People are still saying that Dean might be too far left. Let me admit that I never studied Dean's career prior to this campaign and am still not as informed about him as your average Dean Supporter probably is. But I don't understand why the Dean-is-Left idea still seems to perpetuate. I see it repeated even in places like dKos comments or diaries where I'd think it's debunking is more or less common knowledge (although this diary might prove me wrong there, I suppose). This idea is most certainly still in the press as they slowly raise the profile of their election coverage. Do they just like to have something to debunk themselves over time?
As one recently introduced to Dean I too expected a leftist type (Kucinich) because of the war stance. But of course I then actually look at what the candidate has to say to find out what they really think on things. (I do this because expectations and first impressions are not even worth the paper you can't be bothered to write them down on.) I found, I think, someone who doesn't look very left to me. Not a leftist democrat by any means, right? Am I missing something here?
If I could find this out relatively quickly, I assume the press can (you know, unless I'm missing something).
It's great to run as a "liberal" with pride if you want, or "progressive" or "moderate" or what have you, so which is Dean? This needs to be clarified.
I feel pretty certain the Leftist thing must be because of people's automatic association of any anti-war movement with leftism (you know, like in Bosnia where the -- oh wait, nevermind).
Let me add that I think left-right is a terrible political spectrum metaphor, the two dimensional ones are a little better, but are still very crude. But I have to admit when it comes to elections and the mechanics of politics, the left-right mapping of ideology can makes sense of complexity, that is, it can simplify it for a race with just one winner.
So although I imagine there are better systems to discover, I think this Left to Right spectrum is still a worthy tool for some broad analysis. It's kind of like the old joke that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.
So tell me, where is Dean relative to Clinton?