Is Dean Really a Third-Party Candidate?

[Killarney]

That's the spin the Washington Post is putting on his campaign in the article below. I don't agree with it, personally, but I'd like to hear opinions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58554-2003Dec12.html
For all Dean's talk about wanting to represent the truly "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," the paradox is that he is a third-party candidate using modern technology to achieve a takeover of the Democratic Party. Other candidates -- Joseph Lieberman , John Kerry, John Edwards -- are competing to take control of the party's fundraising, organizational and media assets. But Dean is not interested in taking control of those depreciating assets. He is creating his own party, his own lists, his own money, his own organization. What he wants is the Democratic brand name and legacy, its last remaining asset of value, as part of his marketing strategy.

[blm]

1. I said a while back he's Ross Perot and Jerry Brown

times 2.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

11. he's the Ralph Nader

of upper middle class white yuppies :)

[dsc]

29. I know this is utterly useless

but who knows you might give an entertaining excuse at least, but you do have a link to back up the idea that Jerry Brown was a third party candidate. Hint: such a link would have Jerry Brown running as a non Democrat in a partisan race for an office. Please provide this link.

[hey2370]

33. No, he's the Manson family's domestic policy

plus the Osmond family's foreign policy, all to the power of Zoltan.

Didn't you get the memo?

[hedda_foil]

2. No, it's the original owners taking back the shop after a hostile takeover

With employee participation of course!

8. yes!

Just to shade it a little, hasn't one of the impetuses behind a third party been that because of DLC control it was beginning to look like it might be necessary to have a third party as the only way to bring these things back on the table. In that respect, we probably do need to thank Nader because after the debacle of 2000 it does seem to be happening.

[blm]

12. Hm...who was that on the right wing of the Dem party pulling it center?

Ah yes, that would be Howard Dean. For his entire time in office, in fact. He only decided to move to the Democratic wing when the antiwar movement grew. Aha...election year conversions, so principled, so trustworthy.

[ulysses]

14. oh, give it a fucking rest already.

I got my ass torn off a while back defending Kucinich against friends who (understandably, but I think misguidedly) took issue with his abortion stand. The "election year conversions" thing is, I think, a little too easy.

[retyred]

3. Has anyone ever seen

him in the same room as Nader? I think not!



retyred in fla
“good night paul, wherever you are”
So I read this book

[Padraig18]

4. He had to--- the "Kitten-eating party" would cost him votes.

:eyes:

[Exultant Democracy]

7. he doesn't eat kittens he just kills them for fun, you need to get with it

[Padraig18]

9. He eats the ones he doesn't kill--- the leftover ones.

I read it on Candidate B's website. :P

[LuminousX]

5. Insurgent

Dean has been immensely loyal to the Party. He paid the dues and worked up the ladder. Only now is he making the leap. He isn't a third party, he is just another part of the same party.

[ozone_man]

27. Right, the Clinton's or this Clintonite author might

try to paint him as a 3rd party candidate, because they want DLC control of the party. So, label Dean as 3rd party.

To me, the use of the internet is an empowering thing, allowing grass root support to fuel the campaign and not a top down party controlled campaign. So, they probably hate that and feel threatened, but it's democracy in action.

[quinnox]

6. The ironic thing is

Dean has so many people whitewashed that if he did do as the article describes, that is if he lost the nomination and then kept his organization intact, to then re-emerge as a third party candidate in 2008, a large percentage of these fanatics wouldn't see it as a betrayal of the Democratic party, they would vote for him just the same.

Dean, the new Nader?

[hey2370]

35. Yeah, people this is what ya call "projection"

I'm sure all of those fine upstanding other Dem presidential candidates will endorse Dean if he becomes the nominee.

It's possible that 2004 will produce another Bull Moose party phenomenon, where the DLC side of the party ditches the regular Dems for a ticket of Clark/Lieberman or maybe Clark/Kerry. But Dean has already stated that he is a Dem first and will endorse whomever wins the nomination.

This is why Rove wanted Dean. He knew that there are a bunch of Dems who are afraid of everything, so they would probably be afraid of Howard Dean. They are afraid of Dean losing, they are afraid of him winning. There is just a huge number of cowards in the American population currently. They all see themselves as potential victims of al Queda or monkeypox or the flu or WMD or ....the list is endlessly long.

