Everybody is comparing Dean to McGovern.

I am curious, in both cases, how a candidate with a rabid following could loose, when there is so much support and Momentum. Futhermore, didn't Nixon do things that made him look good just before the '72 election?

supporters are throwing out to derail Dean's frontrunner status.

To me the sign of desperation is using the word "meme."

He dont think Dean is McGovern, and I dont think he is either. BTW the Gep supporters here are low and few.

But if I were, it would be an honorable comparison. Sen. George McGovern is a great man.

however I fail to see the comparison. Dean is his own man with his own ideas. Different times,different scenario, different delivery. I have heard conservatives blow McGovern off as being weak which is a lie, he was lower key than Dean but just as dedicated to doing the right thing. We missed the boat when McGovern didn't get elected. Let's not miss the boat this time. We have a good spread of great candidates and it is time to stand firm and be willing to accept any one of those who (have a chance) gain the nomination.

The connections aren't legitimate.

1) McGovern's staff ran a crappy campaign. The affair over Eagleton's electroshock therapy was probably the biggest hit McGovern suffered in the race. Dean has showed himself to have a capable campaign staff thus far, and his internet contributions could very well redefine financing modern campaigns.

2) Nixon also ran on a "Peace" platform vis a vis Vietnam (although he entitled it "Peace with Honor", a distinction pretty much nobody has figured out yet), while McGovern called for the full withdrawal of troops. While Dean has been a critic of the IWR and Bush's handling of the lead up and aftermath of Iraq, he has not to my knowledge gone on record calling for a full withdrawal of troops.

3) The entire Democratic Party had been in a tailspin since the Second Dixiecrat Exodus after the Voting Rights Act passed, with almost the entirety of the South migrating to the Republicans. The clusterf*ck of the '68 Primary didn't help either. Humphrey and his V.P. nominee, Sen. Edmund Muskee, attempted to reunite the party after the chaotic '68 convention but failed miserably. This had a major effect on the political climate in '72.

4) Nixon's staff pulled some incredibly obscene stunts in order to pull voters away from McGovern, including the Watergate break-in. Lesser known ploys included planting McGovern campaign paraphenalia in the apartment of Arthur H. Bremer, the man who attempted to assassinate George Wallace in 1972. While it is entirely imaginable for the RNC to pull off similar schemes in 2004, it remains worth mentioning.

There are other differences, but I'm tired.

because McGovern was driven by the anti-war movement and so is Dean.

Nixon wanted McGovern nominated and his guy Segretti stifled McGoverns opponents. Bush and Rove are doing the same thing.

Dean would NOT lose as badly as McGovern, nor is he as leftist as McGovern(George had a very socialistic platform, Dean has less extreme, but still unpopular, economic platform a middle class tax raise or if you like a return to 90's taxes)

However where as a Kucinich nomination is a SURE victory for Bush, with probably 3 electoral votes won for democrats, Dean is an ALMOST SURE victory for Bush, with probably 70 - 90 electoral votes won

Look at the Dukakis map. His margin of loss wasn't huge by percentage of the popular vote, but it was by the electoral margin. This is because the big L Liberal New England governor allowed Bush to right off the south and south west and concentrate on the midwest.

I sure hope that doesn't extend to Bush.

:scared:

Clark, Kerry, and Edwards can beat Bush in a general election, without a monumental shift in public opinion being needed

I hate Bush, and this country needs a new president, you're continuing the tactic of many deanies of smearing his critics as Bush-lovers, Bush-lite, Rovian etc.

It's complete demagoguing

Since that's what you've been doing against Dean since before anyone had even HEARD of Clark

.

a vocabulary lesson. I swear I could make money tutoring in this place.

Heck you even seem to tout your "hate" vs. Bush as credentials. :shrug:

.

