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Just 298 Days Left: Is Dean Electable?

By Mark Grueter

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After being prodded on a recent talk show, Christopher Hitchens said that Howard Dean is “absolutely worthless as a human being.” Notwithstanding Christopher’s charming flair for the dramatic - one would think Dean may have made a modest contribution to mankind while a doctor - his statement speaks to the contempt many of us feel toward the current leader of the Democratic Party and the people who support him.

This week, former Senator Bill Bradley became Howard Dean’s latest endorsee. Bradley, like Al Gore, is impressed with Dean’s ability to energize the Democratic base - something neither he nor Gore could really do during the 2000 Democratic primary race. Not only has Dean stirred up the base with his bravado and candor, he has brought new people into the process, or so the Dean camp claims. Dean’s theory is that the only way the Democrats can win in 2004 is to attract voters who do not typically vote. He thinks he has created a new, largely Internet-based movement that is sweeping the land.

There is no denying the abysmally low voter turnout rate in America. Only 50% of registered voters cast ballots in presidential elections. Only 100 million out of some 280 million Americans vote during the most popular election. Certainly, if a presidential candidate could find a way to bring millions of new voters into the process, he would have a great advantage. But where is the evidence to suggest that Dean is enlisting new voters, or is doing anything more than rallying people who would never vote Republican anyway? Yes, he has used the web to solicit money donations, but the number of people who are contributing to the Dean campaign financially still only amounts to .05% of registered voters. Democracy in action? I fear not.

Partly because he doesn’t speak like a normal politician, Dean does retain some McCainesque, independent appeal. This has really helped him so far and will continue to help him against Bush. But in November this appeal will be negated after many moderate and/or pro-war Dems and Independents vote for Bush or don’t vote at all because of Dean’s bluster/anti-war hard line and/or his reckless asides in general. His unfavorable rating is the highest amongst all the candidates. Within the Democratic Party he has effectively carved out a niche for himself to take the lead. Meanwhile, the rest of the Democratic vote is being split up by Kerry, Clark, Gephardt and, to some extent, Liebermann. But what would happen to the Dean machine if (say) Gephardt and Kerry dropped out to endorse Clark? If you add up the latter three’s poll numbers they easily surpass Dean’s (see the latest Gallup survey). In 24 hours the purported Dean colossus could come crashing down, only to be forgotten by history a few months later.

But even if Dean does win the nomination, it is hard to imagine that Americans, after getting a closer look at him, will trust the man. He’s a loose cannon at a time when America needs security and serious leadership. He has an overflowing track record of bizarre and contradictory public statements. Instead of backing down from many of his odd and fatuous musings, some of which were previously documented in this column, he morphs into the defensive and irritable punk caught smoking cigarettes behind a rock in the schoolyard.

In quintessential Dean fashion, he announced that the capture of Saddam Hussein would not make Americans any safer. Even if this assertion is true (which it probably isn’t) there is no way to qualify it. No responsible or mature candidate would declare such a thing in public (particularly just one day after the capture) but that is the Dean method. Remarks as such serve to underscore Dean’s lack of foreign policy experience. But more importantly, they betray a lack of sophistication in general. Okay, in a private moment, I and many others may have had the same thought about the capture of Saddam not making Americans safer, so maybe Dean was just running his mouth off again before fully thinking something through. Let’s give him a chance to rescind. Dean always gets a second chance, but instead of saying something like ‘well, I don’t believe we are any safer, but there’s really no way of knowing for sure and, besides, this is not the real issue anyway’, he refused to back down at all.

Instead, he waxes juvenile: “if we are safer how come we lost 10 more troops and raised the safety alert?’ So, he’s saying that we’re actually worse off because of the capture of Saddam. And he gives no serious thought to history, context or to the long-term implications of the capture and, in the process, indirectly concedes what Bush has been arguing all along - that Saddam and bin Laden are fighting for the same team and were, in a significant way, connected. Does Dean really believe Al-Qaeda hadn’t planned their would-be Holiday massacre before the US captured Saddam? Either Dean is a demagogue: one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots, or, he is an idiot himself.

It is hard to keep a running tally of all the Dean imbecilities. In the Iowa debate on Sunday, the auditorium crowd and I shared a memorable laugh after Dean bragged that he would balance the budget after “6 or 7 years in office.” It was a terrific, surreal moment of Dean absurdism. He got so confused from the resulting cackles he stopped in mid-sentence to peevishly inquire, “What?!” After a moment of awkward silence Dean then pretended that he thought the moderators had asked him another question. I would have felt bad for the guy, if we were not in danger of having him elected President.

Exactly who, other than Al Gore, Bill Bradley and my dead aunt, is supporting Howard Dean? I’m all for voting based on personality, but this is getting ridiculous. Shouldn’t character, experience, knowledge and intelligence have something to do with it also? Perhaps not, perhaps not.

Well, if Dean does win the nomination, the 2004 race should be one of the more entertaining races in recent memory. So there’s always that as a consolation prize. I’ve been saying for some time now that Dean is the GWB of the Democratic Party. He’s personable, plain-spoken, thin-skinned, Yale grad, recovering alcoholic, former Governor, born-again spiritualist, no national security experience, son of wealth, etc. etc. The two “Teflon” candidates, as the press wizards like to say, squaring off.

Dean will argue that “my words may not be precise, but people know what I mean,” while W will insist that he’s no Einstein but he’s “plenty smart.” It feels like a race between two of my college buddies. Good, fun guys in their own way, but where is the sagacity, the sense of awe? It’s a third-rate businessman versus a family doctor, both of whom were almost inexplicably launched into the presidential politics of the most powerful nation on earth. It may be purely democratic to reward mediocrity but America is a republic, not a democracy.

History and gut tells me that Bush will annihilate Dean because of incumbency advantage and the rebounding economy, along with the fact that Dean is a flippant and somewhat frivolous candidate. Most voters will be afraid to make a change, especially if it means turning things over to an unstable, slithery man like Dean. It could be like Nixon’s rout over McGovern all over again. But there’s always the x-factor, the element of unpredictability in American politics. The Dems will likely take New York, California and the northeastern states no matter who they nominate, and that alone will put Dean in contention.

Is Dean electable? Yes, but it was also possible for people like Michael Dukakis and Barry Goldwater to be elected. Does he have as good a chance of being elected as Clark, Edwards or Gephardt? No way. The latter three are probably the most “electable” simply because of the way the electoral map breaks down. Dean, Kerry and Liebermann’s strengths lie with voters on the coasts - states that will vote Democratic without a second thought. Only the other three have the real potential to pluck away at certain battleground states in the south and midwest.

Anyhow, it now looks as though Dean may soon be an asterisk after all. According to the latest USA Today/Gallup poll, my man Wesley Clark is now at 20% nationwide (up from 12% only two weeks ago) to Dean’s 24% - a statistical dead heat. And, by the way, as far as bringing new voters into the process goes (a worthy goal), Clark is much more likely to do so during a general election campaign than Dean.

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Mark Grueter is pursuing a Masters in Liberal Studies at the Graduate Faculty for Political and Social Sciences. He is the Publications Manager and Web Editor for The Canon, the school's student publication and is a contributor to Stop Smiling, a magazine based in Chicago. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.  Grueter may be contacted at [email protected].

© 2003 Me Three