Howard Dean hurting Democrats
Polls indicate that the public is dissatisfied with the performance of both the Republican-led Congress and President Bush. But the ability of Democrats to capitalize on it is being hampered by rampant Deanism.
“Deanism,” the trademark behavior of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, is the tendency to attract publicity for name-calling attacks on Republicans while offering almost no positive alternatives for governing.
Dean has been chided by various Democrats for over-the-top statements — that he “hates” Republicans, that they’re “evil,” that many of them don’t work for a living, and that they’re “the white Christian party” — but Deanish critiques are common among Democrats.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has called Bush a “liar” and a “loser.” He apologized for saying “loser,” but not for “liar.”
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who’s shrewdly extended her appeal rightward from the party’s liberal base, recently lapsed back into Deanland, charging that “there never has been an administration, I don’t believe in our history, more intent upon consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda.”
During debate on Bush’s judicial nominees, various Democrats accused him of pursuing “absolute power” and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., attacked nominee Janice Rogers Brown by asking “does she want, a theocracy? What does (Brown) want to be nominated for? Dictator? Or grand exalted ruler?”
It’s rare for top Republicans to resort to such wretched excess. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, did so in threatening retribution toward judges who refused to keep brain-damaged Terri Schiavo alive. Senate MajorityLeader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., accused Democrats of “assassinating” Bush nominees.
Dean claims to be trying to extend the Democratic Party’s appeal to red states, but he can’t possibly do so by declaring Republicans “evil” and saying that they don’t work for a living.
As a presidential candidate, Dean attracted more than a half-million new activists and contributors to the Democratic Party, but they weren’t enough either to win him the presidential nomination or get Democratic nominee John Kerry elected.
As a Pew Research Center poll showed, 82 percent of Dean’s adherents call themselves liberal, compared to 27 percent of all Democrats, and 99 percent opposed the Iraq war, compared to 68 percent of all Democrats.
Recent polls indicate an increasing trend on the part of the national electorate to agree that the war was “not worth fighting” — 58 percent in The Washington Post/ABC poll — but there’s no indication that Americans favor immediate withdrawal, as do most Dean adherents (though not Dean himself).
Recent polls suggest that the public is deeply dissatisfied with the job the GOP Congress is doing, offering Democrats a real opportunity to gain traction.
President Bush’s rating was 48 percent. In the latest Gallup poll, Bush’s approval was a 47 percent, down 10 points since January. Only 34 percent approved of the way Congress was doing its job, the lowest since 1997.
All this evidence suggests what the public wants from Washington is action on the issues that concern it most — the economy, gasoline prices and Iraq. Bush has policies and proposals for dealing with the problems, even if the public doesn’t like them.
If there’s one thing that turns off independents and moderates, it’s negative name-calling. It may work in the thick of a campaign, but Deanism is a turnoff for party-building.
(Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.)