USAT: Did Dean Go Too Far Blasting "Washington" and Poking Clinton?

The USA Today reports that Clinton has been "ticked off" by Dean's comments about him and "new Democrats," and that Clinton has “expressed exasperation and "befuddlement" about the wisdom of some of the stands Dean is taking?”

Question: Do the Dean people continue underestimate the profound concern among senior Democratic leadership that a Dean electoral disaster will be so great as to cripple the Party for a generation? Is it a good idea for Dean to continue to attack the “Washington Democrats” and by inference the Clinton legacy?

It has been clear for some time that significant money and expertise is being pumped in the Clark campaign with the specific objective of stopping Dean. Endorsements are being lined up nationally.

Dean seems to have brought this upon himself. Now, regardless of what happens in IOWA and NH, a strong Clinton-backed Clark effort seems to be in place to shape a 2-man race, starting Feb. 3rd, in which Dean has little chance of winning. This is one of the “Official Stories” that the media has been carrying.

With the Iowa outcome now up for grabs, do you think the “Official Story” could change. Is it too late for Dean to reconcile with Clinton and the DLC?


Article:

Dean urges a different direction from Clinton
By Susan Page, USA TODAY

DES MOINES — The battle among Democrats that begins with the Iowa caucuses on Monday will determine more than the identity of the party's presidential nominee. Also at stake are the identity of the party and the legacy of the last Democrat to win the White House.

. . . . . . . . . . .

In some conversations, Clinton has been "ticked off" by Dean's comments about him and "new Democrats," according to three former White House aides who didn't want to be identified. They say he has expressed exasperation and "befuddlement" about the wisdom of some of the stands Dean is taking and his dismissive description of Clinton's tenure as "damage control."
"It's exceedingly important to a president's legacy that he live on in his party's history," says Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at the University of New Orleans and author of Tour of Duty, a new book on the Vietnam experiences of presidential contender John Kerry.
. . . . . . . .
"I only have one concern, and that's electability," says Clark Rasmussen, 69, after watching Gore stump for Dean at the Valley Southwoods Freshman High School in West Des Moines. Rasmussen, a former Iowa Democratic state chairman who has been active in politics here since 1960, says that's a big reason he's supporting Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, instead of Dean.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-01-15-dean-clinton-cover_x.htm

What Dean is saying, IMHO, is that these trends MUST be reversed for the good of our country.

back in the day

…
While U.S. unemployment improved in June, Dean said it’s still at a nine-year high and ignores the underemployed, which he pegged at 6 percent.

“These are people who had $50,000 good jobs and now they are making $25,000 or $30,000, and they have two of them, in some cases,” Dean said. “I am tired of having an economy where our best jobs are shifted elsewhere in the world.’’

Dean fans made up a thick portion of the crowd, often turning Dean’s 25-minute stump speech into a rally of revival proportions with interrupted calls of “amen’’ and “yes, yes.’’
…
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/Main.asp?SectionID=25&SubSectionID=377&ArticleID=85948
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=108&topic_id=11856&mesg_id=11856
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=124665&mesg_id=124665

…
HOWARD DEAN: No. What I said-- Well, I'll tell you what I said in a minute. But I'll follow my train of thought here, most briefly. Free trade has benefited Vermont a great deal. Here's the problem with free trade, and here's why I support fair trade, and why I want to change all our trade agreements to include human rights with trade, as Jimmy Carter included human rights with foreign policy. I still think NAFTA was a good thing. I think the president did the right thing. But the problem now is that, 10 years into NAFTA, here's what we've done. We have shipped a lot of our industrial capacity to other countries. And the ownership pattern, and the ratio of reward between capital and labor in those other countries is what it was 100 years ago in this country.

So the reason for NAFTA is not just trade. It's defense and foreign policy. That is, a middle class country where women fully participate in the economic and political decision making of that country is a country that doesn't harbor groups like Al-Qaeda, and it's a country that does not go to war. So that's in our intersect. That's why trade is really in our long term interest. What we've done so far in NAFTA is we've transferred industrial capacity, but we haven't transferred any of the elements that are needed to make a middle class. The truth is, the trade union movement in this country built America, not literally-- Well, they did do it literally with the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building, and things like that. But they built America because they allowed people who worked in factories and mines to become middle class people. And America was the strongest country on earth, and still is, because we have the largest middle class on earth, with democratic ideals. That is, working people in this country, by and large, feel that this is their country, and they have a piece of the pie, and it matters what they think.

