A positive story

Had to share this post from the comments over on the DailyKos:

I posted this on a diary entry.. but I thought I'd share it here as well.. I was driving this morning to have some work done on the car.. you know.. oil change, rotate tires, etc.

Well.. A car pulls out in front of me.. has all the normal religon bumper stickers I see around my neck of the woods.

"WWJD", "God is my co-pilot", "Jesus Loves You"

Even the little cross fish.. ya know the normal stuff..

Then right in the middle.. was a brand spanking new (though all of them were in good shape)

"Dean for America"

That made me smile all the rest of the drive

As another poster replied:

So you're saying Howard Dean wants to be the candidate for the guys with the Jesus fish on their cars?

Works for me!

Responsiveness

The Dean campaign has put out a web-only ad responding the the misleading RNC ad that implies that Democrats are terrorist sympathizers. It's a bit confusing at first until you realize that the central image of the ad is a verbatim copy of the RNC ad. The Dean addition is the banner at the bottom that explains the truth behind what the RNC ad's lies.

The Dean web-ad would be improved with a header that explains this, but I applaud the effort none-the-less.

Note: this is not the ad the campaign is planning to put on TV with the money they are currently raising.

This is going to get ugly

New Fundraising Scrutinized

House Republicans took aim yesterday at the fundraising vehicle that Democrats hope will help them equalize the money battle in the upcoming campaign -- organizations dubbed in political circles as "527s" or "501s," for sections of the tax code.

Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Administration Committee, was granted the power to subpoena leader of six organizations seeking to mobilize voters in support of Democratic candidates after they refused to appear before the committee. Ney said they had "thumbed their noses" at the panel but declined to say whether he would exercise his subpoena power.

Democrats on the committee immediately warned that if Ney does so, they will try to shift the focus of future hearing to charges that Republican House leaders have performed legislative favors in return for contributions from pharmaceutical companies and utilities.

Don't put it past Ney to use this subpoena power to harass any organization that deigns to oppose Bush's re-election, regardless of whether they are doing anything suspicious. They will subpoena them to testify and the news will be reported in such a way as to imply that they must be doing something wrong.

After all, if they were clean they wouldn't be subpoenaed would they?

(BTW, I've been thinking for months that the Republicans would eventually try to cast suspicion on Dean's fundraising success. I certainly hope the campaign's finance people are keeping good records. I can see the October 2004 headlines now, "Dean campaign focus of finance inquiries".)

Get it right

The Republicans have come out with an ad that says that Democrats are "attacking the president for attacking the terrorists."

No. We are attacking the president for attacking the terrorists badly.

Update:

The Dean campaign has announced a new fundraising drive in response to this scurrilous ad. They want to raise $360,000 by midnight Tuesday. "$5,000 for every hour they are going to lie to the American people with their ad", according to Joe Trippi.

Escalation!

The latest weapon of mass destruction

Pooping on O'Reilley

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog appears on Fresh Air with Terry Gross and does a superb take-off on Bill O'Reilley's recent meltdown on the same show.

Google News Democratic Primary Poll for 11/21/2003

		This Week (11/21)			Last Week (11/14)
1	Howard Dean	7940	22.7%	+0.4	1	7530	22.3%
2	John Kerry	5780	16.6%	-1.4	2	6060	18.0%
3	Wesley Clark	4990	14.3%	+0.6	3	4630	13.6%
4	John Edwards	4460	12.8%	+0.0	4	4310	12.8%
5	Dick Gephardt	3480	10.0%	-0.1	5	3380	10.0%
6	Joe Lieberman	3230	9.2%	-0.5	6	3280	9.7%
7	Al Sharpton	2080	6.0%	+0.3	7	1910	5.7%
8	Dennis Kucinich	1890	5.4%	+0.3	8	1730	5.1%
9	Carol Moseley Braun	1070	3.1%	+0.5	9	878	2.6%

A relatively uneventful week as Dean continues to improve his lead and Kerry slips back down. Wesley Clark holds steady which, considering his need to generate excitement, is not a positive thing for his campaign. Right now in the Anybody-But-Dean race, if you aren't going up you are going down.

I'm still surprised at Gephardt's lackluster showing in the media considering the strength of his campaign compared to the rest of the not-Dean field. This may be an indication that organization will only get you so far if you don't have a compelling narrative. Dean's got the organization, but he also has the story.

