Dean snubs the center, Clinton - NH Union Leader -

[Sean Reynolds]

First off, the headline totally goes against what the article states. Is the Union Leader a Repuke paper? Sure sounds like it.

SNIP:

MANCHESTER — Howard Dean called on Democrats yesterday to turn from a centrist, “damage control” domestic agenda and focus on the traditional core party values of helping those in need.

Dean not only slapped his Democratic opponents as Washington insiders who’ve merely tried to appease Republicans, but he also distanced himself from Bill Clinton and the centrist Democratic Leadership Council that spawned the former President.

SNIP:

He called Clinton “a skillful President” who moved the nation “toward the middle,” but that under President George W. Bush, “we’ve moved towards the far right.” He said his approach is necessary to move the country “back toward the middle.”

SNIP:

The poll showed Dean leading Kerry, 45 to 20 percent, with retired General Wesley at 8 percent; Connecticut Sen. Lieberman, 6 percent; Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt, 3 percent; North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, 2 percent; and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, 1 percent. Former Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun and civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton registered zero percent, and 15 percent were undecided.

http://www.theunionleader.com/prez_show.html?article=30415

[slinkerwink]

1. yep, it's a repuke newspaper

they've bashed dean a few times.

[FightinNewDem]

20. Perhaps, but...

The author of the piece is a registered Democrat.

[Jim Sagle]

2. Doesn't sound as if he's snubbing Clinton at all.

He's just saying Clinton might've been right for his time, but now we need a course correction.

And yes, the Union Leader is Republican - rabidly so. (Or am I being redundant?)

[BootinUp]

3. Did you read or hear the speech?

http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=11077

This is a pretty fair assessment if you ask me.

[stickdog]

5. Yes, Repuke "assessments" are now always "fair" on DU.

Just as long as Dean is the target.

[BootinUp]

8. Are you going to

sue the paper and others like them? Look this is the assessment that most Americans will be hearing and reading in the general election.

And that speech does have some strong rhetoric against Clinton and some strong rhetoric for raising taxes. So when was the last time anybody won an election on "raise the taxes" rhetoric.

[Myra]

10. Jim4Wes, it sounds like you watched Dean today

So, when he mentioned the Harry and Louise ads,
did you think his disgusted tone was related to Clinton,
or to the insurance lobbies that defeated universal health care?

[BootinUp]

12. I didn't see it I read

about half the speech and didn't get to that part about the ad. There is more about Clinton in there, basically saying (paraphrased) that Clinton was too centrist and Dean would be for more liberal / progressive and fight the republicans etc.

The problem is we have a minority in the house and senate. So my opinion is you have to work with the other party, and you have to convince more voters to re-elect a democratic majority by showing that our party is not extreme like the electorate thinks we are right now.

Look folks, none of this is going to matter if we get chimp another 4 years.

[jeter]

28. Bobby Kennedy called the Union Leader...

...the worst newspaper in America back in 1968.

I've never seen so many Republicans in love with Bill Clinton before.

[Norquist Nemesis]

4. Yes, big contradiction

between the headline and article. I completely agree with Dean's assessment about having to pull hard to toward the left to get to center. The neo-cons are going to snap that rubber band any day now if they're not careful.

[BootinUp]

6. Pulling hard to the left

How the flying F*** are you going to do that? I know, Dean will not only win the Presidency, he's going to coat tail a majority in both houses of congress...right?

:think:

[Norquist Nemesis]

11. Try reading again

I said I agree with his assessment in order to get back to the middle. And how the F***?... Looks like Dean's doing an excellent job at this point toward that end.

[BootinUp]

13. sure but it comes out the same every time n/t

[robbedvoter]

21. Ya mean, more cockroaches in Congress? *D needs no cockroaches!

He can govern by his own self - he got the power, right?;-)

[HFishbine]

26. *

* President.

[Sugarbleus]

7. As of this morning..

I totally agree with you liburl. I will go with Dean.

[Myra]

9. Um, I watched Dean and I wasn't going to bring this up

Because we were all getting along so well since the GD restructure.
But I was trying to listen to him with an open mind and all
that good stuff. And I thought he was pretty impressive.
Then he launched into the following; I think during the Q&A.
Oh! I think someone asked how he could insure healthcare for
all 'Merkans.

