Dean is labeled "too liberal" simply because

[Closer]

of his signing of Civil Unions into law. For this reason alone! There is absolutely NOTHING in his record that labels him as "too liberal" to be elected. People have simply continued mounting this label soley based on his Civil Unions vote.

This is such a sad comment on our nation when people follow others' false assumptions and accusations without knowing the truth. It's even sadder than many fellow "democrats" fall in line, too. Not to mention this shows just how biased Americans still are against gays. That Howard Dean believes in equal rights for all makes him unelectable is simply beyond me.


Howard Dean = Extreme Leftist Liberal?


What bullshit!


I challenge you naysayers to ONE SINGLE piece of evidence that Dean is an "ultra-liberal," making him "unelectable." Go ahead, present your case.

Howard Dean is the REAL deal. The most REAL DEAL, in fact, that I've seen in years.

[StephNW4Clark]

1. Apparently, the campaign doesn't even think he's a liberal.

MAHER: I want to – I want to read you a quote, because I’m not saying whether you’re going to get into this or not, but Howard Dean, who is apparently the front runner now for the Democrats, he said last week, he said, “In Vermont, politics is much further to the left.” He said, “A Vermont centrist is an American liberal.”

And then his campaign manager came out and said, “That’s not an admission he’s a liberal.”

http://www.safesearching.com/billmaher/print/t_hbo_realtime_090503.html


So you're right, I guess. Dean's campaign manager doesn't even think he's a liberal.

[hedda_foil]

3. His supporters know where he stands.

Nobody thinks he's a Kucinich type of liberal. We're also very used to getting bashed from the left and right of the party.

[StephNW4Clark]

9. So he's a moderate?

OK - I'm not trying to pick some kind of email fight, but I thought Dean's appeal came from those trying to wrest the soul of the Democratic Party away from centrist principles. I thought Dean's appeal to Democrats was that he's a left-wing card-carrying member.

[AP]

30. Actually, I don't think his follwers know where he stands.

If you listen to Dean speak, he always uses this vague, third person. He says "they" say this and "they" say that. He rarely says, "I am" this. I think it's part of the strategy. I think that the campaign is basically constructing a vessel -- all campaigns do this, it's nothing to be embarrassed about. But, with Dean, the vessel is being built to hold lots of contradictory things. And I think that is evidenced perfectly by these daily threads arguing about what Dean is.

The result is that Dean is what you want him to be. If you want him to be liberal, and the last great hope of populism, he's that (even though he doesn't have any record of doing that in VT, and his economic policies leave you wanting too). If you want him to be a moderate, then he's that too, even though you know that it's going to be painfully easy for Bush to characterize him as NE liberal, Ben & Jerry eating, "Brie & Cheese" eating, Birkenstock-wearing, free-love hippy (even though their biographies are variations of the same exact themes).

[w4rma]

51. A) supporters. B) His supporters know where he stands. C) His stances.

…
Of course last week's Dean hype managed to do both at once. It knocked him down by setting him up, in a way. No longer was the question "Is he too liberal to be electable?" Reporters belatedly scoured his record and discovered a fiscal conservative who put balanced budgets before social spending in Vermont, who opposes federal gun control legislation and backs the death penalty for certain crimes. Now the make-or-break question about Dean became: "Will liberals desert him when they figure out that he's actually a moderate?" Then came other pre-fab worries about the problems of sudden success: Had Dean peaked too soon? Could his fledgling campaign handle the attention? And OK, maybe he was moderate enough to be electable, but was he likable enough? Was his reputation for "straight talk" just a euphemism for brusque and arrogant?

