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October 29, 2003
DENNIS MYERS Howard Dean and the press
The Washington Post in July said Dean "is seen as the most liberal of the major Democratic candidates." Notice here the weasel words "is seen as." This sentence represents a campaign press corps (with the Post's own reporters in the forefront) portraying Dean as liberal and then describing the effect of its portrayal. Howard Dean is a medical doctor, and in the U.S. a liberal physician is nearly a contradiction in terms, but the portrayal of Dean is flawed in more ways than that. To some extent what we're seeing is projection by both press and public. Among journalists, there is a practice of using litmus tests to determine labels for politicians. For instance, they determine whether a candidate supports women's issues by zeroing in principally on abortion and projecting from there. Among members of the public, candidates often win support from people who have no idea what they stand for. Before the 1980 Iowa caucuses, Republican presidential candidate George Bush the Elder was in fifth place in national polls with about nine percent of the vote. He beat Ronald Reagan and immediately leaped to a tie with Reagan nationally. This did not happen because people suddenly discovered his position on interest rates. He was just a new face and people were projecting their views onto him. When his position on issues was then subjected to scrutiny, his numbers declined. Dr. Dean is gaining support from a lot of people who have no idea what he stands for - and would probably be appalled by many of his positions. As governor of Vermont, he was the darling of the National Rifle Association, supported the death penalty, ran amok handing out tax loopholes to business, slashed taxes (a whopping 30 percent in state income tax rates), curbed services to the poor, championed a relatively punitive welfare-to-work program, clashed repeatedly with environmentalists, and was the target of a liberal impeachment effort for cutting social programs. But national journalists looked at his opposition to the Iraq war and the fact that as governor he signed the bill making gay civil unions legal, then applied the label: Liberal. It's a preposterous conclusion from miniscule bits of evidence. More important to the success of Dr. Dean's campaign than his issue positions was his leadership against the war, which attracted even supporters of the war. Democratic Party rank and filers have lived through presidential terms by conservative Democrats Carter and Clinton, years of Democratic congressional leaders pandering to the right. They have watched Al Gore chase corporate support, Tom Daschle lead the fight against the Iraq war and then cave in to vote for it, Vietnam protester and war hero John Kerry similarly voted for the war. Numbed by weak leaders, Democrats are so hungry for strong leaders that they have embraced Dean's formula that "The way to beat George Bush is to stand up to him." Dean was stuck in the doldrums of single-digits until the other major candidates surrendered the leadership of the party to him on the war issue, whereupon grass roots support flowed his way, pumping up his numbers and dollars (heavily from small contributions). Dr. Dean's training for this kind of leadership came from an experience in Vermont, when two of his only clear liberal stances were forced on him. A state supreme court decision invalidated Vermont's school financing system, and when Dean's preferred approach was rejected he reluctantly signed a property tax increase whose impact was mostly felt by wealthy landowners. Then the state supreme court held that the Vermont constitution prohibits denying the same rights to gay couples as to straight couples. (Vermont has one of the most rights-protective constitutions of the original colonial territories. Other states adopted constitutions that included bills of rights. Vermont in 1893 adopted a bill of rights and attached a constitution to it.) The court gave the legislature the choice of making gay marriage legal, or of creating a sort of contract union. Dean supported the more conservative option, and even when it passed he kept his distance, signing the civil unions bill in secret. Nevertheless, Vermont suddenly was plagued with the kind of right wing cultural conservative movement that other states have had. This group mounted a campaign to repeal the soak-the-rich tax, repeal gay civil unions, and defeat Dean. Dean found himself under attack by conservatives for the first time, but conservatives of a new stripe for Vermont. Dean responded by standing up to them, campaigning against what he called the "cultural right." He won reelection, the gay unions and progressive property tax were retained, and the new social conservatives in the state lost influence. Imagine if political leaders in other states had stood up to their cultural conservatives. Here in Nevada the small band of right wingers who used a minority vote to hold the legislature hostage might never have gained office if state leaders had taken them on instead of cowering before them. Dean's strongest asset is not liberal views but his willingness to lead at a time when the Democratic Party is starved for leadership. Dennis Myers is a veteran state capital reporter. His column Against the Grain appears here on Wednesdays. |