Dean said (not exact quotes, but damn close):
Health care doesn't have to be a big gov't run thing;
we could just build on what we have now.
Then he got this expression like a skunk dropped on the podium
and said:

"Remember Harry and Louise"?
'The ads that (the industry) used against the Clinton universal
health care plan?
It doesn't have to be like that.
It would be just like today's sytem, but everyone would have it.'

I wasn't sure if the skunk expression was in reaction to
the ads or the president, and I was just real surprised at
his tone so I held off reacting or mentioning it.

Did anyone else see it?

[slinkerwink]

14. sounds like Dean was angry at the republicans for derailing a universal

health care system, and the reason why he's proposing an incrementalist approach is because he knows the health care industry would kill any other approach to health care.

[maxanne]

15. The Union Leader

is a foamingathemouth rabidly Republican paper.

Pity us, in NH. The UNION LEADER is the most widely read paper - and we have one tv station, which is almost as rabidly right wing. The Union Leader was the paper of William Loeb - a famous right wing reactionary.

[FightinNewDem]

23. Reality

I'll say it again...the author of the article, John DiStaso, is not a Republican. He's a registered Democrat in the town of Goffstown.

Yes, the UL is a Republican paper, but many of its writers are Dems and Dem-leaning independents. Thier most popular columnist, John Clayton, comes from a prominent Democratic family and is the brother of a Dem state legislator. Sports columnist Joe Sullivan is a member of the Democratic City Committee, and is also the brother of a Democratic state representative.

Truth be told, the UL's news coverage is actually failry balanced these days. I remember the old Loeb era, and it is long gone. The op-ed section is still off the wall (Deroy Murdock? Kathleen Parker? Yeesh!), but they try to remain somewhat objective in their coverage.

There are actually several papers with far greater bias problems. Fosters Daily Democrat, despite the name, is a house organ for Craig Benson's crowd, to an embarrasing degree. The Portsmouth Herald, with the exception of State House reporter Shir Haberman (a consumate professional), which is Fosters big rival, tends to skew so far to the left that it makes even many Democrats roll their eyes. Finally, the Concord Monitor has long been far too cozy with certain factions within the Democratic Party, particularly the upscale, social liberal crowd in Merrimack County, and this spills over into its news coverage. Dean receives absurdly positive front page coverage, while Kerry/Lieberman/Edwards/Clark, et al, have to fight for a mention on page B-3!

[Redneck Socialist]

33. The Portsmouth Herald "tends to skew so far to the left...

that it makes even many Democrats roll their eyes." We must not be reading the same paper. Though trying to read the Herald is a pretty hard press all by itself.

NH Gazette gets my vote for most entertaing NH newspaper and the Keene Sentinal is hands down the best.

[David Zephyr]

34. Hey Redneck Socialist!

I love your name. Ever read the "Redneck Manifesto"?

:hi:

[NewYorkerfromMass]

16. NYTimes agrees with Union Leader- Clinton was dissed

"...former Clinton adviser (Bruce Reed) who is now president of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, said, "He took a cheap shot at Clintonism which wasn't appreciated." Mr. Reed added: "You know it just doesn't make any sense. One day Dean says Americans are no better off with Saddam out of power, now he seems to be saying Democrats are better off with Bill Clinton out of power."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/19/national/19DEAN.html?pagewanted=print&position=

"...some of the leading centrists of the Clinton years said they were dismayed by his rallying cry that "It's time to take our party back" — and wonder, From whom?

"I assume he means the people who led it to this disastrous middle where 22 million jobs were created," said Al From, a founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, formed to push the party to the center after its landslide defeats in the 1980's."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/19/politics/campaigns/19DEMS.html?pagewanted=print&position=

[BootinUp]

17. Glad someone agrees with my assessment n/t

[On the Road]

18. He's Not Snubbing the Center

he's snubbing the accomodationists.

He's an insurgent centrist candidate. Sounds like a contradiction, except that he's fighting a ring-wing incumbent. There's plenty of substative difference between Dean and Bush, and plenty of room for Dean to go on the attack.

On "helping those in need," Dean's proposals use centrist or DLC methods to achieve social ends rather than big LBJ-style government policies. The difference is that Dean is trying to achive those goals by working with the private sector or laying the ground rules within which the private sector can operate.

The Union Leader wants to equate helping those in need with being too far left to be electable. What a sad place we've come to in this country when a paper can say that.

