A new kind of candidate, he built his base in part through the internet, where he both blogs and raises large amounts of cash — more than any other candidate so far. He has the “straight talking” buzz of a John McCain and he has fired up Democratic party activists by asserting clear, if radical, positions on the issues of the day. His best recent quip — and running campaign slogan — is that he represents the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.
And when you see the party base’s enthusiasm for a man absolutely unashamed to take on President Bush with glee and vigour, it’s hard not to root for him as a candidate. He feels alive; he seems fresh; he seems different.
And in some respects, he is. Although he is now the darling of the left of the party, his record as governor of Vermont shows a more pragmatic, even centrist side. He was very tight-fisted with money and dragged the Vermont budget from the red into years of healthy surpluses.
He controlled government spending; he defended gun-ownership rights — unthinkable for many Democrats, especially in the liberal northeast. By incremental steps, rather than a huge Hillary-like overhaul, he extended health benefits to all children in his state.
His fiscal conservatism also allows him, alone of his rivals, to tear into the current administration’s reckless fiscal policy, ballooning deficits and mounting debt.
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“We must return to fiscal sanity for the sake of future generations, yes, but also for the sake of our national security,” Dean said last week. “We cannot be a world-class country if we are the world’s largest debtor.”
He has also mastered the appearance at least of being a conviction politician. He is nationally most famous for backing the law in Vermont that granted gay couples identical benefits to straight married couples in a compromise called “civil unions”.
Far from running away from this, as other Democrats have done, Dean has defended it on simple equality grounds. And it doesn’t seem to have hurt him much. As gay issues heat up in the campaign, Dean represents a clear alternative to the Bush administration’s flirtation with a religious right constitutional amendment to ban all benefits to gay couples of any sort in America.
So where’s the catch? In a word: national security. Dean has got himself where he needs to be in the election cycle largely because he strongly opposed the war against Saddam. Earlier this year, as partisan Democrats fumed at the Bush administration’s success at building strong support from the war on terror, Dean opposed the Iraq war forthrightly while many scared Democrats in the Senate and Congress voted for it.
He has been relentless on the alleged missing weapons of mass destruction issue. When Baghdad was liberated, and Saddam removed from power, Dean came up with his most memorable line yet: “I suppose it’s a good thing.”
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“I suppose.” How could anyone be that ambivalent about Saddam’s removal? Even those who opposed the war acknowledge for the most part that Saddam was an evil monster. But for Dean, that huge humanitarian advance was balanced by dismay at a success for an administration he loathed.
Of course, that naked partisanship is why he appeals to the Democratic party base. But it also revealed a mean and somewhat haughty streak in the diminutive politician. In debates, that aspect of his personality came out as well — in bitter sparring matches with John Kerry, his nemesis.
A while back I got a taste of the same medicine. I debated with Dean in Boston on the issue of drug companies and healthcare. He supported measures to force the companies to lower their prices or to allow people to buy reimported drugs from Canada, where the state-controlled prices were lower.
My only point was that if this occurred, it would obviously cut drug company profits which, in turn, would decrease research and development, leading to a slowdown in new drug development in the future. He refused point blank to concede any trade-off. And when challenged, he grew arrogant and testy.
That’s another reason why he may be ill suited to go up against Bush. Whatever you think about the president’s policies, one of his strengths is his geniality in debate and public appearances. Up against him, Dean would have to fight extremely hard not to look short and mean and sour.
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And in an election in which terrorism and national security will be vital and important issues, a candidate who would seem to dramatically undermine America’s credibility in the reconstruction of Iraq would also have a huge amount of persuading to do. For even if you disagreed with the war, abandoning Iraq now would be a catastrophe from which American foreign policy would barely recover. Up against that, a message of tax rises and gay equality, however justified on their merits, would scarcely be credible.
So the Democrats have a choice again: do they want to vent or do they want to govern? There are, I think, uncanny resemblances between now and 1984 when an austere Democrat ran against Ronald Reagan on taxes and lost 49 states.
Or worse, 1968, when a deeply alienated party bloodied itself so badly in its opposition to a war that it essentially handed the national election to Richard Nixon. Sometimes what a party wants to do to purge its soul and restore its principles is exactly what will prevent it from coming to power.
Of course, in 1968 the party didn’t nominate a real fire-breather. In the end it nominated a relative moderate, which is what might happen this time if John Kerry emerges eventually from the throng. But the damage had been done.
Maybe Dean can resolve this dilemma with the kind of surprising skill he has exhibited so far. But in all likelihood he is the Democratic candidate the White House dreams about running against. He’ll be portrayed as a mix between Michael Dukakis and Jesse Jackson. And it won’t be pretty.