The following is a chart of the Google News Media Share over the last few months:

(Methodology: All numbers are taken from the hit counts when searching on the Google News Service for news stories containing each candidate's name. Click on each name to rerun the search. You will get different results as the numbers are constantly changing. I make absolutely no claim that these numbers have any real meaning.)

Happy Anniversary!

One year ago today I made my first real post to this blog (I actually created the blog several months before, but never got around to using it on a regular basis).

Has it only been one year?

Suddenly I feel very very tired.

(I'm proud to say that that first post still holds up very well.)

Turn the tables

Two articles to recommend to you today on the issue of gay marriages and civil unions. The first is an American Prospect article by Matthew Yglesias that argues that the majority is on the side of those who support improving the civil rights of gay Americans. The second is a post to Dean Nation by Aziz Poonawalla that expands on Matthew's article by saying that Howard Dean is uniquely positioned to persuade that majority to the Democratic side.

This is an argument I have made myself on multiple occasions. Yes, the Republicans will try their damndest to make this into a wedge issue in 2004. But running away from it, as some Democrats are urging, is the surest way to make sure that wedge will work. Aziz argues that Democrats should make the precise wording of the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) a key point of their counter-attack. They should make it clear to American's just what such an amendment would mean.

Mathew:

To be sure, this split in opinion still leaves the anti-gay forces with a political edge, seeing as the cons outnumber the pros by a significant margin. But the key point is that the crucial middle ground -- which, taken together with those who favor gay rights, forms a majority, however slim -- is held not by gay bashers but by people who basically don't care.

Aziz:

[The FMA] not just a way to stop liberal activist courts from imposing gay marriage. It's a way to stop State legislatures from enacting civil unions, too. The language is unambigous. It's intolerant, divisive, anti-federalist, and ugly. It invites the government into the bedroom of every American and abrogates to itself the power to define the status of human relationships. It's fundamentally un-American and goes against every libertarian grain that the character of this country embodies. The FMA is the wet dream of the Christian Mullahs.

It's time to put the cockroaches on the defensive for once.

Update:

Ruy Teixeira, a guy who knows something about political demographics, agrees:

And what’s the support level for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage? A minuscule 10 percent, according to a just-released Pew Research Center Study. That makes stated support for gay marriage–32 percent, in the same poll–look robust. So if the GOP starts pumping up the issue, they’re going to energize a part of their base that holds a profoundly unpopular position–a position that will alienate many of the moderate suburban voters they need to carry swing states.

This issue could prove to be a tar-baby for Bush. Far from running from it, the Democrats should force Bush to either endorse or disclaim the FMA. If he endorses it then they can use it to drive a wedge between him and those moderate suburban voters. If he disclaims it then they can use it to drive a wedge between him and his base (many of whom are already disenchanted with him).

Confirmation

The stock market does better when Democrats are in office.

George W. Bush is the best thing that could have happened to the Islamists

Jerry Bowles asks the question, "Who Lost Turkey?":

Has the invasion of Iraq in any way made United States citizens and property less vulnerable to terrorist attacks at home or abroad?

Has it changed the behavior of any Arab state in a way that is beneficial to the U.S.?

Has it produced a backlash that could destabilize Turkey, one of the few Islamic success stories?

That would be a catastrophic consequence of our cowboy imperialism. pos

Few people realize this but Turkey is actually one of the central players in the battle going on in the Middle-East today. Indeed, the Islamist movement's rise can be traced, in part, to the rise of the secular government in Turkey. Turkey is the only Middle-Eastern Islamic country that has adopted a Western style separation of church and state. This is a notion that Islamists find offensive. To them, all matters, both earthly and spiritual, are subject to Allah's will. A secular government is a smack in the face to them because it suggests that there is a portion of human society that should be off limits to God.

Far from scaring the Islamists, the fall of Saddam Hussein has only invigorated them. In part this is because Hussein was an enemy of the Islamists. They hated his government almost as much as they do Israel and Turkey. It is the height of irony that we have accomplished one of their major goals for them by bringing down Hussein. The attacks in Turkey suggests that they looking to finish the job.

Howard "Zoom Zoom" Dean

Over on Not Geniuses they are having a discussion of Dean's latest policy speech in which he called for a crack down on corporate malfeasance. Prior to the speech he gave an interview in which he used the word "re-regulation". This was the only time he used that word. He did not use it in the speech. However, it has become the word for critics and commentators to use when talking about his proposal.

