Someone suggested that I crosspost this, so that’s what I’m doing. Just some of my own thoughts on the flap regarding Howard Dean’s appearance on CBN. I’m putting them out there, and if they can be of use to anyone, or offer any insight, that’s great. But it’s been a long week, and I just can’t see spending my weekend immersed in the kind of ugliness that has been par for the course in many people’s comments about Howard lately.
I hope that what I have posted below the fold can be a useful addition to the dialog. Food for thought, anyway. If it leads to heated debate, there’s nothing I can do to stop that, but I’m not interested in playing. Think I’ll take a pass on “Getting Hit on the Head Lessons” as well. 😛
As Howie in Seattle has noted here, Howard Dean has admitted that he made a mistake when he said in an interview on CBN that the 2004 Democratic platform said that marriage is between a man and a woman. (Thanks to floridagal for providing a link to the video.) But, as Corinne commented, I’d like to see someone, anyone, travel as much as he does, give as many interviews and speeches as he does, and retain an extraordinary amount of information as he does and not screw up at some point. Enough.
Indeed. He misspoke. I shudder to think how many times I do that in a given day. And in this case, I can imagine that it seemed to Howard Dean that the Democrats wanted to be very clear about their non-support for same-sex marriage in the 2004 election, given this:
On Page 113 of his book “You Have the Power, Dean says:
“It remains to be seen, too, just how much my support for the civil unions bill will hurt my chances to reshape Democratic politics. Some pretty important Democrats have shown they think it might. When former president Clinton was trying to drum up support (for another candidate), just prior to (that candidate’s) entry into the presidential race a year ago, he called a friend in a large city and said “I need you to be for so and so.” The friend demurred. (sentence left out)
The friend told Clinton he was Dean supporter. “Howard Dean”, Clinton said “forfeited his right to run for president when he signed the civil unions bill. He can’t win.”
It was a rare mistake for the president. The supporter was gay and called us to tip us off.
Also, as I noted elsewhere, here in Ohio, I’ve seen the anti-gay crap work. Getting people riled up about the notion that “those Democrats don’t share our values–they want to bring gay marriage to our state” is such a tried and true tactic, it was even used to get people to vote against ballot/election reform amendments.
My husband, Demetrius, got robocalled before the election in which the Reform Ohio Now Amendments were on the ballot. He’s gotten calls and mailings from the Republican party ever since he voted for McCain in the primary of 2000. He was encouraged by whoever to vote against the amendments because they are backed by those homo-loving abortionists. From out of state. Something like that. Not those exact words, but that’s the effect they were going for. Booga-booga!
Here’s an example of the kind of ad that was run against the election reform amendments that were put to a vote in November of 2005.
Given that dynamic, I really can’t fault Howard Dean for debunking the Rovian meme that Democrats are the party of same-sex marriage–while in the same breath going on to say this:
“I think where we may take exception with some religious leaders is we believe in inclusion. That everybody deserves to live with dignity and respect and equal rights under the law are important.”
” I’m not saying we’ll agree with everything between the more conservative evangelicals and Democrats but I think there’s more common ground and we’re willing to work with the evangelical community.”
Finally, with all of this talk about Howard Dean doing something so nutty as reaching out to people who watch CBN, I was reminded of some of what he said when he spoke at an event in Columbus this past January….
But what we really need you to do is reach out and talk to those who didn’t vote with us the last time. People who disagree with us. Because the truth is, we have something in common with a lot of those folks. Evangelical Christians. People think they’re all Republicans–it’s not true. Because their values include making sure no child goes to bed hungry at night. A lot of Republicans are cutting school lunch programs. Their values include not leaving more debt to our children than we found ourselves. The Republicans are the largest borrow and spend thrift group I’ve ever seen. The largest deficit in the history of the country and going up. Evangelical Christians believe it is immoral to treat the earth that God gave us the way that this administration is. That’s something that we have in common.
More from that speech here.
One more thought–I don’t even think of Howard Dean’s appearance on that show as “pandering to a special interest”. To me, it seems more like de-mystifying “the party of Howard Dean” as a boogeyman that can be used to motivate that segment of the population to actually get out on election day and vote for the Republican even in spite of all the bad stuff the Republican leadership is doing lately.