Now, if you want trade to succeed, ultimately, we're going to have to create a climate in other countries that are beneficiaries of NAFTA where they can create a middle class with democratic ideals. That means we should not have any free trade agreements, and we should go back and tell the WTO that "you need also to include environmental standards and labor standards." Here's why. Today, if you run a factory in Iowa-- Let's suppose you spend a million dollars a year disposing of all the waste products that come out that are toxic. You can go to another country and dump all that stuff in the river and on the ground. So America, because we have environmental standards, and we're willing to trade, straight out, free trade, with countries that it's cheaper by a million dollars, before you even get to wages, to do business there, I think that's a big problem. We're essentially saying, "Our environmental laws are strict. It's cheaper for you to go into business someplace lese. Go ahead." That's the wrong thing to do.

The same with labor standards. I don't know why we should be shipping our jobs offshore when kids can work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for a small amount of wages. And isn't that what America fought against 100 years go? Wasn't that the victory of the trade union movement? So it seems to me that my position makes sense. We've gone through 10 years of free trade. We've gotten to a position where we now need to change our trade agreements.
…
HOWARD DEAN: What I would say is, we've gone the first mile. The first decade has worked, for exactly the reasons you say. I don't disagree with the premise of the free traders. I had this discussion with Bob Rubin, and I said, "Here's the problem. We need an emerging middle class in these countries, and we're not getting one. So now is the time to have labor and environmental standards attached to trade agreements." He said, "You're totally wrong. I can't disagree with you more." I said, "How would you address the problem?" I haven't heard back. You have to deal with this problem. It's a serious problem.

JOE KLEIN: What if they say no?

HOWARD DEAN: Then I'd say, "Fine, that's the end of free trade."

JOE KLEIN: What do you mean, that's the end of free trade? Then we slap tariffs on these countries?

HOWARD DEAN: Yes.

JOE KLEIN: So you'd be in favor of tariffs at that point.

HOWARD DEAN: If necessary. Look, Jimmy Carter did this in foreign policy. If you can't get people to observe human rights, and say that we're going to accept products from countries that have kids working no overtime, no time and a half, no reasonable safety precautions-- I don't think we ought to be buying those kinds of products in this country. We're enabling that to happen. I'm serious.
…
http://www.jfklibrary.org/forum_dean.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=46131&mesg_id=46131&page=

gag...

You should try to look at his record from when he was governor.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4310919.html

"There are some issues that transcend ideology," Gore declared. "The view is so uniform that it unites people in both parties ... . NAFTA is such an issue."

That statement would have gotten no argument from another of the notables on hand for the signing: Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont. "I was a very strong supporter of NAFTA," Dean recalled in 1995. NAFTA is "a good policy," he said. "I believe it's going to create jobs in the United States of America, and to let our trading partner go down the tubes ... would be a big mistake."

Yet to hear Dean now, you would think his support of NAFTA had been grudging at best, and that robust free trade was a policy no mainstream Democrat could endorse. When an intervewer recently began a question by noting that Dean had been "a strong supporter of NAFTA," the former governor bit his head off: "Where do you get this 'I'm a strong supporter of NAFTA'? I never did anything about it. I didn't vote on it. I didn't march down the street demanding NAFTA. I simply wrote a letter supporting NAFTA."


http://selectsmart.com/president/Dean.html

Trade: "I do not agree that we ought to get rid of NAFTA and the WTO. But you can't get into the European Union unless you have exactly the same labor and environmental and human rights standards that you do in all those countries. We ought not to be in the business of having free and open borders with countries that don't have the same environmental, labor and human rights standards. And if you do that, we're going to be able to create manufacturing jobs in America again and they'll stay in America."

doing so before the primaries was very bad timing.

Anonymous sources. Speculation on Clinton without any real corroboration.

Clinton's smart enough to know what it'll take to beat Bush, and smart enough not to take stuff personally.

out of it just to fuel the Dean/Clark camps. Clinton knows how those bastards cut his balls off for 8 years, I don't think he should be remotely insulted. I also think that Clinton will gladly support whoever the nominee is, just like he said he would.

I tend to think that Dean is hearkening back to the the first two years of the Clinton presidency where all the real action happened.

After the republican revolution, his agenda was castrated and turned into a defensive mode.

Reporters don't do any investigating these days. This "information" had to be given to Susan Page by SOMEone. Now who would that be?