Hanging out with the local Dean folks was my way of getting out of what his campaign dismisses as "the media echo chamber," and trying to figure out what's really going on. I've lived here almost 20 years. I know the San Francisco Dean phenomenon is not a microcosm of what it will take to get him elected; I saw the way the GOP smeared House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi -- and pushed her to the center some -- by calling her a "San Francisco Democrat" before she even took over the leadership post. I know we're DLC founder Al From's worst nightmare. But I also saw some intriguing things following Dean around San Francisco at the end of July, and talking to his supporters the week after he'd gone. The Bay Area Dean machine is attracting more than the usual suspects: It's neither the Greens nor the City Hall regulars; it's neither the moneyed elite nor the rabble; it's not just the young and the hip; it's not ponytailed '60s holdovers -- it's all of them, and then some. I met Republicans and Ross Perot voters who were supporting the antiwar candidate who promises to repeal Bush's tax cuts. And I met Dean himself, and watched two speeches. You can't get his charisma without seeing him in person.
…
The UFCW crowd seemed a lot like Donna Brazile: They were ready to love everybody. Only the leftier candidates -- Kucinich, Carol Moseley Braun, Gephardt and Dean -- showed up; Sharpton couldn't make it, but Kerry appeared by satellite, as befits his attempt to be a more centrist liberal. All of them got big cheers. These were the folks Al From tried to warn us about. But if Dean hadn't been red-baited by the DLC, you might well hear him as the moderate in the race. He criticized Kucinich and Moseley Braun's call for single-payer universal healthcare, the left's politically impossible dream, as well as Gephardt's expensive public-private hybrid. Kerry vied with Dean for the moderate mantle with his relatively modest healthcare plan, but overall Dean came off as the fiscal conservative in the bunch. Amazingly, he got the biggest hand from this union audience when he called George Bush a "borrow and spend, credit-card Republican" and promised to erase the deficit if he's elected.
…
One thing I don't worry about is that his lefty base doesn't know what he stands for, and will bolt when they realize he's a moderate. His base knows exactly how moderate he is. I interviewed dozens of his liberal devotees, and they all know the not-so-liberal aspects of his record. Someone at the Meetup lamented his staunch pro-Israel stance; several people I met said they differed with him on the death penalty. Brilliant says he has issues with Dean on all of his more conservative stands. "But he's not afraid to say what he thinks. Dean asks the fundamentally sound questions and does not have an ideological answer that trumps reason, as Bush does."
…
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/08/11/dean/

Extremely massive information dump on Gov. Howard Dean, M.D. (v2.0)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=108&topic_id=41214

[sandnsea]

2. HE labeled himself liberal

He ran around calling mainstream Democrats 'Bush lite' and said he was from the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party. He did it to himself. Too bad, so sad, no whining now.

[maxanne]

6. sandnsea

Where in those statements is the word liberal used? Could you give us a quote? (when you come in from the playground is fine...:))

[sandnsea]

16. lol, wink wink

'We all know what "Democratic Wing" means, wink wink'. I saw it on this board over and over again. When other people would try to point out to Deanies that he was a centrist, that was the response. He allowed the image to stand in order to gain the support of the left. People have been saying for months that he would go back to the middle when he got that support. And here it is. And also here is the very familiar Dean Denial.

[wyldwolf]

23. Of course, he "borrowed" the phrase from Wellstone...

...who called himself a liberal.

Until Dean says, "when I use the phrase, it means something different," (which would be a waffle) I will say most definitely it means Dean is calling himself a liberal.

[ryharrin]

7. So, uhh, where did he call himself liberal?

You don't have to be liberal to be against bush, and you don't have to be liberal to be from "the democratic wing of the democratic party," you just have to be willing to stand up for democratic values.

[Closer]

8. I never said he wasn't

"liberal" and didn't have what mainstream considers "liberal views"

If you'll read again, you'll see that I said "ultra-liberal" and "too liberal" etc. This is how they are and will try to paint him. And it's simply NOT true.

[sandnsea]

19. Then why'd he let it stand?

He didn't have to, he could have completely rejected the entire premise. He didn't. He's a panderer.

[Julien Sorel]

10. He also, at one point, claimed to be 'the most liberal'

of all the candidates running, which was kind of bizarre. I don't know why that hasn't been brought up more often.

[EagleEye]

13. Do you have a site?

I've never heard that.

