Requiem For A Dean
As you can probably guess, I’m disappointed and relieved that Dean dropped out of the race this week. Disappointed because I still think he’d make the best president of all the candidates and relieved because the “Dean is a madman” meme has spread to the point that the man is damn-near unelectable. It’s a shame. He seems like a really great guy. Here’s hoping he’s able to turn his campaign into a broader movement.
As far as the question of how Dean went from frontrunner to big loser, my friend Ross has an interesting theory :
With this in mind, I still think that Dean may have made a worse candidate than was apparent during the lead up to the primaries. He made some fairly crucial errors really early in the campaign. For my money, the single worst moment occurred back in 2002, when he said during an off the cuff interview, that the United States “won’t be the world’s most powerful country forever”. He’s right of course, but frightening historical inevitabilities are for historians and political scientists to make note of - They require subtle explanations of historical trends and provision of cognate examples.Unfortunately for those of us who actually obsess over such things, subtlety is generally lost on the electorate in an age when most complex political discourse is limited to 5 seconds bursts. Hell, even in intelligent conversation with like minded people, we have a tendency to want to nail people down to the simplest explanation, even if the answer requires a 3 hour lecture to really get across the intricacies and possibilities. Sort of like people who want to think that the answer to “Why did Rome Fall?” can be contained in a single paragraph.*
Meaning of course that even if it is true that someday, even we won’t be King Of The Hill any longer, a serious Presidential candidate should never, ever say such a thing. Not because we need to be lied to, but because sometimes, having too firm a grip on the long view of history can diminish your ability to convey the necessary sense of optimism and practical change needed to reassure your constituents that you’ve got what it takes to secure the future of this country, regardless of our relative power.
I’d be hard pressed to disagree with Ross’s point, but I think his example is part of a larger series if strategic mistakes that caused Dean’s downfall. Here are the biggest reasons why Dean lost :
Somewhere in the drafts folder of my old blogger site, there’s a half-written post about Dean’s “we won’t always have the most powerful military” remark. Originally I was going to write something along the lines of “I’d rather America be known for being the most compassionate country than the most powerful” or some touchy-feely shit like that. While I still think military dominance shouldn’t be our highest priority, there’s an even bigger reason I like what Dean said. Like his confederate flags remark, Dean’s statement about the military perfectly captures why Dean has a reputation for “straight-talk”.
I know it sounds like a clich?, but the reason for that is that most people who are known for being a “straight shooter” are actually a combination of politically incorrect and just plain dumb. For example, Bush received a lot of praise for his talk about “good and evil” following 9/11, but that wasn’t because he was a no-nonsense tough guy. It was because he’s the kinda guy who can only understand problems when they’re black and white.
Dean’s comments, on the other hand, indicate nuanced positions coupled with a cluelessness as to how his wording will be taken. Dean said things off the cuff that later came back to bite him in the ass (ex. his comments on the Iowa caucuses rewarding “special interests” or his past views on Medicare). His obliviousness to the political implications of what he said may have strengthened his rhetoric, but it also gave his opponents a wealth of quotes to use against him.
In the end, it’s probably best that Dean isn’t the nominee. For a political culture that loves to take statements out of context, Dean is the perfect whipping boy. Still, come November when I’m voting for Kerry and/or Edwards, there will be a small part of me that wishes that Dean would be our next president.
one comment so far
Copy link for RSS feed for comments on this post
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
An article written in the last day or two mentioned he was a terrible campaigner but a wonderful governor. Who knows, maybe he’ll end up in the senate. That would be fun to watch. Anyway, whatever yard sign I have at my house will have the Dean sticker in the corner.
Comment by Becky — February 20, 2004 @ 1:01 pm