If that's the case, count me out.

[HFishbine]

10. Kennedy

won seven southern states.

[Kazak]

12. Spare us the spin please...

:puke:

[Mairead]

7. "Politically I’m really of the Kucinich-Braun-Sharpton wing but..."

Then you're either selling yourself out, or you're kidding yourself about what you 'really' are.

Vote for the policies you truly want. If you don't, you're betraying yourself. If you really want Dean's policies (which look to me like the same old same-old: we pay the elites who own the war industry, the elites who own the drugs war, the elites who own the prison industry, and the elites who are maiming, killing, and starving children at home and abroad)...if you really want those outcomes, then by all means vote for Dean because he's the guy to give them to you.

Me, I really really am 'of the KBS wing', so I'm voting for K. I want peace, prosperity, and social justice, and my best chance to get that is through electing Dennis{1}


1. I ignore Al Sharpton only because the national racism that limits the candidacy of any Black man.

[CWebster]

9. You won't get it

But you might get worse than Dean - or even Bush, but you can sit pretty knowing that you didn't sell-out and voted with your principles intact.

It isn't just Al Sharpton who is denied a place at the table. There are limitations that extend beyond racism. And funny that you dismiss the question of principles when it applies to Sharpton's feasibility.

[Cha]

11. Really!

[Mairead]

15. I don't 'dismiss the question of principles when it comes to Sharpton'

Under the winner-take-all system I can only vote for one person. I've chosen Kucinich as that person. If he died or quit, Goddess forfend, I'd vote for Al.

As for the 'lesser evil' argument, I'm not going to vote for evil any more. I'm not. I compromised myself for the last time in 2000. All I got out of it was an enormous feeling of having been betrayed, and I won't go through that again. If you want me to vote for Dean, then force him to be worth my vote. Because nobody gets my vote from now on unless they can convince me they're worth it.

No more sell-outs. Never again.

[Coffee Coyote]

13. an omission

You left out the "DLC" next to Dean's name. It amazes me how so many of his cult thinks he is "liberal". He is a mushy centrist and almost as uninspiring as Dukakis. A centrist Dukakis with a temper, lol.

[clar]

14. I've got my differences with Dean

but clearly he is an inspirational candidate. He's galvanized hundreds of thousands of people to meet-up, to raise money, to get involved in their communities, and in local politics. Centrist, yes. Mushy, no.

[indigo32]

17. Come on man

I'm pretty certain you are better than to call his followers members of a cult. Be uninspired by him all you want... I don't care, but don't accuse those of us who are of being in a cult.

[David Zephyr]

16. Good Post, Fabius.

One of the most thoughtful posts in a long time. :hi:

And Kucinich would make a great Labor Secretary indeed. Perhaps the greatest in American history.