Who?

He "says he 'admires' Newt Gingrich more than Bill Clinton." He thinks that "Christian-right big Ralph Reed 'created a real success' with the right." He believes that "Clinton led the Dems into complacency and defeat." So who is this guy? Hint: He's pro-gun and a budget balancer, too. Give up?

Comments

[Ira Weatheral]

Without looking, I'd guess Dean.

[Ken Shultz]

EEEEeeeEERRRrrrrrRRRAAAaaaaaaaaAAAhhhhhhhhhhHHHhhhh!

[jimmy]

how come nobody has ever mentioned that dean raised more campaign money on the internet than anyone ever had, but had squandered virtually all of it before the new hampshire primary was even held? if the dems want someone like that to run their party apparatus, who am i to complain?

[Pavel]

"All I can say is, the Democratic Party is clearly endorsing doctor-assisted suicide"

Heh!

Even if it was true, it beats their current focus-group driven suicide by a longshot.

[Henry]

Judging by his enemies, he must have SOMETHING going for him.

What it is, I don't know.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Everyone else knows that cleaning up the stables Terry McAuliffe is leaving behind is just a shitty job.

[joe]

jimmy, at one time, Dean was not just leading in the polls, but dominating. Given that situation, his smartest strategy was to go for inevitability - to put the race away before anyone voted. He came close, too.

So no, I don't think his heavy front-loading of his spending is necesarily proof that he doesn't know how to run a campaign.

[Larry A]

Pro-gun? Maybe Dean's "moderate," for a Democrat. But "pro?"

Anyone who can claim that Maryland has a high crime rate, and therefore needs tough gun control, is ignoring the fact that Maryland has prided itself in having the toughest gun control of the fifty states for the last two or three decades. And it still isn't working. Only a true believer in the mantra that gun control prevents crime could use Maryland's example with a straight face.

The other half of Dean's policy is that Vermont has a low crime rate, therefore the government can "allow" the state to have "lax" gun control. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the Second Amendment.

Never mind that, if gun control is necessary to control crime why does Vermont, which has always had "lax" gun control, continue to have one of the lowest crime rates in the nation?

Judging by his favorite talking point, Howard Dean is not reasonable on gun control, if you define "reasonable" as "using reason."

[Stevo Darkly]

Judging by his enemies, he must have SOMETHING going for him. .... What it is, I don't know.

I will say this: The man makes one hell of an onion dip.

http://www.deansdips.com/

[David T]

He was also pro-NAFTA (much as he tried to explain that away during the 2004 campaign). And unlike John Kerry, he backed the *first* Gulf war. Oh, and in 2000 he denounced the caucus system for strengthening "the extremes" in both parties.

So who is the "real" Howard Dean--the centrist governor of Vermont in the 1990s, or the favorite of the antiwar Left in the 2004 primaries? I suppose he would argue that there is no contradiction, and indeed one does not have to be a left-winger to oppose the war in Iraq. But the problem is that *within the Democratic Party as of 2003* the people who hated Bush for the war tended to be left-wing on other issues as well, so Dean to appeal to them basically ran way from or tried to explain away the more "conservative" aspects of his governorship, and started bashing the DLC--which previously had regarded him very favorably.

[Morat]

David T: You might be better off actually asking far left liberals why a fairly conservative Democrat appealed to them.

I'll give you a hint: It starts with "B" and ends in "alls".

I knew a LOT of damn near Green party Dems that loved Dean, and a bunch of "I'd vote Republican if they weren't so hung up on sex" conservative Dems that loved Dean.

Dean appealed to the left by standing up against the War -- not "war in general" but the "crock of lying shit Bush sold, that everyone knew was shit, but that spineless Dems voted for anyways". The pacifists were voting for Kuninich. The conservatives liked him because they frankly believed he'd do his damndest to straighten out the fiscal mess Bush left.

The rest of us just liked him because it was refreshing to see a Democrat trying to kick a Republican's ass instead of kissing it.