Monday, November 17, 2003
Tom and Andy Throw a Party
Two days after Iowa' Jefferson-Jackson shindig at which six of the nine presidential candidates appeared, Howard Dean looks unstoppable. So now people are starting to handicap the general election race against Bush. Is Dean too angry? Will his support for civil unions doom him? Is he as liberal as his supporters think he is? Is he another Dukakis? Mondale? McGovern? Goldwater?
It may not matter--at least not enough to affect the Democratic race. If the Democrats nominate Dean, they may lose. If they nominate anybody else, they will definitely lose. No other Democrat energizes the party like he does, as was proven at the J-J event. And no other Democrat has a better chance of beating Bush. Gephardt and Lieberman are yesterday's news; Clark and Edwards aren't ready for prime time; Kerry is toast; Kucinich, Sharpton, and Braun are just in the way. If Dean is doomed, so are all the rest. And if the Democrats are going down next November, we ought to at least go down fighting. And I have no faith in the ability of Gephardt, Lieberman, Kerry, Edwards, or Clark to do so.
By the way, Adam Nagourney of the New York Times seems to think Hillary Rodham Clinton was the star of the event--but what's most interesting to me is her comment (as MC) that "the next president of the United States is among us tonight." Does her comment mean anything in light of the fact that Clark--putative candidate of the Clintons--was absent? Well, sometimes a banana is just a banana. Clark is officially skipping Iowa, after all.
Nagourney's piece, ostensibly a news story, contains the unattributed observation that many Democrats in Iowa believe that their party will lose the 2004 election. Yeah, the clips I saw from the J-J event looked like a bunch of pessimists getting ready to pull the dirt in on themselves.
Two days after Iowa' Jefferson-Jackson shindig at which six of the nine presidential candidates appeared, Howard Dean looks unstoppable. So now people are starting to handicap the general election race against Bush. Is Dean too angry? Will his support for civil unions doom him? Is he as liberal as his supporters think he is? Is he another Dukakis? Mondale? McGovern? Goldwater?
It may not matter--at least not enough to affect the Democratic race. If the Democrats nominate Dean, they may lose. If they nominate anybody else, they will definitely lose. No other Democrat energizes the party like he does, as was proven at the J-J event. And no other Democrat has a better chance of beating Bush. Gephardt and Lieberman are yesterday's news; Clark and Edwards aren't ready for prime time; Kerry is toast; Kucinich, Sharpton, and Braun are just in the way. If Dean is doomed, so are all the rest. And if the Democrats are going down next November, we ought to at least go down fighting. And I have no faith in the ability of Gephardt, Lieberman, Kerry, Edwards, or Clark to do so.
By the way, Adam Nagourney of the New York Times seems to think Hillary Rodham Clinton was the star of the event--but what's most interesting to me is her comment (as MC) that "the next president of the United States is among us tonight." Does her comment mean anything in light of the fact that Clark--putative candidate of the Clintons--was absent? Well, sometimes a banana is just a banana. Clark is officially skipping Iowa, after all.
Nagourney's piece, ostensibly a news story, contains the unattributed observation that many Democrats in Iowa believe that their party will lose the 2004 election. Yeah, the clips I saw from the J-J event looked like a bunch of pessimists getting ready to pull the dirt in on themselves.