Goldwater, McGovern, Mondale, and Dukakis

Sounds like you don't believe Democrats can win this year. Sorry for being blunt, but that is a defeatist attitude.

not as much as Dean. I beleive that Clark, Edwards, and Kerry would have a decent chance at 270 electoral votes, Kerry having slightly less but still worlds better than Gephardt and Dean, who both share Mondales middle class tax raise platform(or if you'd like, just a return to the previous decades middle class taxes)

And none of the others are like Dukakis in being New England governors from very liberal new england states who are known for major liberal social positions and histories(Dean being the only governor to ever sign a civil unions bill and Dukakis being anti-death penalty and seeming weak on crime)

… grassroots support (the only real similarity I see between the two candidates).

Dean has taken McGovern's populism, Truman's firey straight-talking, Carter's ethics, Clinton's ability to connect and Gore's intellect and wisdom. Dean is the combination of some of the best qualities of many past Democratic candidates.

Dean Is the New McCain …
And the new Carter, and Goldwater, and McGovern, and Reagan …
By Julia Turner
Posted Thursday, August 7, 2003, at 3:48 PM PT
http://slate.msn.com/id/2086718/

Also, unlike McGovern's low budget campaign of an army of volunteers, Dean is well funded. In fact Dean is the best funded of any of the Democratic candidates.

Unlike McGovern, Dean neither served in the armed forces nor was a U.S. Senator.

Unlike McGovern, Dean is a centrist. McGovern was a liberal Goldwater, IMHO. Dean is a passionate centrist.

And no-one considered him another McGovern, even though he backed tax increases to cut the deficit..and proudly trumpted his opposition to the Persian Gulf War in 1992. And Clinton actually ran to the left of Tsongas on most issues.

Now Dean, who is running to the right of Tsongas and Clinton..but left of Gore and Bradley, is being labelled as being both a McGovernik and a Newt clone. The more those charges are repeated, the more desperate his opponents appear!

McGovern lost because of Eagleton's electroshock therapy issue
It freaked people out.

And while your at it, Ronald Reagan was not a great President, he was an asshole who killed thousands in Central America for no reason.

that certainly had alot to do with it I'm sure

but McGovern also had a very socialistic full employment platform. And he was running against an incumbent with strong heartland support with Sargent Shriver, a northeasterner, as his replacement vp

What exactly are you calling Socialist in Mcgovern's platform, his opposition to Vietnam?

This was the main thing which separated him from Humphrey, was Humphrey also a socialist?

Sounds pretty revisionist to me!

a platform that included a guaranteed income, was for getting out of Vietnam at any price, and Nixon was seen as having done a good job on the economy, and seemed like a good bet to get out of Vietnam with some kind of honor -- McGovern's way looked like defeat. The Eagleton thing was a sideshow. I have nothing against revisionist history, except when it's wrong.

McGovern forced Eagleton off the ticket. How could Eagleton 'freak people out???????'

I thought it was because of the rebounding economy, and Nixon stealing the war issue in 1972.

From my post:

and Nixon was seen as having done a good job on the economy, and seemed like a good bet to get out of Vietnam with some kind of honor -- McGovern's way looked like defeat.

I'm sure you just missed that in your haste to look smart.

Who's in a hurry? But I am smart, thanks for the complement.

Si cederet, ignavus esset.

One more thing, the repukes love it when we start smacking labels on our own candidates. Another reason McGovern lost was that Wallace so divided the party during the primaries, that most of his supporters backed Nixon in 1972.

I would be willing to wager that McGovern would had won as the nominee in 1968. That seems closer to reality than your attempts to label our primary candidates as unelectable, especially with shrub's falling approval ratings!

POTUS in the modern world is an extremely high stress job that calls for calm competent decisions. (The position is woefully underpaid, although the perks are world class.) Since Eagleton had been treated for some sort of mental disorder then that is an item that the electorate should correctly consider. The candidate's health is a valid election question when you are talking about POTUS.

Since the VP sometimes becomes president, then it is a valid concern for him too.

McGovern's problems were more infinitely more profound than having to dump a flawed running mate....

