Howard Dean: The Goldwater of 2004?
Here's the retrospective I mentioned in the previous post on the state of play in the Prez race and the Democratic nomination on the eve of the convention.
I think the most important thing to remember is the incalculable impact of Howard Dean on this presidential race. People talk about how Goldwater lost in '64, badly, but he transformed the Republican Party as a result of his loss, leading to dominance from 1968-1992 on the Presidential level. Dean has had that kind of impact this year. Not on issues, the way Goldwater did, but on motivating Democrats (as arguably Goldwater did) and on changing the way things are done in the Democratic Party.
(I recommend this excellent article by former Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi, which is ostensibly about how well run the Edwards campaign was, but I think also tells a lot about the impact of Howard Dean.)
Let me make clear: I was never a Deaniac. I always liked Kerry and Edwards much better, and thought that Dean didn't offer enough substance. And I thought he was unelectable. But what he did was very rare in politics and very significant. Dean's impact is felt, and will be felt, in a number of ways:
1. One of the most significant things Dean did this year was to get Democrats to fight back again. After 9/11, Democrats were stuck. They didn't know how to oppose Bush without betraying our national unity. Bush, not giving a rat's ass about national unity despite supposedly being a "united not a divider" brilliantly exploited that and turned that weak support against the Democrats in the 2002 election, using the homeland security bill.
Bill Clinton, the master pol, has an interesting take on the 2002 election in this month's Rolling Stone. Clinton thinks what Bush did in 2002 hurt his changes in 2004:
What Clinton doesn't mention here is that it was Dean who was the first one to cut away the deferential veneer and start attacking Bush. The raw anger that came out of the 2002 campaign and the Cleland defeat, was effectively harnessed by Dean and used to great effect. Essentially, Dean taught Democrats how to fight again, and, as Al Franken says, that we didn't have to take it anymore. That galvanizing effort should not be understated.I'm interested that you expressed a cautious admiration for their political skill. Any other places where you looked and said, "Boy, that's good"?
Well, no. I would say, though -- you know, one of the great things in politics that you have to know is when not to play a card -- because you might win a hand and lose the match. And that's the mistake, I think, they made in 2002. President Bush would have been far better off in his reelection if he'd let the natural rhythm of 2002 unfold and let the Democrats pick up a few seats. We would have held the Senate and maybe increased our margin by one or two; the House would be very close. But it would have compelled him to take a more moderate position.
Instead, when they pulled that homeland-security deal, they thought they could get away with anything. They thought, "If people swallowed that, they'd swallow anything." And they convinced mostly white male voters, especially in the South, to turn out at presidential levels, foaming at the mouth, on the theory that we wouldn't stand up to terrorism -- which was not true. And in the end, when you win a campaign on a false premise, the people on the other side normally get mad, and you have to pay the price for it.
2. The second most important thing Dean did, which Trippi talks about in his article, is to opt out of matching funds. Dean's decision, born out of his ability to raise phenomenal sums of moolah on the Internet, transformed and modernized the Democratic party in a way that simply cannot be underestimated. Even Democrats who believed in the principle behind McCain-Feingold understood that, without raising the same vast sums of hard money from small donors that the Republicans did, Democrats would be in a serious money problem going forward and in 2004 in particular. Howard Dean's success taught Democrats how to achieve parity, or close to it, with the Republican fundraising machine, an achievement that simply cannot go unnoticed.
What Dean's fundraising success, copied by Kerry after he had sewn up the nomination, did was show that Democrats could collect vast sums of money from small donors, about as democratic a way to fundraise as there could be. But unlike Republicans, who can rely on a solid direct mail list year after year, the more mobile Democratic base could contribute via the Internet. This realization allowed Democrats to be competitive with the Bush fundraising machine.
Dean's decision to opt-out, after he had shown that he could raise money on the Internet, triggered Kerry to opt-out as well. That domino-effect was crucial -- imagine where Kerry would be today if he could only have spent $45 million during the primary campaign, instead of $145 million. It's scary to think about. I willing to bet, that after a couple of beers, Karl Rove would admit that the biggest wrench in his campaign strategy was the Democrats surprising ability to match him $ for $.
More later...