Qui bono?

Hillary, and let's not forget Congress...

Clinton said that if we were in the midst of a war when he ran against Bush I, he would not have won. He is right. Clinton knows that Americans do not fire a war time president for one with zero foreign policy experience. It just doesn't happen.

of what will work and not. there is a reason he didn't run in 1988 as he thought about doing. and clinton is someone who did have a lot of foreign policy knowledge, but he understands perception is important too and during the cold war his issues with the draft would not have been accepted by the people as it was after the cold war. he knew when he ran was a good time for someone like him with the cold war being over and defense issues not being as important to people. that's one of the things i like about clinton. he understands these thing.

In a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll conducted Friday through Sunday, Democrats were split evenly, 48% to 48%, over whether they wanted a nominee who agreed with them on issues or one with the best chance to beat Bush. And 56% wanted a moderate, 26% a liberal, 14% a conservative.

while Kerry is a liberal using the tone of a moderate.

Whatever anyone thinks about Clinton, it cannot be doubted that he is one of the most brilliant political thinkers and strategists of the last couple of generations. His keen sense of politics is without peer and Democrats would do well to consider his observations.

People can disagree with Clinton, but even his enemies admit that he is the most brilliant politician of our lifetime.

way back when. He thinks that Clark is our best chance to win....

Dean tried to retract some of the anti Clinton statements but they've been made and are out there. I wish more candidates would listen to the big dog on how to win. Sure this might mean to triangulate, which was Clinton's forte, but it works.

But how many comments and positions has he tried to reverse or change in recent weeks. Why attack Clinton now, that's just dumb.

if anything this "shoot from the hip" style is what is causing the undecideds in Iowa to look at other candidates.

Actually I didnt say it, but I heard it the other day and I think it rings some truth.

<< The so-called establishment DLC isnt afraid of Deans unelectibility, but what they are afraid of is he wont return their phone calls. >>

Personally, I believe and have seen enough in Dean this past year to know he treats everyone equally, which is one of the traits I most like about him and hes not overly impressed or underimpressed with anyone. Hes fair. So I believe Dean would return anyones phone calls that merit calls back, but he wont sure as hell wont jump to attention when they decide to give a jingle.

power struggle --pure ad simple. Lets pretend Dean wins the presidency. The way our party is structured.--IMMEDIATEly, Dean becomes Head of Democratic Party. He has expressed discontent with the DLC(I get the idea he thinks they are too far right in some instances--calls them Republican Lite.)_ He has said he wants to change this direction of the party. He is head honcho--Clinton has to fade in to the background figuratively. To me this is the whole fight we see taking place before our eyes. If someone who is more DLC Leaning wins Clinton will not feel as threatened. Power is a strange thing. Giving it up ain't easy. Dean is feeling the brunt at the moment. I am not a Dean supporter just giving an obseration from reading watching TV...........

His personal irresponsibility and weakness hurt our party tremendously, and he sold us out on many, many important issues. Bush isn't worth to tie Bill's shoes, but I'd like less of him in the party and not more. I say this as a long time and current Dean critic.

Clinton is no hero. He knew the fate of the free world hung on his (can't say the word here) but he went for those luscious lips instead even though he KNEW they were watching him under a microscope. Np pity, no sympathy anymore. I regret the nights I spent defending the man over an obscene intrusion into his private life. It was no longer his private life when he said "I do" to the American people.

Dean is not my hero but Clinton is certainly NO hero of mine anymore- especially not when you add GATT, NAFTA, WTO, FTAA, Welfare Reform, Columbia Plan, Haiti.

The objects one should
work for are first the furtherance of the British Empire, the bringing of the whole uncivilized world under British rule, the recovery of the United States, the making of the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire.
http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Rhodes.html
(Gross 61) Cecil Rhodes of Rhodes scholar fame. It's all coming together now.

All coming together now, is it? :evilgrin: Remember Clinton's mentor, Caroll Quigley, who he name dropped at his inauguration? Read "Tragedy and Hope".

I just dont like it that has a DLC-esque record in vermont

all I know is I don't like it, because I don't think Dean means it.

He's just doing it because his opponents are closely associated with Clinton. Gep and Kerry are touting how they worked with Clinton on the great economy, and Clark is seen as a Clinton ally.

