Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Sticker Shock
I have been trying to deny this to myself for quite a while, but I don't think I can anymore. As William Saletan succinctly summarizes it, Howard Dean, as presently constructed, is not electable. His position on taxes--repeal the entire Bush tax cut--is as electorally lethal as Walter Mondale's "Reagan won't tell you he's going to raise your taxes; I just did" in his 1984 acceptance speech. Dean's fuzzy plan to keep America safe from terrorists puts him squarely behind the eight-ball with no effective way to respond to Bush's squinty-eyed "dead or alive" sheriff act, even though that act is bullshit. (Jerry Bowles notes that Dean's position on the war on Iraq is, according to polling data, "against the current." The poll he mentions, quoted by David Brooks in the New York Times earlier this week, was taken even before Saddam was nabbed, and it shows overwhelming support for the war among Republicans and strong support for it among Democrats.) Saletan suggests that getting beat in Iowa and New Hampshire would change Dean's tune, but it may be too late for that, given three things--the lateness of the hour, the political cost of being perceived as a flip-flopper, and the evangelical fervor of Dean's own troops on the ground and on the Internet, who like him just fine.
But if Dean is unelectable, then so are the other Democrats. Every one of them--Kerry the vet, Gephardt the worker's friend, Lieberman the pious, Edwards the Southerner, Clark the inexperienced--they've all got their electability problems.
It's a long way to November 2. A lot can happen. And Bill Clinton looked unelectable in the spring of 1992. So at the moment, the Dean sticker remains on my car. But I am beginning to wonder where I put the razor blades and WD-40.
I have been trying to deny this to myself for quite a while, but I don't think I can anymore. As William Saletan succinctly summarizes it, Howard Dean, as presently constructed, is not electable. His position on taxes--repeal the entire Bush tax cut--is as electorally lethal as Walter Mondale's "Reagan won't tell you he's going to raise your taxes; I just did" in his 1984 acceptance speech. Dean's fuzzy plan to keep America safe from terrorists puts him squarely behind the eight-ball with no effective way to respond to Bush's squinty-eyed "dead or alive" sheriff act, even though that act is bullshit. (Jerry Bowles notes that Dean's position on the war on Iraq is, according to polling data, "against the current." The poll he mentions, quoted by David Brooks in the New York Times earlier this week, was taken even before Saddam was nabbed, and it shows overwhelming support for the war among Republicans and strong support for it among Democrats.) Saletan suggests that getting beat in Iowa and New Hampshire would change Dean's tune, but it may be too late for that, given three things--the lateness of the hour, the political cost of being perceived as a flip-flopper, and the evangelical fervor of Dean's own troops on the ground and on the Internet, who like him just fine.
But if Dean is unelectable, then so are the other Democrats. Every one of them--Kerry the vet, Gephardt the worker's friend, Lieberman the pious, Edwards the Southerner, Clark the inexperienced--they've all got their electability problems.
It's a long way to November 2. A lot can happen. And Bill Clinton looked unelectable in the spring of 1992. So at the moment, the Dean sticker remains on my car. But I am beginning to wonder where I put the razor blades and WD-40.
