Elaine Kamarck (one of the founders of DLC) Endorses Dean over Clark

[dkf]

Josh Marshall's snip:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_01_11.html#002416
January 15, 2004 -- 02:19 PM EDT // link // print)
Elaine Kamarck is basically a founder of the New Democrat movement, long associated with the DLC and other similarly-inclined groups. Here she is in Newsday today coming out for Dean.

The article:

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpkam153626813jan15,0,1291105.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines

DEMOCRATIC IDOL
This Guy Can Rock the White House

By Elaine Kamarck

January 15, 2004

(Last of a series.) Last July, I promised I would tell you my choice for Democratic Idol today - four days before this process begins for real when the Democrats in Iowa, the first of many judges, weigh in.

snip

But, in the end, I vote for Dean over Clark to be the Democratic Idol because I think Dean has the best chance of any of the candidates in this race to beat George W. Bush. Clark, appealing as he is, is one-dimensional. His campaign is nothing more and nothing less than his biography. His military career is impressive but Kosovo was not exactly the Normandy invasion, and Clark cannot expect the outpouring of American gratitude that took Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to the White House.

snip

But the most compelling reason to support Dean is that only he can change the nature of the political game. No Democrat will win unless he can make the country see through Bush, and Dean has been so good at this that by last fall all the other candidates were mimicking his outrage.

Furthermore, if Democrats play old-fashioned politics, they lose, plain and simple. George W. Bush is the incumbent; he has the Executive Branch, Republicans control Congress, and this White House has shown an uncanny ability to bamboozle and intimidate the national press corps. The Republicans own the "Establishment," and they will use it to raise $170 million or more to destroy the Democratic candidate.

--More:the whole thing is a must read

TNR's snip:
http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml

AL FROM'S HEAD EXPLODES: Elaine Kamarck, who, as my colleague Jonathan Cohn reminds me, is one of the founders of the Democratic Leadership Council (and actually co-authored "The Politics of Evasion," the DLC's 1989 manifesto) makes a solid case for the Dean candidacy in her Newsday op-ed today. But the more interesting point is her critique of Clark, which strikes me as both right on and fairly devastating:

Clark's military service is not without controversy. Fairly or unfairly, a number of his former colleagues are more than happy to say bad things about him. And this is before the Bush team, adept at character assassination, has gotten serious about him. In 2000 the Bush campaign turned Al Gore, a politician known for nothing as much as the fact that he was a straight arrow, into a chronic liar in the minds of many. By the time Bush and company get done with Gen. Clark, his military experience could be a nightmare and the general could wish he'd gone AWOL from West Point.

Once Clark's military career is destroyed, the Bush team would exploit his inconsistencies on the Iraq war and his past admiration for Republicans. That would turn the general into just another political opportunist. Robbed of his biography, Clark has nothing--no record on health care, no experience balancing budgets, no background in creating jobs .

Now you could obviously take this logic too far. What, after all, is Dean when robbed of his policy achievements in Vermont, his charisma, and his impressive campaign organization (all of which could be cast in a negative light or rendered moot by the Bush team)? But the point here is that, when facing an opponent as formidable as Karl Rove, you want as broad and resilient a rationale for your candidacy as possible. And that's clearly an advantage Dean has over Clark.

posted 3:15 p.m.

[Hoppin_Mad]

1. I concur -nt-

[slinkerwink]

2. same here too

[Jerseycoa]

3. Has Elaine Kamarck renounced the DLC?

I can't imagine Dean can possibly want her endorsement if she hasn't, the DLC being the Devil and all.

[KittyWampus]

5. Has DEAN Denounced The DLC

in no uncertain terms? I mean, has Dean said "I renounce the DLC and my center RIGHT record as Governor"?

But then, even if he hasn't, Dean had no problem accepting Harkin's endorsement even though Harkin according to Dean's rhetoric is Bush-lite having voted for the IWR etc.

[LizW2]

4. Wow

I don't know what to think about this.

The DLC is not monolithically (made up word?) behind Clark? I must admit, I'm surprised.

Is this another sign of that Clark gender gap thing? I don't know.

I will say that Ms. Kamark hits the nail on the head in describing the exact reservations I have about a Clark vs. Bush general election. I worry that Clark can be destroyed, and that Rove can do it easily.

[PATRICK]

6. Two comments

One, this properly shows the DLC is not the evil monolith but badly lead in its organizational circles recently. Second, it does show their remarkable lack of judgment and effectiveness in dividing itself and hurting legitimate candidates.

Clark's career has not been political although he has been completely mixed with the Washington and world scene. That means his vulnerabilities have not been crafted and tested for the hard contest he just threw himself into. THAT is the proper worry, not automatically saying he will be trashed and implying that is justified. Here is another DLCer still unwittingly doing the work of Rove.

However much you want to credit them, it is unwittingly. There seems a rush to shore up Dean, the frontrunner because now they see signs that yes, Virginia, despite your esteemed committee who must also have planned the collegiate championship system, there is such a thing as brokered convention. Kerry and Gephardt still alive. Clark and Edwards each getting surging share.

Is that their worst nightmare despite the dramatic ratings it might give the convention? Probably, just for the money drain and delay alone.

[LuminousX]

7. But Dean has peaked, is sliding, imploding I might add...

why would she endorse him on the way down? Why is she trying to prop Dean up? What is her hidden agenda?

[democratreformed]

8. Interesting info in article found here:

Link: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0401.confessore.html

Excerpts:
"A week before Christmas, I decided to seek out the Democratic establishment, hoping to stride through its halls of power and behold its vastness firsthand."

SNIP
"When I ask him what the establishment is doing to stop Dean, Reed grimaces slightly, as if he's just taken a sip of castor oil. "What are we doing to stop him?" asks Reed. "From our standpoint, this has always been up to the candidates themselves." Reed and his colleagues at the DLC--often painted by liberals as a centrist Death Star, bulging with corporate money and insidious influence over party affairs--have published a few op-eds comparing Dean's candidacy to George McGovern's disastrous 1972 run. But that's about it. Some DLC operatives are working with Lieberman, others with Edwards. The New Democratic Network, a DLC-descended PAC, hasn't attacked Dean; instead, they've praised his use of the Internet to build a campaign organization. "Let's back up to your central premise," Reed continues, gazing wearily at a 7-inch-tall cup of Starbucks sitting before him on a conference table. "There is no establishment. We"--meaning Washington Democrats--"are a constellation of interest groups and ideologies and congressional voices. The evidence that there isn't an establishment is just the mere fact that we have so many candidates--and such a collective inability to choose between them."

SNIP
"There is, to be sure, a group of Democrats in Washington who think of themselves as part of an establishment. They have helped raise money for and steer talent to different candidates for the party's nomination. They have access to the press, to whom they have dispensed a litany of on-and-off-the-record doubts about Dean's electability. They convene for anxious steak lunches at the Palm. But to call them an "establishment" is like calling the House of Lords a force in British legislative affairs. It is almost impossible to exaggerate how incoherent today's Democratic establishment is, or how little power it has to accomplish anything of substance. Howard Dean has overcome many hurdles on his way to becoming the Democratic frontrunner. But the Democratic establishment is not exactly at the top of the list."

It really is interesting information and touches on the lack of leadership in the party.