I Won? No, Mr. President, Howard Dean Won
I’ve been with the Wife now for going on 19 years, and one of the keys to our marital success is the fact that I found someone more sensible than I am. So when I started going off on the President the other day, the wife made a sensible comment.
“He’s the commander in chief. He deserves our respect.” She then followed up the comment with a reminder of how the “nutroots” slandered Bush throughout his presidency, and that we should not follow their example.
It’s a sensible statement, and over time she might be proven right. However the fact is that those “nutroots” defined the 2008 Election and won it with their candidate. So while we might disagree with their methods, they beat us.
The Rise and Fall – and Rise of the Deaniacs
The force behind Obama was not new. It is the same force that lay behind the Howard Dean candidacy in 2004. The anti-war/pacifist constituency of the Democratic Party propelled Dean’s candidacy. This constituency was media savvy, well funded and had gained serious traction the year before the ‘04 primaries.
Howard Dean scared the pants off of DNC chair Terry McAuliffe at the time. McAuliffe was a Clintonite who was a caretaker of the party until Hillary was strong enough to take over the party apparatus after running for – and winning the presidency in 2008. But 2004 was too early for the Clintons, and the netroots weren’t too keen on the Clintons anyway – blaming them for the failure of Gore in 2000 and worse, for backing Bush’s war in Iraq.
McAuliffe and the party leadership strongly opposed Howard Dean’s candidacy. That opposition didn’t stop the AFL-CIO backing Howard Dean in November 2003. In December 2003 Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean. Dean was already ahead in the polls in the 9 person race for the Democratic nomination at that point, when a month later Bill Bradley announced his endorsement.
Howard Dean was riding a juggernaut – upending the Democratic establishment built under the Clintons, so it came as a relief to them when his candidacy flamed out during the early primaries and McAullife was able to find a “more electable candidate” than Dean. The grassroots support of the party that Dean cultivated evaporated with his candidacy, and the party was left to draw money from its list of “usual suspects” – unions, limousine liberals, and city machines.
The Democratic loss in 2004 ended McAullife’s tenure as DNC chief and weakened the Clinton grip on the party. This allowed Howard Dean to return to where he had left off a year earlier and shape the party to his liking.
New Electoral Math: Grassroots Power > Party Leadership
Howard Dean did not choose to use the loss of the ‘04 election as the start of his own run for the presidency in ‘08. Instead Howard Dean ran for and won Terry McAullife’s chair of the DNC. Dean chose to be king-maker not king, and in retrospect this move was pure genius. It enabled Howard Dean to use the Democratic Party apparatus to put in place a 50 State strategy to take back the White House with a candidate he supported instead of having that apparatus used against him in an expected presidential run by Hillary Clinton. Dean must have realized that he could win the party or lose the nomination, but he couldn’t secure both. That is a pretty astute realization that a politician can make.
But Dean made it and in February 2005 Dean took over the very same party apparatus that had been wielded against him by McAullife a year earlier. Now he had his netroots supporters – all he needed was the right candidate – and he found it in a young, ambitious junior senator from Illinois who was ideologically his twin. Obama was a better speaker, had the charisma that Dean himself lacked and the mainstream media loved his narrative. Add in the exhaustion of the Republican party from an unpopular president, a very unpopular presidential candidate within the Republican Party (McCain), a party that simply appeared to be tired of being in power, and the stage was set for Howard Dean to win the 2008 election.
Dean appealed to hard core Democrats – those who would never compromise their principles. He electrified it and turned it into a force that failed to elect him, but succeeded four years later in electing Barack Obama. By striking Dean down – to use a well-worn Star Wars cliche – the Clintonistas made Dean more powerful. Now Terry McAullife is looking for a job, Hillary Clinton has a new boss, and the once powerful Clinton faction has been superceded by the Obama faction.
Lessons of the Nutroots
So what example does Dean’s rise offer the Republican Party? First it shows that the current leadership should fall on its collective swords, and if it doesn’t it must be forced to do so. Second the party rank and file should stick to the topics that are at the core of the party no matter how unpopular and “unelectable” they may appear: small government, free enterprise, religious freedom and strict constitutional interpretation. Third the rank and file should elect leaders that reflect these ideals instead of those who promise “bi-partisanship” or compromise and fall all over themselves to get photographed standing next to President Obama. It doesn’t help when these same Republicans appeal to Obama only to be rebuffed with a curt “I won.” They must be reminded that he did so without support from the constituents of those same GOP pols.
Instead of taking Obama’s advice to ignore Rush Limbaugh, the Republican Party needs to embrace him and his “ditto-heads” because they are the GOP’s “nutroots”. We need to stand in opposition to Obama as much as the Democrats did to Bush. If Obama says he’s for the stimulus, we should say we are against it and explain why. If Obama says he wants to save the American car companies we should be standing outside of BMW, Honda and Toyota plants in the south and midwest laying out why we believe it’s a bad idea. If he says that the sky is blue, we should quip that he should look out the Oval Office window at midnight.
It would help if the Republican party had its own Howard Dean; unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be one around. Until the party finds one it will lack having its own voice, and merely sound like an echo of the Democrats. That’s exactly what the Democrats sounded like until Howard Dean showed up, and our party will suffer a similar fate until we find our own Howard Dean.
Watcher of Weasels » Train Wreck:
[...] The Razor – I Won? No Mr. President, Howard Dean Won [...]
28 January 2009, 11:18 amWatcher of Weasels » The Weasely Agenda of the Progessive Ignorati:
[...] Fifth place with 13 point – The Razor – I Won? No Mr. President, Howard Dean Won [...]
30 January 2009, 1:40 pmfrank:
Ron Paul could’ve been the republican Howard Dean
3 February 2009, 2:13 amYmarsakar:
Steele has his chance at the RNC chairman pos now.
3 February 2009, 3:21 pmScott Kirwin:
Ymarsakar
3 February 2009, 8:48 pmYep. Let’s see what he’ll do with it. I’m completely open to the guy.