He was successfully portrayed by the Republicans as being weak on defense and out of the mainstream on social issues...

Sounds familiar....

I am not endorsing the Dean is McGovern meme because my time is too precious to get lost in the mire of these petty little internecine squabbles but I will remind my fellow DUers of Santayana's warning that those who ignore the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them....


Don't hate the playa, hate the game.....

By Robert Kagan
Monday, November 17, 2003; Page A25
…
Dean has been portrayed, especially by Republicans, as the new George McGovern. But judging by Dean's public statements at least, there is a big difference between the nature of his antiwar critique and the anti-Vietnam critique offered by McGovern and his followers three decades ago.
…
Another possibility is that Dean's opposition to the Iraq war has been over-interpreted by his supporters on the Democratic left. They think he rejects the overall course of American foreign policy, just as they do. But maybe he doesn't. They think he's one of them, but his views may not be all that different from those of today's Democratic centrist establishment. When Dean criticizes Bush's foreign policy "unilateralism," he sounds like a policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, not a radical. "There are two groups of people who support me because of the war," Dean told Mara Liasson a few months ago. "One are the people who always oppose every war, and in the end I think I probably won't get all of those people." The other group, Dean figures, simply "appreciates the fact" that he "stood up early" and spoke his mind and opposed Bush while other Democrats were cowed. 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.

The writer, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment, writes a monthly column for The Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A50126-2003Nov16

Iraq War 1

and the Afghan War especially when I have seen many DUers deny Al Qaeda's involvement in 9-11....


What suprises me is how he has stolen Dennis Kucinich's anti war thunder since DK opposed both wars....


And I tend to agree that Howard Dean is quite the moderate but in the final analysis it's perception that counts....

Time will tell what the perception will be....

I, and I think most Dean supporters on DU, already knew Dean's positions on the wars. Dean mentions them in nearly every speech he gives.

but there are at least three DU Dean supporters who passionately argue that OBL was not behind 9-11 which was the causus belli for us going to war in Afghanistan...

One even wrote in a response to my post "you believe Whistle Ass that OBL was behind 9-11...."

How can they fervently support a man that backed a war (Afghanistan) that they believe was fought under false pretenses when they criticise candidates for supporting a war (Iraq) that was allegedly fought under false pretenses also....

If OBL wasn't behind 9-11 than the Afghanistan war was unjustified and illegal and Dean was wrong to support it.

If Saddam Hussein was not a threat to the U S than the Iraq war was unjustified and illegal and Mr.'s Lieberman, Gephardt, Kerry, and Edwards were wrong to support the Iraq War...

Consistency, baby....

on edit-Only Dennis Kucinich opposed both wars.... For the record he also opposed the Bosnian/Kosovo operation which Dean supported.... That reminds me.... Alot of DU Dean supporters "crucified" Wes Clark for his participation in that war....

Consistency, baby.....

Now, I don't consider Iraq to be a left-right issue, but if you do as a lot of people, Dean is to the left of Clinton on Iraq

Clinton on also ran on a middle class tax cut similar to what Edwards backs.

I don't think Dean is necessarily to the left of Clinton in any major way, but he's definetly not to the right.

Dean is also a trasplanted blue-blood Hamptons/NYC Vermonter, where as Clinton was an Arkansas workingclass success story of sorts.

Becuase of that, Dean has a liberal stigma that Clinton never did

Clinton started out opposing the war in Iraq..favoring sanctions instead. Then he shifted toward a pro-war stance after the war was won.

Clinton favored national healthcare with an employer mandate, Dean favors a watered down approach by allowing the uninsured to buy into private plans. Clinton favored a new BTU tax to help reduce the deficit, Dean favors the repeal of temporary taxcuts. Clinton supported broad cuts in defense spending, Dean has proposed no defense cuts.

Tharesa not saying this good or bad, just reality as she remembers it.

only the may 03 cuts were temporary. Dean favors repealing all of the cuts, and the child tax credits

Clinton said during his presidency that Iraq was a gathering threat and Saddam had to go somehow.