[plindner]

15. the "wing"

The way I see it, the democratic wing of the Democratic party is all about the neglected base of voters that felt they never had a voice. At least that's the way it felt like when Wellstone ran. It's about the people, not the politics.

Just remember, that base was ignored while multiple tax-cuts, the iraqi war resolution and the patriot act went sailing through the legislative branch.

[sandnsea]

21. It's the Paul Wellstone wing

and everybody knows it.

[wyldwolf]

24. Right. Dean hijacked the Wellstone phrase...

...but the Deanies want to deny what it means.

[newyawker99]

37. Hi plindner!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Droopy]

4. You'll get no argument for me

As a matter of fact, I wish Dean was MORE liberal in light of the support he's getting. I think he's a good candidate but a little too centrist for my tastes. Dean will tell you he's a moderate. You say it's the civil union thing, but I'm thinking it's more his opposition to the Iraq war that got him the 'too liberal' label. Which is ironic seeing as how there were many libertarians and not a few old school conservatives who were opposed to it also.

[wyldwolf]

5. You're right about one thing, Dean isn't a liberal...

[Closer]

12. He's a social liberal

but one thing is certain, he's no war hawk like YOUR candidate!

[wyldwolf]

14. The evidence on Clark disagrees with you...

..but when have you ever let little things like facts get in your way?

[StephNW4Clark]

17. War Hawk??

Because he served in the military he's a war hawk? Since when do Democrats think that having a military is unnecessary? I really do want to understand this. Why is it such a problem for Democrats to have someone who served in the military in their ranks?

I have never heard General Clark come out and say "Yay! War!" And if you bring up Kosovo and the air campaign, you really need to read a book. General Clark lost his job because he wanted ground troops to avoid the civilian casualities by waging an exclusive air campaign. But the Pentagon, Clinton and Congress overruled him. So yeah, I guess that makes him a war hawk. That and wanting to intervene in Rwanda to stop a genocidal war that cost that country 3 million lives, a move that the UN was urging the US to pursue.

[poskonig]

26. Clark wanted to "Go downtown" on the Serbs.

This article is from 1999 and from a leftist source.

NATO general ordered military assault on Russian troops at end of Yugoslav war
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/aug1999/clrk-a04.shtml

"Well before the NATO bombing began Clark came into a conflict with US Defense Secretary William Cohen and others, demanding the US use the alleged Serb massacre of ethnic Albanians near the town of Racak last January as the pretext to launch immediate air strikes. US officials preferred instead to first present Milosevic with an ultimatum (the Rambouillet agreement) so that it would appear every diplomatic effort had been exhausted before NATO warplanes began bombing.

On March 24, when the air campaign began, NATO political leaders wanted to limit targets, believing that a first wave of bombing would force Milosevic to capitulate. Clark and his air commanders, on the other hand, wanted to "go downtown" on the first night, hitting power, telephone, and command-and-control sites in Belgrade and other major cities, as well as Milosevic's private residences."

[StephNW4Clark]

31. So he wanted to shorten the war? Wow - what a freak.

"hitting power, telephone, and command-and-control sites in Belgrade and other major cities, as well as Milosevic's private residences."

Yeah - sounds pretty indiscrimate to me. Hitting all those command-and-control sites of an army pursuing ethnic cleansing so they couldn't continue operations. Hitting all those targets which had to be approved by all 19 NATO member intelligence agencies, signed off by 19 NATO heads of state and Javier Solana. Sounds like a regular Dr. Strangelove.

[poskonig]

34. I understand your passion for Clark.

However, the article does not indicate Clark is a voice of moderation compared to an individual like Cohen; in fact, it suggests he is precisely the opposite, that is, a hawk.

[wyldwolf]

33. It's from a notoriously antiwar socialist source..

Just because it is leftest doesn't make it reliable.

Clark went on national TV in defiance of the Pentagon to halt the bombing and send ground troops in. Doing so would have saved many lives.

The problem with many "leftists" is they feel that NO war is justified.

