How can Dean who is so blunt and says the most off-the-cuff comments be a good representative for the democratic party? That is what I thought until I read this excellent article in the
WaPo today. I read it
here. I read the whole article and it is long! I recommend that you do the same thing but I'll highlight a few of my favorite points below the fold.
See what I mean?
At some point in the next five minutes, Howard Dean is going to say something that somebody won't like. He will say it in words chesty and rough, with a voice that is raked out of the bottom of his throat. He might call Republicans "plunderers," or he might call them "brain-dead." Whatever he says, the sound of a politician speaking his actual mind will cause his admirers and detractors alike to react as if they just heard an explosion. The chatter fills the air like scattering flocks of jackdaws: Check me on this, but did Howard Dean just call half the country stupid?
Dean could stop saying these things -- but he won't. "Most of that stuff, I don't regret," he says.
But what about a guy who speaks the truth and makes people feel uncomfortable with themselves?
But Dean is also the guy who made speaking up fashionable again for Democrats. And that is one reason his party is wagering on him. If Dean says things that are ill-considered, he also remains his party's leading rebel -- one with enough fresh fight in him to take on not only Republicans but also those change-resistant Democrats who would rather be titular heads of a dying party than less relevant figures in a renewed one. The hope for Democrats is: Dean will be the antidote for a party that is lacking a strong message and that needs somebody, anybody, to say something. Dean likes to quote his political hero, Harry Truman. "I don't give 'em hell," Truman said in 1948. "I just tell the truth, and they think it's hell." And the truth, as Dean sees it, is that mushmouthedness is killing the party, and so is voter neglect. "Somebody has to take those right wingers on," he says, "and I enjoy doing it."
You've got to love a guy who does his own work:
Dean rarely speaks from a prepared text, preferring to jot thoughts on an index card, which he then barely refers to. Exasperated aides urge him to stick to a script. "Give the speech," says media consultant Tom Ochs, a member of Dean's DNC transition team. "That's why it's called a 'speech.' " But Dean gives speeches only on his terms. If Dems thought they were hiring a servile functionary, they were mistaken.
Ane then he affirms what I think that we can't ignore democrats in Red States.
One of his stops was at Vanderbilt University, where he faced a standing-room-only class. For the next 45 minutes, Dean lectured, bantered and spoke like a candidate. ("I do not believe that you can run enormous deficits year after year after year and not have consequences. I do not believe you can run a foreign policy based on petulance.") But Dean was almost as critical of Democrats. The class evolved into his first lengthy public explication of his view of the party, and his "idears" for fixing it, as he pronounces the word. "It is socially unacceptable in some parts of the country to be a Democrat," he observed. "The first thing we have to do is show up in 50 states and compete in 50 states. Second thing we're going to do is talk in a way that is not condescending."
This is my favorite quote in the whole article. What a great thing to say to someone who is bing so disrespectful!
There is considerable debate in Vermont about the extent of Dean's political courage. He tended to favor incremental measures and aggravated the left, the right, environmentalists, developers, farmers and gay rights activists equally. His most overtly courageous act was signing a civil unions bill in 2000, but his hand was forced by a state Supreme Court ruling. He signed it behind closed doors, refusing a public ceremony. Still, he signed it. Afterward, he was subject to screaming vitriol and wore a flak jacket when he marched in local parades. When he attended an annual maple festival in St. Albans, an elderly woman approached him and said, "You . . . queer-loving son of a bitch." Dean replied, "You should clean up your mouth, lady. You certainly didn't learn how to talk like that in Franklin County."
Anyone who is willing to tell-off an elderly lady who is disrespectful deserves my praise! So now I'm thinking that we do have the right man in the job for DNC chair. What do you think?
BTW-this is my first post. How'd I do?