WP: Dean Stands on the "verge of a knockout"

[CMT]

Excerpts from Richard Cohen's column:

...Dean, on the other hand, embodies the anti-Bush, the one candidate who by his flaming rhetoric, his body language, his rolled-up shirtsleeves--even his occassinally surly demeanor--encapsulates the deep hatred among some Democrats for our president. Dean opposed the war from the start. I did not agree then and I do not agree now, but his message is clear and has remainded so. On the one issue that really matters to his people, Howard Dean has never had an "on the other hand."

Dean stands on the verge of a knockout--a winner not only by virtue of his own prowess but by his opponents' swinging hard at him, missing each time and hitting themselves hard on their own glass jaws. They are supposed heavyweights, but Dean, more and more is looking like Rocky.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24525-2003Nov10.html

[Skwmom]

1. How has Dean always been against the war?

He (Dean) gets a deluge of phone calls from reporters asking him to clarify his position. Which is -- "as I've said about eight times today," he says, annoyed -- that Saddam must be disarmed, but with a multilateral force under the auspices of the United Nations. If the U.N. in the end chooses not to enforce its own resolutions, then the U.S. should give Saddam 30 to 60 days to disarm, and if he doesn't, unilateral action is a regrettable, but unavoidable, choice.

http://fordean.org/aa/issues/press_view.asp?ID=398

[blm]

6. Few reporters have scrutinized Dean's position. Easier to say he's antiwar

than actually analyze his varied statements.

[Padraig18]

2. Dean *is* the anti-Bush...

... and people are coming to respect that, warts and all. Go, Howard! :thumbsup:

[mhr]

3. Dean Was Against Preemptive War, Not Against All War

Not a subtle difference!

[Padraig18]

4. Not subtle at all, but...

... when you come from a campaign mindset largely composed of daily 'nuancing' of positions, it's difficult to see the forest for the trees, some times...

[tsipple]

7. Correct

I describe it this way if you want a shorthand (one word) version. There are "doves" (Kucinich) and "hawks" (Lieberman) within the Democratic Party. Dean is what's called a national security "eagle": totally moderate. Favored Gulf War I and Afghanistan, but opposed to pre-emptive non-U.N. invasion of Iraq in Gulf War II. And he's been very precise in drawing a bright line.

For example, Dean does favor pre-emptive attack if there's an imminent threat that the U.S. will get attacked. That's exactly what the U.N. Charter allows, for example. (No wonder. The U.S. helped draft it.)

He's in favor of level defense spending: no cuts, no dramatic increases. He certainly does favor reallocation of priorities within the defense budget. For example, he's against the current missile defense program which emphasizes intercept of incoming missiles, but he favors what's called "boost phase intercept" technology and believes we should at least research that. He also is very upset with the Bush Administration and its attempts to cut combat hazard pay and benefits to families of casualties, and he would make sure the Pentagon budget doesn't shortchange these priorities. He also believes the U.S. has plenty of global commitments and an overstretched force, and he believes the world is a dangerous place with terrorist threats, so he disagrees with Kucinich and Clark, among others, that the defense budget can be cut near term. (However, he is opposed to the excess "off budget" spending of late, like the $87 billion, unless there are specific goals, objectives, and measurements that go with it, so as a practical matter he'd restore sanity to defense spending.)

"Eagle," in a word. Very mainstream on national security, in the grand tradition of bipartisan defense policy from World War II onward.

[caledesi]

12. mhr...thanks for clarifying that (shame we have to keep explaining

this "anti-war" Dean over and over again).

[redqueen]

14. He was not against preventive war.

This war was not pre-emptive. That's misusing the terminology.

Pre-emptive is when you attack a nation you expect will attack you soon. Preventive is when you attack a nation that might attack you someday.

The hijacking of language is a big problem, we should try to be specific.

Dean was not against illegal, preventive war. That's just the record.

And I'm not surprised it's not been given a thorough going-over by the media. For the most part they're a bunch of lazy, overpaid hacks.

[bushisanidiot]

5. Rocky! I Like It! The little guy that wasn't supposed to win beats Rove's

golden boy!!

sounds like a winner to me!

knock him out, Rocky!

[caledesi]

13. Some DUer proposed the "Rocky Theme" for his campaign song.

Now we see why.

[Larkspur]

8. My favorite line from this column...

The more Dean's opponents attack him, the more he is adored by his supporters and the more it enhances his anti-Washington credentials. Every time they give him the kiss of death, it amounts to mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He revives and comes out fighting.

So true.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

9. It's almost....

Wednesday. :)

[helleborient]

11. Thanks for the reminder!

I just got e-mail from the national campaign inviting volunteers to do envelope stuffing for Dean in Chicago on Sunday. My wife and I are going - we live about 2 hrs. south of Chicago, but we'll combine the volunteering with a visit to her parents.

Meeting more Dean volunteers - Woo Hoo!!

[Larkspur]

10. I disagree with the last paragraph

Dean stands on the verge of a knockout -- a winner not only by virtue of his own prowess but by his opponents' swinging hard at him, missing each time and hitting themselves hard on their own glass jaws. They are the supposed heavyweights, but Dean, more and more, is looking like Rocky.

Dean is on a verge of a knockout because of
1) his aggressive campaigning
2) his risk-taking early in his campaign when he was just an * in the polls (His Feb and March stump speech where he lambasts the Dem Estab for voting for the Iraq war and for Bush's policies was a big risk)
3) his innovative use of the Internet, but more importantly structuring his entire campaign to be web-like, that is non-pyramidal. Sure he and Trippi make the final calls on major decisions, as well they should, but letting local supporters organize their way to spread Dean's message was a risk of faith on the campaign's part and it paid off BIG TIME. And
4) Dean and Trippi are master organizers and Dean has a innate knack to bring rivals together -- SEIU and ASFCME will do a joint endorsement of Dean tomorrow.

Dean's opponents attacking Dean are coming across like Daffy Ducks, those who are jealous of the star's frontrunner position, because they have failed to assess the current situation and develop relations with the Dem base, who are pissed at the Dem leaders, like Kerry, for betraying us and sending us to a war that we warned them not too.