Some have cringed at the word, saying it is a terrible label to use for what otherwise is a good proposal. One of the posters to the Not Geniuses thread, Morat, disagrees:

Just a note: Everyone's talking about what Dean said, aren't they? It was news, wasn't it?

In fact, the term "re-regulation" really got a lot of ears perking up.

More than "We need to give the SEC more funds, and crack down on those corporate bad-boys".

Everyone says that. No one listens.

Dean's gaffes, oddly, serve to further his agenda. Because they're plainspoken, because they're not couched in political doublespeak, people pay attention.

He's going to have reporters constantly asking about it, and even have other candidates talking about it.

And what does he get to do everytime it comes up? Remind us that Enron and Worldcomm are still among us...that we're still getting shafted, and that the only thing done was to paste cosmetic bandaids over the problem.

*snort*. I rather doubt it will cost him, even among the libertarians.

I'm not sure about the liberatarians, but I think Morat has a point. Dean's alleged gaffes have resulted in increased attention on the very thing that Dean was trying to draw attention to. How many articles after the confederate flag flap lead with some variation of, "it was a clumsy way of putting it, but Dean has a point?"

Dean wanted Democrats talking about how to win back southern voters. Democrats are talking about winning back southern voters. Mission accomplished.

When you can get the majority of commentators and critics to say that your point is valid, they just disagree with your terminology, then I would call that an overall win. Dean could have couched these issues in more diplomatic language. But, as Morat points out, everyone does that, yet nobody listens. It's that kind of carefully parsed language that so often puts people to sleep. It is as much to blame for decreased voter participation as is extreme partisanship. Perhaps even more so.

To make a wild comparison: why do so many people watch auto racing? Part of it is undoubtedly the thrill that comes from watching several tons of metal so precariously close to smashing into pieces. It's dangerous, but it is also exciting, and it gets people interested.

Dean is a NASCAR driver in a world of bumper car politicians. He's thrilling to watch specifically because his off-the-cuff style draws attention to the most important issues of the day. He does it in a way that few other politicians can achieve.

Is it dangerous? Hell yes! But it's even more dangerous to go on ignoring the very real problems that Dean, by his "gaffes", draws our attention to.

Richard Perle says invasion of Iraq was against the law

War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal

International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal. In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law.

But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.

Should this really come as any surprise to anyone? The Law to these guys is only a convenient fiction to be discarded the minute it becomes inconvenient. By our actions we have told the world that the United States is not to be trusted.

How low can they go?

Yesterday we had Mickey Kaus wondering whether Howard Dean's position on the Iraq war was political opportunism based on no evidence other than his own wild-ass speculation.

Today we have Howard Kurtz wondering whether the discovery of the body of Dean's brother might have had something to do with with Dean running for president.

Cynicism is rampant in the media establishment. It has bled down into the electorate. Is it any wonder so many people are disenchanted with our system?

Finish the fight

Liberal Oasis makes a point about the MA gay marriage ruling: while many may be opposed to the idea (59% is the number that a lot of media drones are throwing around), a significant portion of that opposition are just as uncomfortable with politicians who try to make hay out of the issue.

In sum, a close look at the polling does not indicate a mass antipathy to gay unions, but a “squishy” segment of the population that gives contradictory responses depending on the wording of the question.

The squishy segment was quite evident in this Gallup poll from Sept.:

Do you think gay or lesbian couples should or should not be allowed all the same legal rights as married couples in every state, or does it not matter to you?

Should – 32%
Should not – 35%
Doesn’t matter – 32%

Focus groups also show an ambivalence. A recent W. Post piece reported:

Geoffrey Garin, a Democratic pollster, has been conducting focus groups on the subject for the Human Rights Campaign…

…he finds that middle-of-the-road voters "would prefer to talk about almost any other subject."

That "squishy middle" are people who are just plain uncomfortable talking about the subject either for or against. They could easily swing either way (pun unintended) in the coming election depending on how the parties play the issue. Now, undoubtedly, the Republicans will try to use it as a wedge. Hell, some of them are openly boasting that they will do so. What will really matter is how the Democrats respond to it.

If they run away from the issue then they will allow the Republicans to define the issue as "liberal elitist judges forcing gay marriage down the throats of America". The Democrats, despite their avoidance of the issue, will be closely associated with this spin and will suffer for it electorally.

However, if they directly confront the issue they might be able to persuade that "squishy middle" that it is the Republicans who are forcing them to deal with an issue that they would rather not have anything to do with. In other words, as LO points out, there is a significant chance for a serious backlash against the GOP and especially Bush.