He never came out against the war outright before it, but he did critisize the build-up and how Bush was going about it.

Dean supports ending a mistake. Not passing today's government expenses onto future generations.

possible, it's favored by most liberal economists, such as those at the brookings institution and Paul Krugman. Or repealing the cut(s) as you and Dean and Gephardt would say.

Even in May 03 when the second cut's were passed(by 50 repubs and Cheney), the dems offered a smaller tax cut.

This is another huge difference, McGovern never publically backed higher taxes nor did he push for a balanced budget. McGovern was the traditional FDR style Democrat on economics. He opposed eliminating trade barriers, and both he and Nixon backed the income supports.

Nixon was not able to enact this, but he did make a big push for higher welfare funding during his second term.

hardly a traditional dem

That would account for his landslide victory I suppose.

Income supports were originally part of the first Social Security proposal, as was national healthcare. After the election, FDR cut these parts out only so it would pass. But that proposal certainly didn't cause FDR to be labeled socialist.

Let me suggest something. Try giving us a reason to support your candidate, rather than just tearing the others down.

Zell Miller loves this kind of argument, it will prove his theory that our party will self-destruct by making its own candidates unelectable.

because I no Nixon wasn't a socialist or anything resembling one. Although he wasn't as right-wing as many republicans are today in many ways and on many issues.

That "why don't you stop critisizing my candidate" argument seems to be the one used when your talking points have been sufficiently debunked.

then thanks for the positive input! :)

Leave the middle class alone. Concentrate on rolling back the tax cuts for the higher brackets. Restore the estate tax. Close loopholes for corporations.

We all understand that Bush's tax cut really resulted in a bigger burden for the state and an increase in the amount a middle class family pays in other areas. Although a lot of voters never will get that. But you can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again just by saying, okay, Bush never happened, we're going back to the way things were. Now the economy has to crawl out of the gaping pit Bush has dug.

I don't get why it is so important for Dean to repeal all the tax cuts. Because they were w-r-o-n-g. Okay, they were the wrong thing at the wrong time. Point made. But it doesn't gain anything politically and it won't do much to solve the problem.

I don't understand the importance of trying not to be selective about who gets their taxes increased. What is your interest in being fair to the rich? In denying you participate in class warfare? The rich don't care about being fair to you. The rich are definitely engaging in class warfare against the middle class.

Sorry, but Tharesa not get involved in flamebait at this late hour. :thumbsdown:

"McGovern won the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination with the support of younger delegates and opponents of the Vietnam War. His initial running mate was Sen. Thomas Eagleton, who withdrew after it was revealed that he had undergone treatment for depression; Eagleton was replaced by R. Sargent Shriver. McGovern lost the ELECTION to the incumbent, Richard M. NIXON, winning only 38% of the popular vote and carrying only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia."

Also and here is that Middle Class Issue again (better stay away from tax and spend):

"When he came out in favor of a guaranteed annual income for each American family, many wage earners and middle-class voters saw it as a new form of "giveaway" for the benefit of those who would not work. The voters rallied to Richard NIXON's promise to do whatever was necessary to vindicate America's position in the world, and McGovern received 38% of the popular vote, carrying only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia."

http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/aae/side/mcgovrn.html

I think key to all of this is this statement: "McGovern won the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination with the support of younger delegates and opponents of the Vietnam War."

If in fact there were young Dean activists showing their asses (sitting on hands, etc...) in Florida (home to even more retired people maybe than the planet "Pension") today, then I don't think that older seasoned Democratic voters are going to make the same mistake during the primaries as in 1972. But, we'll wait until the polls open in Jan. and Feb. and see.