[poskonig]

36. Clark is not a dove.

That's the issue. There isn't much evidence indicating Clark is a Dove. He has great things to say about Bush, Rummy, Perle, etc. He fundraised for the Republicans a matter of years ago, and voted for the Nixon, and Reagan twice. And his position on the war resolution isn't even succinct and clear.

Again, in addition to his behavior during the Kosovo campaign, how Clark can be interpreted as a dove is beyond me. I appreciate Clark's expertise and am glad he is on our side, but I find his supporters going way over the edge about Clark being an "antiwar" candidate.

[wyldwolf]

40. No one is claiming he is... but NOT being a dove...

...isn't a bad thing.

[StephNW4Clark]

41. Clark is not a dove does NOT equal Clark is a hawk

Doesn't anyone here allow for middle ground? If you're not strictly this, then you must be that.

Yeah - we get Clark isn't a dove. In fact some of us happen to appreciate that he believes that the military can be used in ways it hasn't been before - i.e. humanitarian interventions like Rwanda. Should we not have gone into Kosovo, bucked our alliance commitment to NATO? Isn't part of the problem with the international community that nations keep on breaking their word?

But just b/c he's not a dove doesn't make him a hawk. If he were a hawk, how could he possibly criticize Iraq? How could he make speeches saying that force should only be used as a last resort?

[poskonig]

45. Even Kucinich supports that stuff.

Intervening to stop ethnic cleansing, international terrorists, et cetera, has everyone's support.

The way Clark handled the Kosovo affair was hawkish. Voting for Reagan is hawkish. Praising Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, well, that's like saying "some of my best friends are Nazis."

[wyldwolf]

47. OK, how did Clark handle Kosovo...

...remember, he was taking orders from others but tried to buck them to shorten the war and make it less bloody.

So, I want to know, how did Clark's handling of Kosovo make him hawkish?

[wyldwolf]

11. When are you going to jump back into this thread...

...and defend your self?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=412962&mesg_id=412981&page=

[poskonig]

18. Dean said he was proud to be a liberal once or twice.

This is pretty much standard politics -- run to the extreme during the primary, run to the middle during the election. Bush even went to Bob Jones University, as I recall, in 2000.

[StephNW4Clark]

27. "run to the extreme, run to the middle"

So what you're saying is: Dean will change his message. Appeal to the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party (who seem to be very excited about him), moderate all his statements and positions in the general?

[poskonig]

29. That seems to be the game plan.

Though Dean's flipflopping will be minimal. Since he has centrist credentials, he only has to emphasize different parts of his record (cutting taxes in Vermont, the NRA endorsement, etc. etc.)

[AP]

20. Dean's problem is this:

- he staked out his terriotory by being against the war and on the fact that he signed the civil unions bill. He also defines himself as being in total opposition to Bush. If Bush did it, it's bad. And his speeches totally refer to Bush in just about every sentence. I listened to his Bryant Park speech and the ONLY part where he didn't explicitly or implicitly refer to Bush in a very short segment, about 1/3rd the way into the speech which he introduced by saying, almost derisively, that "they say you can't run for president just by being against everything...you have to be for something". He said he was for home visits from health care professionals for new mothers, and some other health care thing he did in VT (and it wasn't even clear that these are within the realm of possibility on federal level, unless he was saying that he'd give federal money to states so they could do this stuff). He went right back to talking about Bush after that.

So, in an atmosphere in which Bush engenders a lot of hatred, people on the left are going to be drawn to the anti-Bush rhetoric, and they're going to believe that Dean has liberal bona fides because he was anti-war (briefly) and because of the civil union thing. (Also being from a NE liberal state brings with it a perception of liberalness.)

The problem part however, is that he picked two of the worst issues upon which to rely -- national a security happens to be the strongest issue for the Republicans, and one of the weakest for Dems. JFK won an election during the Cold War because he coopted the national security issue -- he said he was a bigger hawk then Nixon, people believed him, and Nixon had to move on to other issues.

As for civil unions, there was a list of issues which voters considered important a couple days ago (the Gallup/USAToday poll, I believe). Of 20 or so issues, gay rights finished dead last.

