If the Dean campaign is supposed to be a dagger in the heart of the DLC and its Republican-lite leanings, why does the former Vermont governor keep using Bill Clinton, the DLC's favorite son and the bane of a lot of progressives, as a defense of his own positions?
On Sunday's "Face the Nation", Dean repeatedly invoked the name of Bill Clinton to defend a number of policy positions he's taken.
On his Medicare position:
"What I support was what Bill Clinton signed."
"Bill Clinton signed the bill and Medicare is still solvent because of that."
"The person I supported was Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton signed a bill which was very much like what I was -- I was -- like what I was proposing..."
On Social Security:
"Bill Clinton has shown that when the economy gets better and people start paying payroll taxes, Social Security becomes solvent."
"Now Bill Clinton has shown us you can balance the budget without doing any of the things that we were desperately clawing around for... Bill Clinton got us out of that and we need to stay out of that."
On NAFTA:
"I supported NAFTA and I supported the WT -- the Ch -- the joining of China into the WTO in 1999 four years ago,
partly because Bill Clinton supported it, and partly because I thought it was a national security issue."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/29/ftn/main575647.shtmlJust wondering how this sits with some of the Dean folks.
For me, these types of statements are a small part of why I've had a hard time warming up to Dean. He positions himself as a political rebel out to shake up the system and the DLC, yet doesn't waste any time aligning himself with the "Republican-lite" policies of the ultimate DLC/DNC "insider".