Every time I look at McGovern, I think:
-electro shock therapy- / -mental case-

*interestingly every time I see Bush I think foetal alcohol syndrome

Reform, the lame ass Congress did. In general however, you are correct that Americans in general don't look at issues close enough. That's why we're in the mess we'e in with Bush. Older Americans still look at issues pretty closely however. Especially retired older people that go to libraries which in the most part have internet access and people there to help them with online issues. Oh boy, do they look at issues.

It's a different time, a different candidate, and a different opponent.

ratical.org includes an excellent analysis of the Nixon dirty works machine in Richard E. Sprague's excellent larger piece on The Taking of America, about "who really controls the United States policies, especially foreign policies. It is a book about the process of control through the manipulation of the American presidency and the presidential election process."

Chapter 8, Muskie, Wallace and McGovern, includes Sprague's well-supported theory that Nixon's machine was behind the shooting of George Wallace, which eliminated a very real right-wing vote-splitter:

<snip>
The Power Control Group . . . began laying out a strategy that would encourage the real nuts in the Nixon administration like E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy and Donald Segretti to eliminate any serious opposition. The dirty tricks campaign worked perfectly against the strongest early Democratic candidate, Edmund Muskie. He withdrew in tears, later to discover he had been sabotaged by Nixon, Liddy and company.
George Wallace was another matter. At the time he was shot, he was drawing 18% of the vote according to the polls, and most of that was in Nixon territory. The conservative states such as Indiana were going for Wallace. He was eating into Nixon's southern strength. In April the polls showed McGovern pulling a 41%, Nixon 41% and Wallace 18%. It was going to be too close for comfort, and it might be thrown into the House--in which case Nixon would surely lose. There was the option available of eliminating George McGovern, but then the Democrats might come up with Hubert Humphrey or someone else even more dangerous than McGovern. Nixon's best chance was a head-on contest with McGovern. Wallace had to go. Once the group made that decision, the Liddy team seemed to be the obvious group to carry it out. But how could it be done this time and still fool the people? Another patsy this time? O.K., but how about having him actually kill the Governor? The answer to that was an even deeper programming job than that done on Sirhan. This time they selected a man with a lower I.Q. level who could be hypnotized to really shoot someone, realize it later, and not know that he had been programmed. He would have to be a little wacky, unlike Oswald, Ruby or Ray.

Arthur Bremer was selected. The first contacts were made by people who knew both Bremer and Segretti in Milwaukee. They were members of a leftist organization planted there as provocateurs by the intelligence forces within the Power Control Group. One of them was a man named Dennis Cossini. . . .

With Wallace's elimination from the race and McGovern's increasing popularity in the primaries, the only question remaining for the Power Control Group was whether McGovern had any real chance of winning. The polls all showed Wallace's vote going to Nixon and a resultant landslide victory. That, of course, is exactly what happened. . . .

They did try one more dirty trick. They revealed Thomas Eagleton's psychiatric problems, which reduced McGovern's odds considerably . . .
</snip>

Add to that the reasons given in the excellent Why Howard's Not George that was published right here on DU this past July and you can see why there is no comparison between Dean and McGovern--the reasons summarized:
1. McGovern alienated significant portions of the Democratic base
2. McGovern survived a contentious and damaging convention: "the convention became so bogged down in partisan disputes that McGovern didn’t even give his acceptance speech until the early morning hours when almost no one got to see it. The party had not put its best foot forward and as a result McGovern’s convention may have been the only one in history in which the candidate was further behind in the polls when it ended."
3. The Eagleton disaster: "Shortly after the convention it was revealed that he had been hospitalized several times for nervous exhaustion and had been treated for depression with electro-shock therapy. McGovern handled the situation as badly as it can be handled, first standing by Eagleton and then a few days later letting the press know that he wanted Eagleton to step down. It made McGovern look indecisive and the ensuing search for a new running mate during which McGovern was turned down by numerous prominent Democrats made the campaign look ridiculous. It was a death march from that time onward."
4. McGovern was seen as a cultural threat: "his support of abortion rights, amnesty for draft evaders and the decriminalization of marijuana made him appear to be the candidate of hippies and radicals."

