Stephen Minarik, the head of New York's Republican Party, has identified what should be Howard Dean's biggest concern.
On Monday, Minarik said that Dean's election shows that "the Democrats simply have refused to learn the lessons of the past two election cycles, and now they can be accurately called the party of Barbara Boxer, Lynne Stewart and Howard Dean."Stewart is a New York City lawyer convicted last week of helping terrorists by smuggling messages from one of her imprisoned clients, a radical Egyptian sheik, to his terrorist disciples on the outside. Boxer is a Democratic senator from California. ...
Minarik issued a statement Wednesday saying "it is not the Republican Party's problem that these far-left activists have made their home in the Democratic party."
Exactly right, it's the Democrats' problem. If they want to start winning elections again, they'll need to make their party inhospitable to these lunatics and convince the American people that terrorists and their sympathizers have no friends on the left.
If there's one group of people who consistently give the extremes of the Left more credibility and power than they ultimately have... it's conservatives.
They've also convinced themselves that the election of Howard Dean as the new DNC chair translates into some sort of immortal lock on future elections.
More Kool-Aid, anyone?
If there's one group of people who consistently give the extremes of the Left more credibility and power than they ultimately have... it's conservatives.
The problem is not that the extremes of the Left have too much power (they really don't), it is that they have too much power in the Democratic Party. I think that the long-term strength of this country depends on having two viable political parties. It is hard to see the Democrats as viable if they think they can win elections by focusing on getting the votes of the Harvard faculty and members of ANSWER, which appears to be the direction they are going.
They've also convinced themselves that the election of Howard Dean as the new DNC chair translates into some sort of immortal lock on future elections.
It's hard to envision a scenario where the Democrats return to power under their current leadership, certainly within the next 10 years. Look at the county by county electoral map. The Dems are no longer even a regional party, they are the party of large urban areas, like D.C., NYC, San Francisco, Chicago, and LA.
"More Kool-Aid, anyone?"
I would argue that it is the Democratic leadership, who appear to think that the way to return to power is to go further left are the Kool-Aid drinkers. The only smart Democrat seems to be HRC, who is trying to moderate her positions on abortion, imigration, and defense. If I were a "big wig" in the party, an HRC ticket would concern me a lot, especially if Rudy becomes a Republican front-runner.
RS said: "The Dems are no longer even a regional party, they are the party of large urban areas, like D.C., NYC, San Francisco, Chicago, and LA."
Incorrect. The Democratic party, in the 2004 elections, received 40% of the vote in many areas on the county-by-county maps that went to the Republicans. In many areas, there is not a huge disparity between red and blue. Many counties are colored neutral.. or with a slight blue or red tinge. Nation-wide, they received close to 50% of the popular vote... and more people voted Democratic than in any other election. The Republicans turned out a lot of their vote... but so did the Democrats. The Presidential election, in fact, came down to about 150,000 votes in Ohio.
This is not as much of an "impossible battle" as conservatives in general and Republicans in particular are making it out to be.
The leadership of the Democratic party clearly does not accurately represent *everyone* who voted Democratic... in much the same way that the Republican party leadership doesn't accurately represent *everyone* who voted Republican.
Mark: I agree that the Democrats are not "doomed", but I think they're moving in a direction that takes them farther from success rather than bringing them closer. Dean the DNC chairman will be different than Dean the candidate, so it's hard to judge what the effect will be now. The concern is that the Dems who elected him chairman are the ones who now think he could have done better than Kerry did in the general election, and that's likely wrong.
RS: HRC is indeed moving right, as I predicted right after the election last year.
People are judged by their leader. The Dems just put a screaming madman as DNC leader. Hmmm.
Unless the Dems can completely re-align their MO and public image, they are doomed.
MW said: "The concern is that the Dems who elected him chairman are the ones who now think he could have done better than Kerry did in the general election"
That couldn't possibly be more irrelevant. Dean wasn't the Democratic candidate in 2004.. Kerry was. It's a done deal.
DD: It's true, but I'm not sure how most people see Dean... maybe as a "maverick" like McCain? That label has always served him well. I think the new role gives Dean a chance to change his image. If he wants to.
Mark: The desires and intents of the people who elected Dean to DNC chairman are totally relevant, because the people who think Dean could have been President are running the party, and they're delusional.
DD said: "Unless the Dems can completely re-align their MO and public image, they are doomed."
Doomed in terms of never being able to get YOUR vote, perhaps.
MW: Those who elected Dean don't necessarily think he could've been President. If they did, they would have elected someone else to be DNC chair so Dean would've been free to run again.
Yeah, it's not that I think Dean would necessarily have done better than Kerry in the last election (though it would have been nice to see a real debate on Iraq, and Dean would have given us one). It's that I'd feel better about having lost if I hadn't compromised my principles to nominate someone presumably more "electable" who lost anyway.
I'm beginning to think that Kerry was, to use a religious metaphor, simply the sacrificial lamb. I never really expected Kerry to win. He had a shot, to be sure, but with gay marriage amendments on the ballots in 11 states, there were too many conservative Republicans voting for the night to be good for Kerry.
All things considered, though, Kerry did quite well.. and would've had the White House were it not for 150,000 votes in Ohio.