Clinton's endorsement, he would change his tune about Clinton faster than you could say "bullshit?"

would Dean have inexplicably excluded Harkin from the cockroach club, like he did yesterday? Not very likely, imo. Harkin would have been just another bug.

many of the same people here who have been attacking Clinton for years would be praising him as a paragon of leadership and a discriminating student of politics.

It disturbs me the way opinions of prominent Democrats seem to hinge on whom they endorse. I liked Tom Harkin before he endorsed Dean, and I still like him. He's still the same man he was last week, after all.

of remarks that were ill-timed and unnecessary to make. The support Dean has lost over the last few days in Iowa and NH was probably bandwagon people, the type who like to go with the winner instead of making a judgement on policy. His problems over the last few weeks shook their confidence.

Whether Clinton deserves it or not, he isn't in the race and is one of only two living Democratic former Presidents. Dean and others have been able to criticize his policies in the past by calling out the DLC, instead of WJC by name.

It seems to me that attacking the Clinton record directly is divisive to the party. It was not a particularly wise move.

Dean gets a C- in wisdom but right now he's the pit-bull we need. Clinton is a huge disappointment and that disappointment has been growing everyday. When he told us 6(?) months ago to "get over it", that was the last straw for me.

the "system", Dean is swinging for the fences. The trouble in trying to hit the home run is the strike out percentage.

instead of just his enemies' spin doctoring of what Dean said?

i happen to agree with what Dean said, and i'm glad he said it.

The Washington Dems needed blasting. Ted Kennedy had the same info that Kerry, Gep, Edwards, and Lieberman had, but he still voted no on the war. So the Washington crew can hem and haw all the want, but they needed to be talked about for being such pushovers for Bush.

As for Clinton, I could care less what he thinks. He had no regard for what his lack of self control would do to the party, so a big fat raspberry to him. :P Whatever Clinton may think about his "record" all people seem to remember most, is Monica.

Just out of curiosity. Somehow I think the answer is, "The day that they wrote an article that calls into question Dean's chances".

Why does anyone pay so much attention to the very mainstream media outlets that SCREWED us in 2000? Why does anyone read their CRAP and say, "That's a good point!"

We are all smarter than that! All of us! If you are going to dance with the devil, be prepared for what comes next.

As a Big Dog democrat I'll say that anyone attacking Clinton will NEVER get my vote. And I think about 80% New Yorkers share my views. (P.S. the whole OBL back and forth didn't help much either in this town)

So your assertions has at least that problem. He also won elections by doing it.

And as for the OBL reference: What do you think will happen if we capture him alive, try him in secret, and execute him? Will that discourage or encourage more terrorism? I'll take the bet and give you odds. The only way we can possibly teach the extremists a lesson is to have a public trial, and show the world we are being completely fair. I'd think people anywhere would understand that.

Yeah. Sure lots of POd people in that 68%.
HD's mistake: this is NOT about Big Dog, it's about all Dems like me who felt personally insulted by the attacks on our ELECTED president.When they researched the internet to fashion their message after the whishes of posters, they forgot to check out the origins of Moveon. Serious miscalculation.
The Big Dog needs not do a thing. We'll do it for him. Just watch thoise polls and think: if given a choice- whom would you rather have - Bill Clinton of HD? I doubted any man on earth could have been so arrogant to impose such a choice. Even GOP knows better!

being President, I bet democrats would like Dean more than Clinton--after all we would be talking about the base.

Dean is running against 8 candidates right now--of course Clinton was more popular (1) after he god the nomination in 92, (2) while he ran unopposed in '96, and (3) after he left office a wounded man from all the attacks. How popular was Clinton at THIS point in '92--that is the question.

I'm not saying you're totally wrong, but not all us Democrats thought Clinton was that great for the party. I like much of what he did as President and were it not for term limits, I think he would still be there.

"This is a time to fight."
What does Dean think Clinton did for 8+ years? He was like a human punching bag for the right wing nutballs. As Bill Maher famously said, Clinton took "more crap and been more gracious about it than anybody who has nuclear weapons  should ever be asked to." This is something that for some reason people forget - it's not like Clinton had a Democratic Congress for most of his term. He had to fight constantly. I guess he wasn't angry enough for some people, but in between the political smear fighting he was trying to do the job he was elected to do - and THAT took fighting but it also took poise and calm and a cool head for strategy. A chess player as well as a brawler. Can Dean think like a chess player? That remains to be seen and I don't want to find out too late.
We know Clark can be diplomatic, we know he can think strategically (!), we know he can outwit wily opponents, we know he can execute wars coolly and shrewdly (read David Halberstam on Clark's level-headedness during Kosovo, when everyone else was a nattering nelly), and we sure as hell know he can fight. So why Dean? I no longer get it.
It may be the time to fight, but it's no longer the time for Dean.

