The following question and answer appears in "Walter Scott's Personality Parade" in today's Parade magazine:
Q. In your opinion, will ex-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's liberal positions help or hurt his odds of winning the 2004 Democratic Presidential nomination?A. Dean, 54, is probably too liberal even for the party activists who dominate the primaries. But what is likely to do him more harm than his political positions is his short temper. An extremely bright individual, Dean does not suffer fools gladly - and politics is filled with fools.
I'm not sure which "party activists" the pro-death penalty, anti-gun control Dean is "too liberal" for, since Scott doesn't specify. So far, the main anti-Dean faction seems to be the Democratic Leadership Council, which is decidedly non-liberal. Saying "Dean's anti-war stance is out of step with party power brokers like the centrist DLC" would have been fair and accurate, but stated as is, it sounds like Scott is saying that even the likes of Barbra Streisand thinks Dean is a wacko.
Further, if you define "party activists" as "people active within the party", then there's clearcut evidence that Dean is quite popular, thanks very much. Perhaps if Walter Scott had done some "research", he might have stumbled across the results of the MoveOn primary, which, along with his fundraising prowess shows the depth of support for Dean. All Walter Scott had to do to pick up on this was to look in a few obscure news sources like CNN, the NYT, and the Washington Post.
Finally, for those who've been paying attention, Dean is not the "liberal" candidate - Dennis Kucinich is. (Al Sharpton also qualifies.) The farther left end of the Democratic spectrum thinks Dean isn't liberal enough, at least when compared to Kucinich, though fortunately they mostly seem willing to support him anyway if he carries the flag. Dean himself denies the "liberal" tag. None of that bothers Walter Scott, who happily parrots conventional wisdom, which is always easier than thinking and Googling.
On a side note, the remark about "short temper" is a warning sign of press coverage to come. Mainstream media likes its story lines, and they'll go to great lengths to cite supporting evidence while ignoring contradictory evidence. See the "Gore has problems with truthfulness, Bush is dumb" story line from 2000 for nauseatingly excessive evidence of this. Scott is telling us that the story line on Dean is going to be his temper, which leads nicely into concerned articles about whether his "anger" and his "hair trigger" make him "fit" to be The Most Powerful Man In The World. I don't know how far this will be carried, but I do know it's never too early to be aware of such things, and to work to counter them where possible. (Joe Trippi and Matthew Gross, that means you.)
(Full disclosure: I voted for Dean in the MoveOn primary. I also indicated that I'd support whoever actually wins the nomination.)
Posted by Charles Kuffner on July 06, 2003 to The making of the President | TrackBackWelcome on board! I've had several friends this week go from undecided to Dean or from another candidate to Dean in the past week... mostly because they felt that his Q2 fundraising proved him to be a viable candidate.
Posted by: ByronUT on July 6, 2003 4:17 PMWelcome on board! I've had several friends this week go from undecided to Dean or from another candidate to Dean in the past week... mostly because they felt that his Q2 fundraising proved him to be a viable candidate.
Posted by: ByronUT on July 6, 2003 4:25 PM"Bush is dumb" didn't hurt the short-tempered so-and-so very much, regrettably.
Posted by: Linkmeister on July 6, 2003 4:37 PMYikes, my post(s) were a mess. Oh well, I think you get the idea.
Posted by: ByronUT on July 6, 2003 5:34 PMYou might want to keep in mind that "Walter Scott" is actually an egregious hack named Ed Klein, whose CV most notably includes a not-impressive tenure as the editor of the NYT magazine section and three rather ghoulish books in which he claimed to channel the inner thoughts of dead Kennedys (no, not the musical kind).
His most recent opus horribilis is the recently published book on the late John Jr. and his late bride in which we are given a great deal of unsourced information about what the two of them did or didn't do in bed, together and separately.
I guess when you're a peckish eater of the dead it makes you want to kill stuff.
Posted by: julia on July 6, 2003 7:02 PMI did not know that, Julia. Thanks for the tip.
Byron, interestingly enough, I voted for Dean over Edwards and Kerry (my runnersup) because I thought he'd benefit the most from Moveon money. Turned out he didn't get it and won't need it yet anyway. I like Dean and I think he's run a great campaign, but I haven't quite finished my glass of Kool-Aid just yet. :-)
I'm worried that you can find the time to read Parade magazine, Chuckles.
Posted by: Scott Chaffin on July 7, 2003 7:25 AMI only read it for "In Step With James Brady", Scott, and then only when he's profiling a babe.
Posted by: Charles Kuffner on July 7, 2003 7:53 AMLet's be honest, Chuck, Kucinich and Sharpton may be more liberal but they along with Mosely Braun are already the also rans for the nomination.
The real contenders are Dean, Edwards, Gephardt, Kerry, Lieberman and maybe Graham if he can keep his campaign afloat until the Southern swing of primaries. Of those Dean is the most liberal, which given the results of November may not be the most terrible thing to be. A sharp difference with the GOP may be just what Dems need.
I'm not convinced that Dean is more liberal than Gephardt or Kerry. It's their stances on Iraq that blurs the lines.
That's a minor quibble, though. My point is still that Walter Scott's assertion that Dean is "too liberal for the party activists" is a crock based on a complete lack of research.
Dean has been the most aggressively anti-Bush - though Kerry and Edwards have both gotten a few good salvos in there - and maybe that's why he gets stuck with the "most liberal" tag. I'd like to think that as his campaign gets covered more seriously, the writers will start to wean themselves from crutches like that. Dean's liberal on some things, not so liberal on some others. Is that so hard for these guys to understand?
Posted by: Charles Kuffner on July 7, 2003 10:08 AMTry not to be too sensative about how a "writer" like "Walter Scott" views politics. Remember most of his questions are along the line of "Do you think Oprah and Steadman will ever get married?" or "Please settle a bet, I say actor David Caruso is the grandson of singer Enrico Caruso but my brother thinks he's his nephew? Who is right?"
Face it, most people writing into this column would think Jiminy Glick is a real guy not parody.
His assertion is a crock for a lot of reasons and sloppy writing to boot. Party establishment folks may think he's too liberal, but democratic activists are likely reasonably happy with him.
Of course he did look stupid with that commercial that ended with him saying "That's why I approved of this message."
Posted by: Patrick on July 7, 2003 11:26 AMTry not to be too sensative about how a "writer" like "Walter Scott" views politics. Remember most of his questions are along the line of "Do you think Oprah and Steadman will ever get married?" or "Please settle a bet, I say actor David Caruso is the grandson of singer Enrico Caruso but my brother thinks he's his nephew? Who is right?"
Yeah, intellectually I know that, but Parade gets delivered to millions of homes every Sunday. A lot of people read that, and some number of them will believe that.
Of course he did look stupid with that commercial that ended with him saying "That's why I approved of this message."
IIRC, that's a requirement of McCain-Feingold. You'll be seeing a lot of that unless it gets stuck down in the courts.
Posted by: Charles Kuffner on July 7, 2003 11:45 AMInterestingly, I just saw Klein on the Today Show shilling his new Dead Kennedy book. The entire interview had the feel of, "Well, that's easy for you to say now that they're dead." He totally creeped me out.
As for the level of questions he answers in Parade - unfortunately, if there's one thing the election of 2000, and Bush's continued high approval ratings, teach us, it's that the electorate is largely made up of people who will take their political advice from such a source. So the fact that his column in Parade is so fluffy does not in any way make me think his answers to political questions will carry less weight with those who will elect the next president.
Posted by: Amy on July 8, 2003 7:24 AM