Dean's next problem is that, when you look beyond these two issues, he actually appears to be quite moderate where you want him to be liberal. You know how Clinton had 5 trillion in surpluses, or whatever, to work with to make America better. Well, you'd never have that with Dean because he believes that any surplus needs to go back to the people in the form of a taxcut. He doesn't believe in running surpluses or defecits. That's actually very conservative, and it guarantees that you slow the rate of progress. Maybe Dean's vision of the world is one of slow progress, but, with Europe and the rest of the world getting ready to compete hard, I don't think American has the option of not trying to run surpluses in order to make money with which we make investments in the future.

So, the issue with Dean isn't that he's ultra-liberal and therefore unelectable or that he's a moderate like Clinton who is electable. His problem is that he's about the worst collection of the worst qualities for general election electability, even though they're qualities which will probably energize a lot of followers in the primaries.

[Hawkeye-X]

43. John Edwards is no better

Why would a one-term Senator leave his own seat to run for President? that is a fatal mistake, and an end to his political career.

Unless he decides to drop out now and run for re-election, but he said he isn't running for re-election which, IMHO, is a mistake. And he's still wet behind the ears too.

Hawkeye-X

[AP]

48. Well, that's isn't really a response to anything I said. Is your argument

that I'm right about everything I said but John Edwards is worse (than what?) becuase he putting all his eggs in one basket?

I didn't realize that anything I said in my post implied that addressing Edwards was required for rebutting it. If you want to debate Edwards, I'm more than happy. But right now, I'm kind of interested in talking about the issues in the post to which you, uh, "responded".

[realFedUp]

22. He tells the truth?

Seems like liberals are the only ones doing that
these days.

[leesa]

25. The liberal tag is just a RW ploy to make him sound radical

They have been doing this for decades. It makes their outrageous radicalism look like it's centrist. Ignore it...Dean is a traditional centrist.

[wyldwolf]

28. JFK and Paul Wellstone embraced the "label."

Did they give into a rightwing ploy?

[FubarFly]

32. Dean isn't a liberal, but he treats liberals with respect.

His campaign is a fine example of the power of grassroots Democracy. Small donor contributors are personally invested in the process, and because they demand a return for their investment, their involvement reinvigorates the system.

Cynics out there may mock this, but if Dean is beholden to his supporters, the hope is that will translate into progressive policy.

[StephNW4Clark]

35. if Dean is beholden to his supporters

then how does he not disappoint them when he turns centrist? I don't think any of those 10 candidates would not treat liberals with respect, but you're right - the Internet lets people feel more involved with the process.

But if liberals think Dean represents the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party and will return it to its roots, then won't they be disappointed when he runs as a centrist in the general election?

[FubarFly]

38. Dean didn't turn centrist. He is a centrist.

And most Dean supporters realize they can only get so much from a president. The rather new phenomenon of the liberal realist is one of the more interesting results of the anti-b*sh backlash.

[Hawkeye-X]

44. He respects both sides of the aisle

which makes him extremely appealing. Remember, Clinton was a centrist also, and that won him the election in 1992, and again in 1996.

Hawkeye-X

[tsipple]

39. Feed the Goal, Not the Trolls

Click here to help make the nonsense disappear. Thanks.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

42. I agree, Dean is not too liberal to be elected

And I agree it's because of civil unions that he's considered "liberal" even after his terms as a center-right governor. But he has been assigned the label of "too liberal" by the corporate media, and thus has as much chance of winning the general election as Kucinich, my favorite who actually is a liberal, if that still means a progressive populist.

[FubarFly]

49. I think Dean has a very good chance to win the general election.

Or else I wouldn't be supporting him.

Dean has shown that he is excellent at getting his message out through both traditional and atraditional means. His media savviness is an asset.

Also, another advantage of having a dedicated, involved base is that they help keep the media honest. If a news organization tries to "gore"
Dean, they will pay a price. It is for this reason that I believe the coverage towards Dean has improved in recent weeks.

