Site Presented By
Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
That's not all bad for Frost. His aides insist that, because of his relatively anonymity, Frost can help Democratic candidates in every district in every state. Dean can't do that, they say, pointing to a few Democratic officeholders in red states who predict dire consequences for the party if Dean becomes its leader. In Tennessee on Wednesday, Democratic state Sen. Tommy Kilby sent a letter to his state party chairman, warning that "many Democratic elected officials will abandon the party" if Dean is elected. "We, as a party, must get back to mainstream America," Kilby wrote. "We must open our party and allow people who are pro-life, pro-gun and pro-traditional marriage to have an active role in developing our platform and message."
Comments such as Kilby's may be based more on perception than reality. While Dean is strongly pro-choice, he said on "Meet the Press" in December that he wants to "make a home" in the party for "pro-life Democrats"; his views on gun control put him to the right of most Democrats on the issue; and when forced to choose between civil unions or marriage rights for gay couples in Vermont, Dean chose civil unions.
But perception is reality in politics, and neither the media, the Republican Party nor some Democrats will let Dean drop the baggage that he picked up in his presidential run. An aide to one of Dean's opponents in the DNC race predicts that Republicans will hang Dean around the neck of every Democrat who dares to run for office in anything but the bluest of districts. "It's the worst fucking position to be in," the aide said. "If you're one of the candidates, it hurts you with the swing voters if you don't dis Dean, and if you do dis him, it pisses off your core activists."
In a way, that dynamic is playing out now in the DNC race. The candidates who aren't Howard Dean want the anti-Dean vote, but they don't want to be seen as the anti-Dean candidate for fear of coming off as negative or cutting off support from DNC voters looking to shake up the party. Frost will say almost nothing about Dean publicly. "Gov. Dean is telling his story, and I'm telling my own story," he told Salon this week. While Fowler notes that Dean failed to ride his grass-roots support to victory in the Democratic primaries -- Dean "had a lot of oranges but didn't make orange juice," Fowler said -- he emphasizes that he's "not an anti-Dean candidate" because he's "afraid that 'anti-Dean' may end up meaning anti-grass roots and anti-innovation." Rosenberg said he's "a big fan of Howard Dean's," but then he stressed that Dean will have to prove over the next few weeks "that he's going to be acceptable to Democrats all over the country."
Establishment Democrats have tried to throw up roadblocks to the Dean campaign, or at least to limit the damage they think he could do as the DNC chair. As Newsweek reports, a group of Democratic governors sought to split the chairmanship in an arrangement that would have put Dean in control of day-to-day DNC operations with a more moderate Democrat in the role of party spokesperson. They lacked the votes -- or the more moderate Democrat -- to pull it off. Meanwhile, labor leaders, and maybe even the Clintons, are apparently wary about banding together behind an anti-Dean candidate for fear that they'll end up on the wrong side of the eventual victor.
Dean is working the race hard; he is in virtually nonstop communication with DNC voters by phone and in person. Not surprisingly, he has focused his discussions less on his political ideology and more on the reforms he wants to bring to the DNC. He talks to local DNC members about their funding needs, about involving them more in the process, about making sure that Democrats in even the reddest states get the resources they need to start growing candidates and building a party infrastructure. Win or lose, Dean will have forced changes in the party. Wyoming Democratic Party chairman Mike Gierau, who owns Jedidiah's House of Sourdough in Jackson, Wyo., says that he's used to being "49th or the 50th on the depth chart" when it comes to getting resources from the national party. In part because of Dean's influence, in part because of the open and extended nature of this race, Gierau says that whoever is elected chair will have committed himself to doing more for all state parties, and not just the ones in swing states where the party's presidential candidates need the most help.
Dean's commitment to a 50-state strategy is helping him win endorsements in places that might otherwise shun him. The state chairman in Oklahoma endorsed Dean last week. And while that prompted another Oklahoman, state Sen. and DNC member Debbe Lefwich, to protest that Dean does not share the values of "most Oklahoma Democrats," Dean is trying hard to alleviate such concerns. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll suggests that he's not quite the polarizing figure that he once was. As Dean campaigns for the DNC chairmanship, he jokes about "the scream" at every opportunity, and he seems to be making a conscious effort to tone down the rhetoric that made him both revered and reviled in the 2004 race.
Appearing last week on ABC's "This Week," Dean said he would have voted against Condoleezza Rice's nomination as secretary of state if he'd had the chance. But while the Howard Dean of old might have accused Rice of "misstating the case" on Iraq and making "ridiculous" arguments about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, Dean the DNC candidate was more subdued. He said only that Rice's "chief attribute in this position is loyalty" when what the country needs is a secretary of state who is an "independent thinker" who is "willing to give the president advice that he doesn't want to hear."
But even that was more critical than anything Frost was willing to say on the subject. Asked this week whether he would have voted against Rice's confirmation, Frost told Salon it was a "hypothetical question" and refused to answer it. Frost said that Calif. Sen. Barbara Boxer had done "exactly the right thing" in questioning Rice about the war, but he said he wouldn't presume "to tell a senator how to vote" on Rice's confirmation.
Frost is not always so circumspect. As a member of Congress, Frost voted in 2002 for the joint resolution that authorized the use of military force in Iraq. Asked today whether that vote was a mistake, Frost says: "I think we were lied to. I think we were not told the truth. And I am very disappointed that one part of the government lied to another part of the government." Analogizing his vote to a baseball pitcher who just gave up a home run, he adds: "You can't take the pitch back. You can't revote it. But I think that we were not told the truth, and what the executive branch did was inexcusable." Frost said Bush should be held to account for Iraq, and he has called on Donald Rumsfeld to resign.