If these folks see Howard Dean, and he doesn’t actually have devil horns, maybe they will feel less fired up about the need to get out and vote against the Democrats. ‘Cause the fewer people we have going out to vote for this guy, the better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/…
http://www.cleveland.com/…
He has made this same “mistake” more than once.
Dean Doesn’t Speak For Me Sticker
I said I wasn’t up for debating, but if somebody pimps an anti-Dean bumper sticker in my diary, I’m gonna pimp right back.
Oh yeah, and might I add, “Nyah.”
If you don’t want comments don’t post a dairy.
Dean is clumsy on the stump — and I say this as someone who is generally a fan of the man. But it’s also true that the Democratic Party is, indeed, not the party of equality. Tragic, but true. A few lone standouts are willing to stand up for equal rights (rather than some kind of “separate but equal” bullshit) and I will & do support those candidates, but one of the primary reasons why I have refused to join the party and why I will not support the party as a whole is because the party machine itself continues to reject the notion that my equality, as a queer person, is worth fighting for. And the cold hard truth is that nobody’s really equal or free until everybody’s equal and free. All minorities, at the very least, should be standing together on equal rights for each other, and it is a crying shame that that is not what’s happening.
I have argued before and I will continue to argue that it is far better for Democrats to drum up votes by moving to the left and courting progressives, and not by continually moving to the right and/or failing to stage a hard fight for equality and courting bigots. Anyone who is willing to support the Democrats in their marginalization of gays in order to win votes from the right is just setting the stage for letting Democrats ramp up the marginalization of women, people of color, and other minorities in future elections.
I agree but I am working or trying to work within the party to change things. I only support candidates who support equal rights and refuse to give any money to the natoional or state parties who do not come out for Equal Rights for All.
I certainly won’t criticize that as a strategy, refinish. It’s not the right strategy for me, but I support you doing it 100%.
and we all have to find what works for us. The fight continues and we all must do our part.
the stump. To save my fingers, I will repost my comment from another diary:
Dean is definitely a very shrewd politician
It is to this talent that he owes his current position.
Whether reassuring potential contributors with his stern stance on Iran:
or, as you mention, reassuring anti-gay extremist Christians with the magic phrase “Marriage is between a man and a woman,” he nevertheless manages somehow to simultaneously reassure his “base” devotees – to whom he also owes his current position, even if only to the extent that the Democratic party recognized that here was a very talented politician – that he is the left of center centrist who speaks for them whether they agree with him or not.
And he manages to do all this while being continuously smeared with the label of “left wing,” even by Haaretz, in the article snippeted above. Most people would have gotten a bit fed up with it by now, also notice that the article paints Dean unfairly as having been opposed to the crusade in Iraq, which he was not. He has repeatedly stressed that he is opposed to the way it was begun, and the way it is being run.
But it doesn’t seem to matter what he says. He has that rare gift of making his position on anything irrelevant. And that is what being “electable” is all about.
The question is, why did the Democrats not want him elected? Is he merely being chastised for having mobilized such a plum, affluent base outside the framework of the party structure?
I agree with you that he is a very shrewd politician, however, I still think he is clumsy on the stump. These two things are usually mutually exclusive, but not always. If Dean were a more effective speaker, the power core in the Democratic party (and the media) could not have sunk him like they did in the primaries.
I don’t have any good theories on why they sunk him — I’ve assumed that it may have been as simple as the fact that they could not really control him, so he could not be allowed to rise to power.
And just since you brought it up, I may as well say that I disagree with Dean arduously w/r/t foreign policy, but since I built furniture all day I won’t get into details tonight about specifically where and how.
think of the courtroom scenes in the movies, and in real life, too 🙂 where the wily attorney makes a provocative or controversial “punchy” statement that is immediately objected and sustained, and instructs the jury to disregard it, as is his duty, and the correct procedure. But the jury has already heard it, and even assuming the best intentions on the part of every juror, they cannot “disregard” it. They cannot simply erase it from their minds, and although technically they may not cite it in their deliberations or in their verdict, in reality, it will play a part in their thinking, their opinion.
The lawyer knew when he made the statement that it would be immediately objected, the objection sustained, and the jurors told to disregard. But he wanted to get that idea, those words, indelibly etched into the minds of the jurors.
So when you say that Dean is clumsy on the stump, the response that first comes to my mind is, “Clumsy like a fox?” 😉