Much of what's been in the news lately just
doesn't interest me: the Peterson case, who's in and who's out in
Bush's cabinet, the Palestinian elections. There are probably
others, but those are the ones which come to mind.
What Bush does with Social Security and with Federal involvement in
education are two domestic issues which do interest me.
But, the past few days I've been thinking about the guys running
for chairman of the Democrat National Committee (no gals in the
race, hmm). It seems as if the leftist and liberal blogs I read are
pushing Howard Dean (he of the
Conversion on the Lake Champlain Bike Path [irrelevant
parenthesis: a relative of mine was a 'Champ Marine' in the Korean
War]).
Ignore the four-year long opportunity this hands Karl Rove to
parody the Democrats ('I have a scream', 'God, guns and gays').
Dean as DNC chairman would lock the party into the camp with the
least credibility on defense and security. With security, not
'values', being the most important factor in voters choosing
between Bush and Kerry, do the Democrats really want to spend the
next four years with Dean as their public face?
Not only would Dean be the Democrat Party for four years, filling
that spot would make it more difficult for a pro-War on Terror
candidate to emerge: folks inclined to a strong prosecution of the
WOT would shun the party.
Democrats didn't have an organization deficit in 2004: Kerry's 59
million votes were the Al Gore voters (51 million in 2000) and 2.5
million Ralph Nader got in 2000, plus another 5.5 million, better
than a 10% increase. Bush's organization did a lot better than
Kerry's. Bush's votes went from 50.5 million to 62 million, more
than 20%. No one knows whether there will be as large a turnout in
2008 as this year, but Democrats (and Republicans) better not count
on it.
The Democrats in Washington have the same defects: they don't
appeal to security voters or to values voters. Neither Senators nor
Congressmen nor insiders such as Ickes are trusted to successfully
prosecute a war because they haven't
since Korea. I'd also
add that the Washington Democrats don't have any budget-cutting
credibilty either, so they're hypocritical about Bush's deficits.
So, no to Howard Dean and no to Washington candidates.
That pretty much limits the field to people from the States with
organizational ability, and that means Governors or a Mayor. From
22
Governors, you'd have to eliminate Warner of Virginia, since
he's rumored to have his eye on the 2008 nomination. A strategy of
expanding the 2008 Democrat vote outside 2004's, and overcoming the
association with the Northeast and Upper Midwest, rules out Rendell
of Pennsylvania, Granholm of Michigan, Blagojevich of Illinois,
Doyle of Wisconsin, Vilsack of Iowa, and Locke of Washington. Maybe
if Phil Bredesen of Tennessee can get the
state constitution amended to ban an income tax and
the TennCare mess cleaned up (he's
actually pulling the plug on the program), he'd be the face of
low-cost, low-tax Democrat government.
If he won't fill the chairman's spot, could he be the
nominee?