Take a look at all of the Dean-haters posts. 90% have the words "I'm worried" or "I'm afraid" in them referring to what Rove will do or what could happen in 2004. They are trying to spread their fears so that others will share them and they can all gather into a big bunch of little bunny-people and quiver and moan.

Lord save us from the weak in spirit, for they truly will bring the second term of Bush upon us all.

[cryofan]

10. just trying to spin "Old Money Aristocrat" Dean as an outsider...

Laughable....

Dean is as Establishment as they come. And if you doubt it, just look closely at his background, his Vermont reign, and his campaign triangluting...

13. Old money?

well, even if that's true (I think Dean is more new money actually, doesn't it only go back to his grandfather?) to apply a Marxist analysis to it -- the revolutionary vanguard comes from the bourgeoisie, not the proletariat.... unfortunately, perhaps.

(on edit: please don't flame me on this, I'm not convinced that Dean is the revolutionary vanguard, but I do think that he taps something that is similar to that. Whether he is or not, remains to be seen & can not really be determinined in the relatively short amount of time he's been on the scene)

Plenty of old money people can have principles also. The clearest example these days are men such as Jay Rockefeller or Robert Kennedy.
It's not money that corrupts after all, it's the Love of money.

[velocity]

15. No Dean is not a third party candidate

:mad: to WP

[unfrigginreal]

16. No

He's a second party candidate. Trying to break up the single party monopoly.

[ozone_man]

28. That's the best answer, ha, ha. n/t

[DinkyDem]

17. Dean is more of a Libertarian

than a Democrat.
His NRA-endorsed campaign is highjacking our party. He is trying to destroy everything we've always been, and so many lost souls are following his Bush-bashing pied piper rhetoric.

We need to be looking for more from a candidate than just anger and rage.
Who knows what kind of monster that criteria could leave a People with.

[Rose Siding]

22. Unless you use a wider lens...

Would you call universal health care or educational equity (VT's plan 60) Libertarian?

[UTUSN]

18. Kick n/t

[Hep]

19. How can he be third party when he tell you to donate to Democrats?

How can he be third party when he's encouraging us to become active in our local D party?

Name any third party candidate who has ever done that?

Anyone who makes these claims is not only completely unaware of what Dean's campaign is about, but they're also questionable as to where they stand in their own party. Unless they're republicans.

Question the democratic values of anyone who pushed this meme. They obviously have no idea what it's about.

[Iverson]

20. agreed: it's pretty preposterous

This is more about the Washington Post defining the boundaries of acceptable attention than anything else.

Challenge the DLC a little bit, and the mainstream media thinks you're a third party. What empty heads.

[quaker bill]

21. In a sense yes, he is.

There has not been a campaign like this in a very long time. In a certain sense there has never been a campaign like this.

He is running for President in a way similar to how one might run for Govenor of a small state. In a small state you can get to know the people on more of personal basis and build and organization from the ground up. You can start at the precinct level and build a state wide movement. This movement then by sheer numbers and organization for all intents and purposes, over time, just becomes the democratic party. It is less of a hostile take over and more a take over by default.

The Dean camp has used the internet to build a virtual small state type of organization. Over time, if a small portion of the 2 million volunteers he intends to recruit (say 100,000 to 200,000) become dedicated democratic activists, they will similarly take over the national democratic organization by default.

This seems odd only because it has not been done in a while. The 'machine' politics of the past were similar. Even earlier campaigns were more similar, but then the country was smaller.

The DNC and the DLC contrived a jammed up primary season with the specific intent to prevent anyone without the inside track and plenty of democratic party institutional support from having the money and organization to put together a serious challenge to the party annointed candidates. Dean has made a quite successful end run on this machine by using technology to take small state/town politics national.

Should he win, the party will be changed. For better or worse depends on your perspective. Given the recent results, change is certainly warranted from my perspective.

[arendt]

23. Yes, a major political rearrangement is underway, like in 1860...

when four parties ran candidates. Those 4 were all the
combinations of (Northern, Southern) x (Whig, Republican).
Well, sort of. The politics was so confused the labels don't
really fit.

Today, as the Dean campaign figured out, no one is
representing the rank and file of the Democratic Party.