Clinton survived non-stop attacks throughout his election and
presidency and post-presidency. By surviving those attacks,
he gave us eight good years of life, and delayed BushCo's PNAC
for eight years.

We need a smart, effective, uplifting fighter in there again.
We need Clinton's survival savvy and street smarts and advice.
Dean doesn't seem to think he needs them.
We shall see.

Being a "human punching bag" and fighting are two different things.

Taking crap and being graceful about it and fighting are also mutually exclusive.

The problem with a chess player's mentality in politics is that the grand strategy takes too long to emerge. The grand strategy can overwhelm attention to more immediate details.

America needs a President who is willing to solve problems when they need to be solved, not wait until his strategy may/may not allow.

The guy who cannot apologize when someone gets in his face makes me nervous next to the nukes. Just saw Dr Strangelove. I take chess over bats any time!
But what do I know? I am one of those elitists eggheads, I guess.

who is orchestrating all the leaks on Dean?

for his steering committee would it?


retyred in fla
“Good-Night Paul, Wherever You Are”
So I read this book

Link: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0401.confessore.html

Excerpts:

Demise of the machine

The Democratic establishment was once vigorous and powerful, encompassing not only Washington's Hill barons, party officials, and a large labor movement, but also the heads of various state and city Democratic organizations, ranging from the courthouse cliques of the Solid South to Richard J. Daley's Chicago machine. The old Democratic establishment was not necessarily democratic, and not always progressive. But by linking the local and state institutions that engaged average citizens to the Washington elites who crafted legislation, this establishment provided crucial capacities to the Democratic Party. It could hash out compromises on everything from labor law to presidential candidates (often in the proverbial smoke-filled room). In the days before television, it communicated the party's message and organized rank-and-file voters. And for three decades, this establishment held together the disparate blocs--conservative Southerners, urban autocrats, blacks, union members, and northern liberals--that made the Democrats a majority party. Between the 1930s and 1960s, the Democrats won seven out of nine presidential elections and usually controlled both houses of Congress as well.

But the same forces that dismantled the old Democratic coalition during the next two decades also dismantled the old Democratic establishment. Conservative whites deserted the party over its support for civil rights and began to vote Republican. The labor movement began a slow decline in membership and influence. Civil-service laws whittled away at the power of the big-city machines. What prerogatives the Democratic establishment retained were slowly stripped away by liberal reformers within the party. During the late 1970s, a DNC-sponsored commission chaired by George McGovern eviscerated the establishment's power over nominations, linking delegate selection to the outcome of primary elections rather than the fiat of state-level party bosses.

SNIP

When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, the party looked healthy. Democrats commanded the White House, respectable majorities in the House and Senate, and control of 40 statehouses; Democratic governors represented eight-tenths of the U.S. population. Clinton annexed the DNC to the White House political shop, and directed its chairman, David Wilhelm, to focus all his efforts towards passing health-care reform. That move was understandable at the time. But instead of universal health care, the party got a legislative debacle that deprived the Democrats of a clear success on which to run. Combined with the House banking scandal fomented by Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and his allies, the passage of NAFTA (which depressed the labor vote), and Clinton's 1993 tax hike (which motivated the GOP base), the result was decisive. In November 1994, the Democrats lost control of both Houses of Congress for the first time in four decades.

Lots more information in the article.

This is the kind of thing I look for at DU. An excellent article.

"Anyone who displays their understanding that I have zero chance of
winning is hereby an establishment Democrat afraid of my power to the people campaign."

Is Dean going to end up attacking everyone who doesn't endorse him? Man, how obvious does it have to get?

Media complicit. Mission Accomplished.

Ronald Reagan. It may very well have destroyed his campaign.

He casts a large shadow.

Dean can't win. Vote John Kerry for President in 2004!

Dean can't win, and John Kerry will make the greatest President of our lives.

I was so damn tired of watching our "loyal opposition" hide under their desks while we have been subjected to the rise of the new fascism.

Clinton let the Repugs set the debate and was constantly on the defense. He conceded too much to the right and they ran ship-shod all over him.

It's really too bad it played out that way but it did.

Julie