[BootinUp]

19. accomodationists?

whats that? is it anything like centrists?

Is it anything like a guy who runs a populist campaign to get support from the left side of the party and moves back to center once he has the nomination or as far fetched as I think it is, wins the election?

Political commentary is part of our free speech rights, IMHO both articles express a fairly substantial case based on recent political history.

[KittyWampus]

27. Dean's Whole Political Record Was Accomodating Industry & Wall Street

Dean IS DLC.

Please refer me to the speech he gave renouncing his Political Record as a Right of Center Democrat and his membership in the DLC.

Dean's actions over the last 10 years speak louder than his rhetoric over the last 12 months.

[robbedvoter]

22. "Young people had no reason to be excited to vote Dem since 1968"

Dean at the Florida convention - forum. It's a good thing Gore missed this one as well. As for Clinton, Carter - they may have a bone to pick with this one.

[YNGW]

24. Ooops!

“While Bill Clinton has said that the era of big government is over,” Dean said in a speech at the city library, “I believe we must enter a new era for the Democratic Party — not one where we join Republicans and aim simply to limit the damage they inflict on working families.”

He told reporters afterwards he was not criticizing Clinton.

-------------------------

Something tells me Bill's going to be having a conversation with the good Dr. soon.

[MGKrebs]

25. Dean is exactly right on this.

The DLC appears to believe that what won in '92 and '96 can win again. Dean seems to think times have changed. After all, what's the point of being a Democrat if you end up in a "center" that 5 years ago would have been considered conservative?

Failure to offer significant differences with Bush on major issues will likely result in Bush winning again (in my opinion). Does Main Street want a change or not? We shall see.

It must have been a difficult decision for Al Gore to turn away from the group that helped bring him the Vice Presidency. But I would say it is obvious that he thinks they are wrong now.

Being "in the center" is not a good enough political position, in itself, for a candidate. That "center" has to MEAN something. A candidate who slides around with the perceived center risks abandoning principles that are meaningful to many progressives.

Finally, if the "center" just means "where the most votes are", then I think it is entirely possible that this center is quite pissed off at where they find themselves. On November 3rd, I believe we will be talking about how the center has shifted.

[DFLforever]

29. This is Repuke, Rove-driven conquer and divide

and there are DLC suckers and Dem saps aplenty drinking this stuff up.

David Brooks trotted out this meme on PBS's Newshour tonight.
It's wonderful to see the Rethugs' enthusiastic if belated praise of the Clinton era...but I somehow distrust their motives.

[SEAburb]

30. But Dean is trying to divide the party too

By pitting one half against the other, he is trying to capture one half of the party and let the other candidates fight over the other half.

Dean the Divider's strategy is ruthless.

[DFLforever]

31. Actually I think he's trying to win some primaries and caucuses

I don't see him as any kind of a 'divider' but maybe somthing of a
'destroyer/creator' - the new of necessity created out of ashes of the old. ..and our Democratic party has certainly been crumbling since 2000. Is he ruthless? I don't know many physicians who are ruthless but I pray you're right... we need some one who will do anything he has to beat Bush in 2004.

[MGKrebs]

32. If Dean believes the Dem party is trying so hard

to appease the existing Washington-insider machine that they have lost touch with normal people, then he has no choice but to tell them he thinks they are wrong, and offer an alternative.

In a way, you could say that Dean didn't choose this battle, but the DLC did, by choosing to drift so far to the right that they are virtually indistinguishable from Repubs of 5 or maybe 10 years ago.

[SEAburb]

35. that Washington insider stuff is just political rhetoric

As I said Dean's strategy is to split the party. With the hope of getting half of the party for himself and leaving the other candidates to divde the other half.

Anybody that believes Dean is an outsider can't know his back ground. Do outsiders lobby congress to pass NAFTA? Do outsiders lobby congress to pass Newt's medicare bill? Do outsiders lobby congress to allow their state the ablity to ship nuclear wastse to a small town in Texas for storage?

[Tom Rinaldo]

36. Dean plays insider when he wants to

He just played the Gore card to reel in the NJ Democratic Party machine. Dean plays the political shell game extremely well, but unfortunately not as well as Clinton. He doesn't slide from one political identity to the next as seemlessly. Sometimes the stiches show.