A word about Howard Dean

[bluestateguy]

There has been much debate here lately about Howard Dean and the effectiveness of his style and his stinging rhetorical attacks on Republicans. It's that age old debate here between the pragmatists, some of whom are DLCish (though not all), and the ideological purists, who attack anyone who strays from the gospel, and who are ever alert to call out someone for being "soft" on Bush and the Republicans.

Were all of Dean's most controversial statements really necessary? Perhaps not. Not that what he said about DeLay or other Republicans bothered me in the least, but the case could be made that such rhetoric was not terribly helpful. Having said that, if I had to choose between Dean's style and the milquetoast, wishy washy, consultantspeak of Terry McAuliffe, I'd take Dean's approach for the time being.

In the end, what I'm interested in are results. If McAuliffe's style had delivered victories at the polls, then I'd order up a recipe of more. But we all know that as far as electoral victories go, he was a failure. He was a fine fundraiser, and I credit him for that, but money can only get your message out there, it cannot make a message into a good message.

Dean is just getting started, let's see how the party does in the 2005 gubernatorial races and the 2006 midterms before casting judgment--positive or negative--on Dean's leadership.

[merwin]

1. I think we need more people like Dean... telling the honest truth.

Sometimes the truth hurts. Yes, it's blunt, but it's the only way to dumb it down enough to fit in a sound bite.

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

2. You're blaming McAuliffe for a rigged election??? n/t

[Carolab]

3. Well, if we "lost" because of a rigged election.

It won't matter what Dean says, unless we fix our election problems.

If the elections continue to be fixed, Dean's remarks will only to help the Repukes make it "seem" that people turned against Dems because of it. Of course, they can just go ahead and manufacture their "news" to make it seem so, I guess. Are we going to let them do that?

[KharmaTrain]

8. Were All The Congressional & Senate Races Rigged?

That's what's really hurting Democrats right now. He spent too much on the national and little on the local...I'm not sure Dr. Dean is doing much better. There's a lot of party organizing and funding that needs to be done and it's going very, very slowly.

[AntiCoup2K4]

9. The rigged primary was his doing.

and yes, it was. from day one.

[Lucky Luciano]

10. Rigged or not, the election was still close

when it should have been a landslide.

[The Traveler]

4. At some point, Democrats must speak the truth as they know it

without fear of "scaring the straights". Look, Democracy can only work if the debate is honest. Pulling punches because you believe the truth is unacceptable to the voters is a recipe for long term disaster. If we're hiding in the dark and the Rethugs are living by the Big Lie, then Democracy is on life support.

In doing this, accuracy and precision of comment is vital to be sure ... but even our best will screw up and state something poorly from time to time. The right wing mass media will, of course, seize upon such a slip and try to make it a BIG ISSUE. We cannot prevent that. We have to correct our statements and drive on to the next truth.

There are so many people who want Dean muzzled. This Wes Clark supporter asks: WHY? Oh, why bother asking. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is doing the next right thing, and I for one just don't see joining the anti-Dean feeding frenzy being the next right thing.

The Rethugs really want this man muzzled. They will do near anything to discredit him. Remember that.

[JDPriestly]

5. Dean made some good points.

About Democrats working to hard to stand in line 8 hours before being able to vote -- He's right about that. And the long lines were predominantly in Democratic areas -- although the Republicans claim that most of the increase in voting -- the newly registered voters -- were Republican. That doesn't make sense. If the increase in voters was in Republican areas, why weren't they the areas in which people had to wait to vote.

About Tom Delay -- his lieutenants were found guilty. How long till they squeal on him? What did he do and when did he do it? We shall see.

[Straight Shooter]

6. Dean is in a classic damned if you do, damned if you don't position.

Maybe what Dean represents to a lot of us, that we're tired of being polite and "civil" because it ain't getting us nowhere!

[question everything]

7. Well said

I applaud his comments about DeLay, but his most recent ones, that Republicans have not worked a day in their life - was incorrect, did not achieve anything except that, again, put Dean in a bad light of someone who shoots his mouth before thinking.