USAF Gen. Merrill McPeak was at my Dean Meetup Last Night

[rucky]

Retired general at the Howard Dean meetup. General McPeak is a former Air Force Chief of Staff under Bush I & Clinton (1990-94). He just changed his voter registration from Repub to Democrat for the first time... He endorsed GW jr. last election. Now he's endorsing Dean.

We had a short Q&A with the General, and he gave some background on how he came to his decision to switch. He spoke softly & the room was loud. I'm paraphrasing, here, but I'm staying true to what he said:

He wasn't liking Bush's march to war w/ Iraq & it sounded like he knew we'd be in the situation we're in now: "We shouldn't be there, and we can't get out". He had been a vocal critic of the war.

He came to endorse Dean - i'm guessing he was courted by the Dean camp, because he was given about a day-and-a-half of unfettered Dean access a few months ago. He got to know Dean, and said he was very bright and a man of good character. He admitted that Dean may have shortcomings in his lack of foreign policy experience, but he admires the way Dean approaches things - pragmatically & evenhandedly. He was confident that Dean had the wherewithal to handle matters of foreign policy. he slammed bush for not being critical of the type of advice he's getting. He talked about character being important. He praised Bob Dole's character, and said similar things to say about Dean.

He didn't have the same kind words to say about Clinton. He served under Clinton & met with him several times. He compared Clinton to Dean by saying that Clinton would slap your back & call you by your name and everything was great...but the next morning it felt dirty (drew big laughs). Wasn't the same with Dean. he is gracious & sincere. And in talking about Clinton, he answered the obvious question I was going to ask: Why Dean & not Clark? He was going off about Dean being an "outsider" and mentioned - in passing - something relating to "Clintonistas like Clark". I could pretty much put two-and-two together on that one - nor did I want to turn the Dean meetup into a pissing match, so I didn't ask my question.

Here's a link to a short interview I found with Gen McPeak which basically says some of the same things he told us:

http://www.offthekuff.com/mt/archives/002639.html

Sooooo here's my take... I don't grind the same axe about Clinton that the General does. (nor have I ever voted Republican for that matter), but he represents a certain type of voter who - ex-republican or not - is sour on politicans for their character or lack thereof. Dean has the outsider appeal. He says what's on his mind - often bluntly - and damned the consequenses. Whether that's a sign of character is debateable, but it is a sign of something different.

There are voters out there who dislike Clinton & now dislike Bush. Gen McPeak connects Clark to Clinton, which ruled out Clark for him, but he know them both (better than you or I), so... I still don't think that's necessarily fair - but neither is much of the very real hatred towards Clinton. I just can't jump into that head, but I'm thinking that it represents a popular attitude among those "swing voters" who are disillusioned with politics in general. Dean is drawing plenty of attacks, but one type of attack he is not drawing are the barrage of Clinton-comparison attacks that the other side loves to throw at us. Why is Clinton their favorite target? Dunno, BUT I've said it before & I'll say it again, when you're in a debate that starts with the here & now, and ends up with you defending Clinton, you're losing the debate.

I'm still undecided between Dean, Kucinich & Clark... but after Dean meetups, I'm usually drawn to Dean. I like all three, and have the luxury of not having to decide until May or something ridiculously late like that.

[slinkerwink]

1. that's great you met him....

:hi:

[ajacobson]

2. very interesting

thanks for the report.

I really hope that the Republican base is fraying. That will float all our boats!

[rucky]

5. I agree...I don't see this guy voting for *

under any circumstances.

I should've asked him who he'd vote for if Clark got the nomination.

[CMT]

3. interesting encounter

with Gen. McPeak. Thanks for the info of what must have been quite a meetup.

[AP]

4. So, did he have anything substantive to say about not liking Clinton?

Is it all about personality for this guy?

[rucky]

6. I obsessed on his Clinton references more than he actually spent time

discussing them. He didn't get into Clinton much at all. It was a passing thing that I grabbed onto because it's so... well... freeperish. Yet here he is endorsing Dean. It was the most unusual part of it all to me.

[AP]

10. You'd think he'd go into more depth trying to explain himself since he

was probably talking to a room full of people who voted for Clinton.

[rucky]

11. maybe if he didn't get so many laughs over his one line...

:shrug:

Clinton-bashing is an equal opportunity sport?

I didn't take offense, neither did anyone, really. I mean, here's a Joint Chief of Staff in the room to talk about Dean... I suppose he could've said anything he wanted - or fart the Star Spangled Banner - i don't think it would've mattered: nobody's going to ask a 4-star General to explain himself, and i reckon he wouldn't feel the need to on his end.

[mmonk]

7. Good sign

of further erosion of the Republican base. Maybe more and more of them realize the current admin is over-reaching.

[killbotfactory]

8. How much crap will the military endure from Bush?

As if rushing into a ill-prepared, unneeded, and counterproductive war isn't enough...

I hope there's more military people out there like McPeak...

[jmaier]

12. I'm sure there are ... was one myself!

I think if these things could be easily measured that you will see strong erosion in the votes Bush sees from the military in 2004. The daily life of active duty, guard and reservists is being seriously stressed by a constant state of deployment and war. McPeak, McCaffrey, Wes Clark, Tony Zinni -- many senior folk have spoken out on this issue.

[rucky]

9. ::kick::