Hope everyone had a blessed Christmas. Please keep me in prayer over a personal matter, as two of my New Year's resolutions are quite tough this year, but are problems in my life that need to be addressed. (Smoking is one of them.)
On to politics and predictions for the new year. I continue to think Howard Dean is gonna prove more difficult to the President's re-election bid than what most Republicans (and Republican sympathizers like myself) realize. While Dean is currently stumping to the left in the Democrat primaries, we need to keep in mind that the Howard Dean we see now is not the Howard Dean against whom President Bush and the Republican Party will square off against in the campaign leading up to the general election.
Already we are seeing Dean discover religion. Once the Dem nomination is firmly in hand, you will like see him continue his move to the center. Likely, he will trumpet his record of balanced budgets in Vermont. We need to hold Dean to the left. Health care, taxation for middle-class families and agriculture are three areas where Dean is weak.
Next, we need to recognize that President Bush is still politically vulnerable over the war in Iraq. I know this sounds strange, but over the short-term, Dean is likely to prove right in that the capture of Saddam Hussein will not make things any safer in the West. Basically, Hussein's capture is radicalizing the islamo-fascists who were reluctant to jump into the frey as long as Hussein was still hanging around. So don't be surprised to see terrorist attacks increase over the coming year. Additionally, you're seeing the Dean camp spin the fact Osama bin Looney still hasn't been captured.
Of course, the best answer would be to capture bin Looney and/or uncover WMDs in Iraq. Barring this possibility, however, the best way to to counter the Dean spin is to point out the long-term security benefits yielded by the capture of Hussein. For example, Libya abandonning its WMD programmes is a direct result of the President's firm leadership. Libya has had a long history of sponsoring terrorism. Additionally, Time Magazine reports that the Al Quack network has recently diverted much of its resources to Iraq. Given the geo-political makeup of Iraq versus that of Afganistan, it should be much easier to capture or kill key terrorists in Iraq than in Afganistan.
Finally, there is the gross human rights violations that took place under Saddam's regime. A number of leftists who support the war, such as Prime Minister Tony Blair in the UK and Alexa McDonough (former leader of Canada's socialist party) have often appealed on the left to Hussein's brutality against his own people people as justification for the Iraq war.
What about an anti-Dean candidate? The only one of the other Democrat candidates that I think presents a credible challenge within the Dem. primaries is Joe Lieberman. Neither Braun nor Sharpton present a credible challenge. When it comes to African-Americans, the Dems prefer tokenism to actually giving blacks real power. Note that it was the GOP who appointed Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, Colin Powell as Secretary of State, and who have seriously floated the idea of putting Condi Rice on the 2004 ticket where she could become the first African American and the first woman to become Vice-President.
Kucinich is out of the question. Not only are his policies to the left of Dean, but he makes Al Gore look charismatic. Edwards and Gephart also lack any charisma or marketability within this race. Finally, Kerry and Clark have flip-flopped over too many issues to be credible candidates at this point. Both of them come across as desperate, and not in a good sense.
Yet where Lieberman also comes across as somewhat desperate, his centrist credentials are solid. Other than Dean, he's the only serious candidate among the Dems who hasn't wavered in his position on key issues such as national security. Therefore, I would not be suprised if he emerges as the key anti-Dean candidate.
Republicans will be smart enough to air commercial after political commercial highlighting the many controversial, extremist pronouncements Dean has made since he began running for President. As Dean attempts to weasel his way out of having made them, it'll remind voters more and more of the basic dishonesty of Bill Clinton and Al Gore.. not a comparison you want swing voters to be making.
I'm thinking that Dean's attempt to paint himself as having been deeply religious all along will flop in the South. A guy whose chief claim to fame has been the promotion of gay civil unions in Vermont will have a hard time convincing born-again Christians that he's one of them...
It's so transparent that Dean is playing the Jesus card because he thinks it's a magical key to winning black votes, especially in the South. Much like talking about Confederate flags and pickup trucks was supposed to be a magic key to unlock white Southern Democrats (and Republicans) of the blue collar variety in Dixie.
With idiotic thinking like this, I fail to see how he can wind up with the keys to the White House.
As for a consensus anti-Dean candidate, I think Gephardt would have more traction than Lieberman. Gephardt could do decently with black voters, goes over with labor, and worked well enough with Clinton to satisfy the DLC wing. Lieberman is seen, fairly or unfairly, as Bush Lite and thus will be unacceptable as an alternative to Dean.
Of course Dean talking about Jesus is not gonna fool the hardcore so-con and evangelical vote, for reasons everyone points out. It is already a given that President Bush has this vote solidly locked up. But there is also a soft evangelical vote who are not as firm on moral issues and who will be reassured by the fact Dean believes in God. These are the same voters that Clinton appealed to during his presidential campaigns. As for the black vote, Jesse Jackson Jr. will continue to help him make headway.
Pete, the problem though is Dean's biography.
Clinton was a Baptist son of the South and I'm sure a good number of "soft" evangelicals in the South felt they could identify with him (at least in the 1992 race) because perhaps they saw a fallible, flawed man in need of God's grace who at heart wanted to be a choir boy but ended up being led astray by temptation.
In short, Clinton was an identifiable figure for Southern evangelical men and women to this extent: he seemed (and I really stress SEEMED) like a guy who trusts in God but has messed up before and really wants to do right and not continue in his naughty boy ways.
Dean, however, comes from a very non-Bible Belt friendly religious extraction, he's a social gospel type adherent, and he comes off as "holier than thou" in both his personality and in his political prescriptions. Clinton, however cocky he was (and remains), could crank out a sense of humility about his personal morality (of the judge not lest ye be judged variety) and his political vision seemed sunny and optimistic compared to Dean's doom and gloom.
No matter how eschatologically fixated some evangelicals can be, they are more inspired by a biblically oriented, Reaganesque "city on a hill" vision of America. Clinton was able to sorta co-opt that sunny vision in his own twisted way.
Think about it. What was Clinton's campaign theme song? It was "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" by Fleetwood Mac. He issued a vision of a brighter future under his leadership. So far Dean has only cast a bleak, laughably cariacatured "prophet of doom" vision of a Bush Administration-governed America. I just don't see that flying with "soft" evangelicals in great numbers.
Prayers are promised for your smoking resolution. I quit smoking almost 24 years ago....my father told me that he had read somewhere that "if you starve an appetite, it will go away." He quit smoking to see if it was true....I did the same thing...and it is true.
It remains the single most difficult thing I ever did, but if I can do it, believe me, anyone can. Good luck!
Pete opines that Kerry and Clark "come across as desperate, and not in a good sense." I don't get it: is it possible to look desperate in a good sense?
Ken, I see what you mean about Clinton being optimistic. However, I still think we're in for a stiff challenge with Dean. I've seen the impossible take place before in politics, like Bob Rae's election in Ontario.
Cathleen, thanks for the prayers. They are much appreciated.
Rich, I think Kerry and Clark come across as desperate in the sense that they are trying to save their own failing campaign. In other words, their frustrations are personal. On the other hand, Lieberman comes across as desperate to hold the party to the center, so his desperation is less personal ambition and more at watching his team politically self-destruct.
Check out CatholicsforDean.com to understand why Dean is such a natural choice for Christians.
Let me know what you think!
Tim