Our Dean Haterz learn well from their rethuglican counterparts.

:-)

Julie

Dean is the one they are after and I think it is because he has a grass root following. Bush will also start running as a Dem if he hasn't already. He 'rules' as a Right Winger'but he will run on the things the Dem have always pushed. Don't you think that is odd? He can not get into office on what the Right wing belive in.

Everybody is comparing Dean to McGovern.

... I think some Republicans started comparing Dean to McGovern, and some Democrats then started to get nervous about it.

I'm sure that a lot of Republicans would be pleased if everyone thought that someone with new ideas and someone who would not just continue the status quo is someone obviously who can't win. I'm also sure that those same Republicans would like the general public to see Dean's "rabid following" as a bunch of radical, 60s holdover-type hippies who just can't make it in the twenty-first century. I would certainly hope that Dean supporters aren't going to buy into that baloney. Your choice, of course.

Some Republicans see good men as dangerous men. Good men don't play the game, and good men don't go along to get along.

Win or lose, McGovern was a good man. So is Dean.

Well, two:

1) it isn't 1972

2) Dean isn't McGovern

See how easy that is?

but if it's anti-Dean it must be seen...

He started from the convention trailing Nixon by double digits.

He wanted to give everybody in the country $1,000.00 a year income. In 1972 an income of $12,000 a year was a nice middle class income. In a debate with Hubert Humphrey, he denied that the program would cost $200B a year. HHH got his figure by multipling the population time the size of the check.

His primary supporters were highly energetic, but unrealistic. Nixon was stupid to have done the dirty tricks stuff. He could have run a rose garden campaign and still won by a huge landslide.

A rose garden campaign, for those not familiar with the term, is a campaign where the President doesn't travel but instead give speaches to the nation from the White House.

People are just trying their best to come to grips with an unpredicted phenomena. When they do this, often they try to create analogies to past experience. Thus we have the Dean is just like (McGovern, Dukakis, Goldwater... insert your preference) line.

These lines are ill-informed and intentionally dismissive.

On other dimensions we have Dean is too angry, too liberal (wha??), too conservative, and generally unelectable. All are just more attempts to rationalize and dismiss an unpredicted outcome.

(This result does not fit my map of reality, therefore it must be wrong on some dimension) In simple terms, it is denial.

It is understandable, I think Dean himself has been a bit surprised about how well he has done.

Noting similarities of the present to past experience can be a considered approach that accounts for historical perspective. The psychobabble line is crossed when people begin creating a 1:1 correspondence. Dean is just like (insert preferred loser here) therefore the result will be the same.

In reality the most basic first step in creating such an analogy to a previous race would a logical .and. step.

Like this Dean = Dukakis .and. Bush 2 = Bush 1 .therefore. results

Bush 2 is not Bush 1. (Bush 1 occasionally acted a bit moderate)

Or you have Dean = McGovern .and. Bush 2 = Nixon.

Sorry, Bush 2 is not Nixon. While I disliked Nixon, he was the last 'imperial president' in the eyes of the 'great silent majority'. McGovern was seen accurately as supported by young hot heads who had no respect for society. There was a war between the generations then and while the candidates were of fairly similar age, they were understood as on opposite sides of this divide.

Bush 2 is a chimp. He has no such advantage. The analogy does not hold.

There is another .and. missing from these analogies, not only do the candidates have to be highly similar, but the social context and political dynamic have to be held constant.

Reagan and Bush 1 were arguing for ideas that largely had not been tried or tried sufficiently to create a solid public judgement of effectiveness. They could always blame the many shortcommings of their programs on those pesky democrats, and did so.

However we have said over and over, if you let these cons have their way, massive deficits and war would be the result. They have gotten their way. I think our case is made.

The political dynamic has changed and all analogies to the past are at best vaguely informative, but not predictive. To posit otherwise is to seek the psychological comfort that denial offers.