The Democrats should deal with this issue on two fronts:

1. They should make it clear that it is civil rights, not marriage, that is the issue and they should put a human face on this issue as quickly as possible. They should find homosexual couples who have had to deal with the inequities of the legal system (e.g., a man who was denied access to his partner at the hospital by relatives who didn't approve of their lifestyle, etc.) and get them out in the public telling their story. They should make it clear to people exactly what this issue is about. Not an attempt to force everyone's churches to perform gay marriages but an attempt to allow long-term homosexual couples to have some of the same measure of protection that long-term heterosexual couples enjoy. Appeal to people's basic sense of fairness.
   
2. Make it clear that it is the Republicans who are making this an issue and that they are the ones who are trying to divide the country for partisan political purposes. Quotes from GOP operatives who react with glee at the prospect would be useful ammo in this fight. That "squishy middle" should be persuaded that it is Bush and the Republicans who are forcing them to deal with this uncomfortable issue.

Whatever strategy that is ultimately used, the single worst thing the Democrats can do is to run away from it. They will gain no political benefit from it and they will be rightly perceived as cowards in the face of an important battle. Leadership is not simply a matter of dealing with the issues you want to deal with. Leadership also involves dealing with issues you would just rather not have anything to do with.

I personally think Howard Dean is uniquely positioned to take on this battle because he has done it before so he knows exactly what it involves. He also is a good spokesman for the "squishy middle" because he himself has said that he is uncomfortable with the issue but, when it came time to make the decision on what to do he just couldn't in good conscience sell out a whole segment of the population for simple political expediency.

That's real leadership: doing something even when the thing you are doing is something you are not comfortable doing but it is something that you know needs to be done.

One final comment: don't be fooled into thinking that I think this will be an easy battle. It will not. We could lose it. But it is a battle that we can no longer avoid. We didn't start this fight, but we can finish it.

Thoughtlessness

Kevin Drum identifies a real low point in the typical gotcha game of political reporting:

[...] It's bad enough when media shills insist on playing tiresome "gotcha" games with Democratic candidates by focusing on obscure past statements to try and prove some illusory "inconsistency" — while allowing enormous real inconsistencies by the people who are actually in power to float gently out of sight — but apparently now we're playing the same game even with a candidate who has been as consistent as it's humanly possible to be. It's time to knock it off.

This Mickey Kaus column is what set Kevin off:

There are two interpretations of Dean's transformation from a candidate who said Bush was doing "a good job on the war on terrorism" to the Howard Dean most voters think they know today. One...is that Dean sincerely supported the overall war on terror but thought the Iraq invasion was a misstep, the "wrong war at the wrong time."

....But there's a second, more troubling interpretation, which is that Dean shifted to a strong anti-war position not because of Bush's Iraq actions, but because he saw that that was where the Democratic party's activist base wanted him to go.

Kevin rightly points out that Kaus provides no facts to back up the suggestion that Dean's anti-war stance was pure political opportunism. It's a smear without even the faintest wiff of the kind of evidence that media whores normally use to cover their smears.

Even Kaus admits that it is "Just a thought".

Yet Kaus is surely smart enough to know that its a pretty reprehensible thought that unfairly plants seeds of doubt about Dean's character. So why did Kaus do it? Could it be that he is just afraid to admit that Dean might have been right all along? Is he grasping for some explanation that makes Dean's position look more calculated than it was? Could it be that Kaus is intentionally trying to spread the idea that Dean came to his position through political calculation and not an intellectually honest analysis of the facts on the ground in ordr to damage Dean's reputation?

Just a thought.

Update:

Kevin adds this additional comment to his original post:

I don't know if Dean was being opportunistic or not, of course, but he's certainly given us no reason to think so.

In fact, if you'll remember back to June 2002, Iraq was still a marketing program that hadn't been introduced to its consumers yet, so there's really no reason Dean should have reacted to it. As soon as it was introduced, though, he said he didn't like it.

What's more, my recollection is that back then it was the unanimous conventional wisdom that Dean's position was suicidal. If he was being opportunistic, he sure picked a funny way to do it.

Indeed. If Dean was only a political opportunist then he has to go down as one of the most astute political observers in the history of mankind for having realized that being anti Iraq-War was a god-send for his campaign.

Howard Dean: Hawk?

I agree with Mathew.