I have posted two threads in GD about how the GOP
is being torn apart between Neocons, Conservatives,
Paleo-conservatives, and Libertarians.

I think Dean learned how to co-opt Libertarians while in
VT. I think he is trying to assemble a moderate Dem +
sensible (as opposed to screaming) Libertarian base
that would become, as you suggest, the nucleus of
a new political party.

I think the Libertarians are in full and open flight from
the GOP these days. They aren't stupid, they know they
have been used. All we need to do to capture them is
not to piss them off with classic old-school Dem, inside
the beltway rhetoric and pandering. Dean can do that
without promising them much more than honesty and
ornery-ness.

What shall we name this re-incarnation of the Democratic
Party without the corrupt Popery of Washington (DNC/DLC)?
Should we call it the Reformation Party? (just kidding)

arendt

[Fleshdancer]

24. wow

Our tent just keeps getting smaller and smaller with each passing election cycle. Since Kucinich is truly progressive and turning the heads of many Greens, does this mean he's also a third party candidate???

[Cleita]

25. Yesterday, CNN had it's spinmasters analyzing Dean,

among them Bill Sneider, but also others. They seem to think that Dean is attracting new Democrats, especially those who don't vote, that he is changing the demographic of the party to a liberal left wing one. Of course they have to bring up all the Democrats who didn't win in the past like McGovern and Dukakis to compare him too.

Wow, are they out of touch. Dean by his own admission is a centrist. But he is not a DLC centrist. He's rallying those Democrats who have always been there, but ignored by the DLC. These are the workers, minorities, women, many disenfranchised minorities like gays and now the elderly who have been back stabbed by the AARP. These are not new voters or new Democrats. They have always been there. I should be a political analyst. I can do better than them as any average DU'er can and many Du'ers could do circles around these hacks for figuring out who Dean appeals to.

[arendt]

26. You left out libertarians, who have not always been there

Libertarians are sort of like the Mormons. They are crazy,
but they are smart and they often make a lot of money.

Dean had to deal with them in VT. Maybe Dean is a
closet libertarian, I don't know. But I do know that he
appeals to them while Bush has lost them completely.

I know that in Massaachusetts, the Libertarian candidate
got 20% of the vote when Kerry ran without a Republican
challenger.

Note: I am not a libertarian. In the past I have vigorously
opposed them. But, for now, being totally cynical, the
enemy of my enemy is my friend.

What do you think?

arendt

[ozone_man]

30. He is not Libertarian,

but his fiscal conservatism is no doubt a draw for them. Bush is wreckless with money and is creating war all over the world it seems. The huge deficits will sink the country and perhaps bankrupt S.S. in the future. Dean and most truthful economists see the mounting danger in the national debt.

Dean's stance on providing health care, and better education, etc. may not be so attractive to Libertarians. I would much prefer expenditures in these areas, then spending it in the Military Industrial Complex. There is very little return on investment in the MIC.

I do think that there is a realignment happening, where Libertarians will be voting out of the Republican party for the way Bush has mismanaged the money. Dean will pick alot of them up.

[Cleita]

31. I don't consider Libertarians evil.

They just haven't come all the way to the left. They believe in what we do, except not in a strong federal government and paying taxes. It seems paying taxes is the critical disagreement. I have noticed that Libertarians ten to be young and affluent. They haven't had a relative with a catastrophic disease threaten to bankrupt them with medical expenses yet. They forget if mom and dad didn't get SS, that they might have to contribute to their welfare.

Considering that our tax money is being used to enrich corporations, I can almost agree with them that the government only wastes money. So if we appeal to them by pointing out the corruption of the Republicans and the Bush government in particular, I think Dean will get them in his camp too.

[Fahrenheit911]

32. no way, he's a democrat

and he has gotten a lot of people on board politics..

everyone has used the internet, look at Clark,,

[stickdog]

34. The 3 parties: Perpetual War, Corpocratic and Deanocratic (nt)

[youngred]

36. He's running third way, not third party

a militant moderate (not a liberal nor a progressive, not that that is necessarily a bad thing) very much in the same vein of Clinton. The only reason he is billed as the big rebel is because he did not go through the party establishment to get where he's going (which means through Washington)