Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
Dean has never been a progressive. He is a centrist.
December 14, 2003
WASHINGTON — In November 1987, Al Gore, then a senator and presidential aspirant, appeared at a political dinner in Iowa roughly two months before the state's Democrats were scheduled to attend party caucuses and pick a presidential favorite. Iowa was politically important to Gore, but he acted aloof, nonchalant, almost as if he didn't care whether he won over the state's stalwart liberals. Indeed, instead of singing the activists' praises, Gore jabbed a finger into their eyes by vowing to fight for free trade, raise the U.S. profile abroad and govern as a "raging moderate."
"I will not do what the pundits say it takes to win in Iowa — flatter you [liberals] with promises, change my tune and back down from my convictions," declared Gore.
When Bill Clinton selected Gore as his running mate in 1992, Democrats nationwide knew the party's moderate wing was in the ascendant. Gore's selection allowed Clinton to cast himself off from "the party of George McGovern, Walter Mondale and Mario Cuomo," noted the New Yorker's Louis Menand.
Then, on Dec. 9, 2003, 11 years after Gore and Clinton barnstormed America in a bus in a "New Democrat" crusade to capture the White House, the former vice president turned his back on this past and endorsed a maverick outsider who claims to be the only candidate of "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." Howard Dean was the first major candidate in the race to oppose the Iraq war. His home state, Vermont, routinely elects a socialist, Bernard Sanders, as its lone representative in the U.S. House of Representatives.
By endorsing Dean, Gore waved goodbye to the moderate Democratic politics that had defined his decades–long political career. His "people versus the powerful" theme in his 2000 presidential campaign suggested which way the wind was blowing for Gore. But by coming out early for Dean, Gore announced, in the most dramatic way yet, that he has embraced the antiwar views, pro–civil liberties positions and anti–incumbent, anti–Washington rhetoric of the Dean wing of the party.
Posted by P6 at December 14, 2003 08:32 AM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2524Yes, Dean is, by and large a moderate. His actions as governor in the state of Vermont demonstrate that. However, it is his rhetoric that has defined him as an extremist. But people have to keep in mind that presidential aspirants always take more extreme positions during the primaries in order to energize the fringe elememts, but after they have won the nomination, they try to appeal to the entire party. Dean will become much more moderate after he wins the nomination.
Dean an extremist, my ass. What do you take as the standard of "mainstream", your own views?
Dean's rhetoric is extremist. Do you think the accusation that Bush was implicit in the 9/11/01 attacks is a mainstream idea?