Sizing Up the Dems: A New Member of the Axis of the Unelectable
On June 1st I gave my assessment of the nine presidential candidates. It is time to reevaluate them. The first time, the candidates basically fell into three categories: not electable, maybe electable, electable.
For reasons that I outlined earlier, Dennis Kucinich, Carole Moseley Braun, and Al Sharpton are unelectable. I know it, you know it, no need to pile on. I am swimming against the liberal-blogger tide here, but I am ready to add Howard Dean to this category.
That's right, I am declaring here and now that Howard Dean cannot win.On the positive side, he does have a loyal following and a knack for raising money. Both of these things are necessary for being President, but they are far from sufficient. Frankly, I find it more than a little ironic that Dean's supporters are touting his fundraising so much. Isn't that just business as usual? Besides, no matter how much cash any Democrat brings in, Shrub is going to bring in twice as much. (He raised about twice as much as Gore.)
So those are the plusses. The first minus, which I have mentioned before, is that all of his political experience is in a tiny little state in New England. Next to Dubya, he is going to look small time. But a far, far larger obstacle is the fact that he is an anti-war candidate. I'll grant that the Iraq war is not going particularly well, and that a shrewd Democratic candidate may be able to exploit it the way Nixon exploited Vietnam. Nixon shows the way: Don't be against the war; say that the other guy is fucking it up.
I confess, this is a pretty cynical viewpoint. History, I believe, will show that the Iraq war was not a good idea. At this point, however, that is academic. We're stuck; we can't just pick up our toys and go home. All that Dean can really claim is that if he were President at the time instead of Bush, he would not have gone to war. This may make him look smarter or wiser than Bush, but says nothing about the future. What is Dean going to do? He needs a plan for Iraq. (I don't think he can emulate Nixon and say that he has a "secret plan.") More importantly, he needs to outline under what conditions he would use war as a tool to fight terrorism. A pacifistic line is not going to get him very far.
Dean may do for veep. He could go along with the top candidate's foreign policy positions.
The first time around I put Dick Gephardt in the electable category. Now I am almost ready to dismiss him entirely. The main reason is a gaffe he made that did not get a lot of attention at the time. Commenting on the recent Michigan affirmative action case, he said, "When I'm president, we'll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day." It's not exactly clear what he means here, but it sure doesn't sound good. If he did become the Democratic candidate, we would be hearing this quote again. And again. And again. I can't say he wouldn't deserve the roasting.
I continue to be lukewarm about Joe Lieberman and Bob Graham. The main problem with these two is that they are doing so little to distinguish themselves from Bush. Why would someone who likes Bush's policies take a chance on a Bush-clone? Why would someone who disagrees with Bush's policies want to dignify them with a favorable vote?
For those of you who have been keeping track, this leaves John Edwards and John Kerry. Kerry is the stronger of the two. Unless I learn something horrible about Kerry, I think I am going to end up in his column.
Woody 
11:33:02 PM 
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