Kagan gets it just about right (though perhaps a little to snarky towards Clark).

[...] Howard Dean is no George McGovern. He opposed the Iraq war, he says, because it was "the wrong war at the wrong time," not because it was emblematic of a fundamentally misguided American foreign policy. Dean has not, in fact, challenged the reigning foreign policy paradigms of the post-9/11 era: the war on terrorism and the nexus between terrorism and rogue states with weapons of mass destruction. "I support the president's war on terrorism," he told Tim Russert this summer. He supported the war in Afghanistan. He even supported Israel's strike against a terrorist camp in Syria because Israel, like the United States, has the "right" to defend itself. (European Deanophiles take note.) Dean does not call for a reduction in American military power but talks about using the "iron fist" of our "superb military." He talks tough about North Korea and at times appears to be criticizing the Bush administration for not addressing that "imminent" threat more seriously. And he especially enjoys lacerating Bush for not taking the fight more effectively to al Qaeda, a bit like John F. Kennedy criticizing Eisenhower in 1960 for not being tough enough on communism.

[...] Dean may not be offering a stark alternative to Bush's foreign policy, therefore, so much as he is simply offering Democrats a compelling and combative alternative to Bush himself. The Iraq war provided the occasion to prove his mettle.

If so, that has two implications, one small and one big. The small one concerns the general election: The Bushies are planning to run against a dovish McGovern, but there's a remote possibility they could find themselves running against a hawkish Kennedy. The bigger implication, which the rest of the world should note well, is that the general course of American foreign policy is fairly stable and won't be soon toppled -- not even by Howard Dean.

I especially agree with the thought that the Republicans might run against Dean as if he were a dovish McGovern and end up surprised that he is more of a hawkish Kennedy. I hope they do because I think he is.

Endorsements

My Congressman, David Wu, has endorsed Howard Dean.

Dean was speaking before the Asian American Action Fund and Wu, allegedly, decided to endorse Dean on the spot (note: I doubt Wu did this without serious thought before hand. But it is possible he made the final go decision while standing on the podium.). What is interesting is that Wu did this right after Dean got through criticizing Democrats for supporting the "No Child Left Behind Bill", a bill which Wu supported:

Wu, the head of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, had just given a detailed explanation of why he and Honda had voted with George Bush on his educational reform, "No Child Left Behind," explaining that the administration subsequently failed to follow through on its promises.

Dean, plowing ahead with his speech, duly castigated "Bush-lite" Democrats who voted for the act. (This was the height of diplomacy compared to an earlier Dean comment in October, when he promised that if he were elected, members of Congress would be "scurrying for shelter, just like a giant flashlight on a bunch of cockroaches.")

But, typical of how things are going these days for the front-running Dean, what might have become a gaffe for a struggling candidate was politely ignored -- after he finished speaking, Wu returned to the microphone, wished Dean a happy birthday, and announced that he was deciding "right now" to endorse Dean. (The host group as a whole isn't yet ready to make an official endorsement, but their comments afterward may have provided a hint as to their leanings. "It's hard not to look at the significance of [Dean] coming to our event," said the group's executive director, Irene Bueno.)

Dean was also endorsed by Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif, and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

That confederate flag flap has really hurt Dean in the minority community.

Seniors are revolting

If the postings to the AARP online bulletin board are any indication it looks like there is the beginning of a full-scale revolt of their membership against their decision to endorse the GOP's prescription drug bull. Is this just a few hundred hot heads? Or is it an indication of something bigger?

Righteous Anger

There's much talk in the blogosphere about Wesley Clark opening a can of whoop-ass on Fox News this afternoon (direct video link here. Switzerblog has a great summary here if you can't watch the video). It was much deserved as the interviewer was being deliberately obnoxious in his attempts to make it sound like Clark was putting down the troops in Iraq. Clark, a career military man, was rightly offended by the question.

Good for him. Good for the Democrats. Good that Dean isn't the only one who can do anger right.

Queue Twilight Zone music

Washington Post horoscope:

IF NOVEMBER 17 IS YOUR BIRTHDAY . . . you're serious and responsible, with success coming through hard work and dedication. Your chart reveals a strong medical bent; whether surgeon, bone specialist or chiropractor, you excel in your field. This year brings unusual travel and pleasure. There's love and money in February and March. Sign contracts in July. Curb your sweet tooth.

Today is Howard Dean's birthday. (courtesy Taegan Goddard's Political Wire)