It is perhaps a fitting irony that Murtha has now come around to Dean's essential position of being opposed to this war. In hindsight Dean has been the real Dem leader on all of this. Ahead of Kerry and Edwards and Clark and Hillary and Murtha, certainly. Perhaps only Feingold has been at it as long.
I did not support Dean back in the campaign. If it matters I was first for Edwards in 02, who then rewarded me by drifting out of sight and mind, then moved to Clark as part of the Draft Clark movement in 03. After Kerry won the nom, I threw all of my effort and money behind him too, and still think that he makes a fine junior senator from Mass. But I think a lot more highly of Dean now; more importantly I think of Dean as a man ahead of his time.
More below...
Why? Because I think we should be looking to his message, not just his methods, for 06 and 08. For background the
wikipedia has a brief but decent summary:
Message and themes
Dean began his campaign by emphasizing health care and fiscal responsibility, and championing grassroots fundraising as a way to fight special interests. However, his opposition to the U.S. plan to invade Iraq (and his forceful criticism of Democrats in Congress who voted to authorize the use of force) quickly eclipsed other issues, resonating with disillusioned Democrats and using momentum from the burgeoning anti-war movement to build an impressive online campaign. Dean's early slogan of representing "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" reflected the feeling among frustrated voters that Democrats hadn't done enough to question the policies of the Republicans. The phrase was first used by the late Senator Paul Wellstone.
I've gone back and re-read a few Dean speeches that I saved/downloaded during the campaign, and he had a lot of this right. More importantly he was not afraid to make a stand for what he thought was right. The subtitle of a Peter Beinart article in Time magazine last year before the election tells you all you need to know:
If Howard Dean Were the Candidate ...
Flip-flops wouldn't be the issue; Iraq would. A look at what might have been
By PETER BEINART
The rest of the article is premium content, but don't bother paying for it. Beinart was part of the DLC left who spent a fair amount of time helping the GOP by Goring Dean, as I'm sure many Dems now think the Beinarts of the world will do to them if they stick their necks out too far. And that's a sad part of the dynamic of Dem timidity that we rail against here. As Reed Schmidt notes at TPM Cafe this morning:
Following the country, some distance behind...
...is the basic Democratic Party strategy. The elected officials are afraid, for good reason, to be ahead of public opinion. Out there, in the zone of leadership, they know they will be assaulted by the Administration and its agents in the media, from Fox to Woodward. They know that the mainstream media will be witnesses to alleged crimes and cover them up in the name of a privilege that the courts do not recognize. They know that the media will report whatever is dictated by the White House. They note that careers are destroyed by getting in the way of the political attacks mounted by the right. Their hope is that by following, instead of leading, public opinion they will be handed a majority in the Senate or the House, or at least some more seats, and then in 2007 they can gain a little more influence over political power. The Presidential election will commence in earnest at the beginning of 2007, and in that context they hope that the R's will pick a nominee like Goldwater in 64 -- that is, someone who is certain to lose. This strategy is not ill-informed. It is fairly common in politics. It reflects lessons of America as it exists today. But it opens the door for any number of Democrats to jump ahead of the waiting crowd and try to become now the voice of the public. So far, except for John Kerry, the would-be Presidential candidates are all staying off to the side, avoiding risk, letting events take their course. But I doubt that for all of 2006 that will be the case.
I take a bit of exception to the idea that Kerry is leading on this (Feingold anyone? Edwards? Clark even?), but that's another post for another day.
What I think is more germane is that having Dean muzzled inside the party apparatus must be quite a comfort to both timid Dems and the GOP. But perhaps the biggest irony is that the next 06 and 08 campaigns might well be a rerun of the Dean 03 and 04 message. And this time I suspect it'll take.