[Noordam]

46. RWers explain his gun view for this too liberal

[Nicholas_J]

50. No his supporters DO NOT know where he stands

Only his activist, meetup.com, Howard Dean for America browsing supporters actually KNOW who Dean is, and to be honest the fact that the media has portrayed Dean as LIBERAL, does not result from tyhem pulling the info out of a hat, Dean was VERY VERY well known for playing this game in Vermont, not allowing himself to be categorized, but more, of ONLY saying what enough for people to think that he supported their point of view or interests when his personal actions would be detrimental to them.

Out of the Doctors mouth...

Dean the candidate has different profile than Dean the governor.

By ELIZABETH MEHREN and MARK Z. BARABAK Los Angeles Times



A lot of us laugh and say, 'Howard, we hardly knew you,' " said Elizabeth Ready, the state auditor and a liberal Democrat. Added Bob Sherman, a Democratic lobbyist, "The Howard Dean I see running for president is a lot different than the Howard Dean who . . . governed Vermont. He was a moderate."

Asked about his emergence as the champion of disaffected liberals, the former governor said he would leave the labeling to others.

"I am liberal about some things and not liberal about others," he said. "I don't characterize myself as anything. I think people need to make up their own minds."

http://www.nhprimary.com/stories/07-2003/072003-dean.htm

But another view of this SAME tendency of Deans to mislead, or not be clear on his positions while running:

Howard Dean: the Progressive Anti-War Candidate?
Some Vermonters Give Their Views
By DONNA BISTER, MARC ESTRIN
and RON JACOBS



I know that a lot of you are going to vote for Dean -- he talks a good game; he can be charismatic and charming. But I'm warning you. This man will tell you what you want to hear, or at least tell you something that has some little kernel of something that you can interpret as support for the things that are important to you. But when the time comes to stand up and lead on the issue, to take on the money interests and backsliders in his own party, that stiff little spine will turn into a slinky.

If you vote for him, it's your job to stand behind him with a poker and keep him headed in the right direction. Don't give him any honeymoon period, either--keep the pressure on from the second you drop that ballot in the box. The minute you relax, he's going to turn right back into what he really is...a privileged, arrogant, middle of the road republican. Put your political energy into getting some truly progressive folks into the House and Senate, and into State legislatures around the country so that there will be more pressure from more directions. We need to get together our sophisticated progressive thinkers to develop policy ideas in every area, so that we're ready with real, well-thought out counter-proposals for the incremental changes a Dean administration might put forth. If you feel you must, support Dean, do--but then go do the work necessary to make real change.

http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs08292003.html
Over the lasy nine months on DU I have witneeses the VERY SAME people declare Dean the most progressive person running, aqnd then as the news and media reports changes, affirming that Dean is a Centrist with the same fervor that they claimed him the champion of the "Democrtatic Wing of the Democratic Party"

This is EXACTLY what the Counterpuch article meant when stating that:


"This man will tell you what you want to hear, or at least tell you something that has some little kernel of something that you can interpret as support for the things that are important to you. But when the time comes to stand up and lead on the issue, to take on the money interests and backsliders in his own party, that stiff little spine will turn into a slinky."

Thats what the "Democratic Wing Line was about". Deception. Dena did say "I am not using this to indicate that I am the heir of Paul Wellstones progressivism, but I mean something entirely differnt" when he ripped off Wellstones line. HE KNEW what people hearing him would interpret that as meaning.

The article refers to Deans tendency to tell people just a little of what they want to hear in order to get their vote.



The wonderful part is that Deans support of the ultra conservative fiscal policies of Newt Ginrgich, which cost Republicans big time in 1995 is sticking. Dean aligned himself with the most conservative elements in national politics with that statement, and it will stick, as he just told the largest group of Democratc voters, the Baby Boomer and the already retired, that he intends to fuck with their retirement.

Gephardt and Kerry are going to keep hammering this one, and it will stick.

It will cost him the nonination at least, and if not the election most certainly.